Wednesday, March 10, 2010

It Is Unecessary to Pornify a Phallic Symbol

The pornification of guns is a thing peculiar to American culture. We love our guns. LUH our guns. Which is made abundantly clear in this post at The Audacity of Logic. (Unintentional irony fail.)

In California yesterday, a seven-year-old had to take on the duties of an adult
by protecting his family from a home invasion. In Norwalk, Calif., the terrified
boy begged emergency dispatchers to send police to his Southern California home
where three armed men threatened his parents, according to a recording of the
call released Tuesday.


Here's how a home invasion works: the invaders burst through your door, guns drawn, pointed in your general direction and terror ensues. Home invasion is a blitz attack, no one gives you a chance to find your weapon. And you should have to find your weapon if you own one in the same home as a small child, because 3,184 children and teens died from gunfire in the US in 2006. More preschoolers were killed by guns than officers in the line of duty. If you're not locking up your guns, you are exposing your children to avoidable danger.

It would probably be a safe bet that this father neither owned a firearm
nor probably believed he should. He probably has house insurance, health
insurance, flood insurance, car insurance, but no way to ensure the lives of his
family from marauding scum who almost certainly would have robbed, raped and
possibly murdered his family, had it not been for his young son’s heroic
actions.

. . .

It may sound harsh, but I am of the belief that any parent who refuses to
take the necessary precautions to protect his family from such harm, borders on
criminal neglect.


No, it doesn't sound harsh, it sounds stupid. Unless the father had a gun strapped to his hip, there is no chance simply having a gun in the house would have protected his family from a home invasion. He would not have had the chance to get to his gun before the armed criminals invading his home had him tied up.

Let's suppose the father in question doesn't care that much about his children and does keep his gun within easy reach at all times. Imagine the scene that would have followed. Three armed men who we can safely say have no issues with pulling the trigger burst into his home, guns pointed at the family, maybe the wife, maybe the children, maybe him. The father grabs his gun and does what? More than likely, he'd freeze because most people just aren't prepared for killing another human being no matter what the situation. Let's suppose, for the same of Audacity's argument, that the father was a trained soldier and didn't freeze. Then what happens? He shoots, which sets off the armed criminals, and more than just criminals get shot. I suppose you could call that "protecting your family", but only in the sense that if you blow up someone's car, they can't then get hit by a train.

I get why people like Audacity say ridiculous shit like this. It's scary to consider that you could be the victim of such a crime. There is comfort in saying, "I have a gun. I won't be a victim." Unfortunately, life just isn't that simple. Owning a gun won't keep you safe, but it could endanger your children.

12 comments:

  1. “the invaders burst through your door, guns drawn, pointed in your general direction and terror ensues.”

    When I read this I thought you were talking about Iraq. Then I thought, every household over there has an AK47 in it: it follows that the Iraqis should stand up for their inherent god-given rights and blow away the American troops when they do this, and then be praised to the skies for being freedom loving, non-emasculated, heroes, defending their homes and families.

    No doubt there is a post saying something like that, somewhere on his blog...

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  2. hey, if you want to look for it . . .

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  3. Too much speculation, not enough facts. Home invasions are blitz attacks? I'd like to see studies on that. Not enough time to find a gun? And the average person would freeze when using a gun against another human being? I can cite actual cases (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) where a gun was used to protect people from home invasions. (And that's just from the past two weeks.) Next time, cite actual facts, not armchair speculations. Thanks!

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  4. Danny;

    have you read history?
    what was the number 1 problem the US military had in WWI?

    people wouldn't fire the gun. as PF said, most people freeze - maybe only for a few seconds, but in combat, those seconds COUNT.

    your cites - there are 5. out of HOW MANY cases involving guns? even "only in the past 2 weeks". there are how many millions [hundreds of millions] of people in the US. all by itself. 5 out of a hundred million is statistically non-existant.


    FURTHER, and this has been HUGE NEWS - just a few days ago, a 3 year old shot herself in the chest. accidentally. dad "heard a noise" outside, got his gun out, came back inside after investigating, left it on the coffee table - and baby went boom.
    [and police were trying to blame the *mother* who had been busy on the computer, and had no idea the gun was in a place the child could get it]

    FURTHER, there are more children killed in accidents involving guns, every year, than there people hurt by "home invasions".


    your demand for facts seems rather... over-done. the WAY the "invasion" in the case was described could be termed "blitz", and many many many media sources refer to them *as* "blitz attacks".
    if you have a gun and are storing it the way you SHOULD store a gun with untrained people in the house [especially, but not SOLELY, children] then your gun is in ONE safe, and your ammo is in a DIFFERENT safe - and both have combo locks, and would take several minutes to open. then load.
    in the mean time, the assholes who just broke in? aren't going to LET you go find your gun.
    EVEN IF it isn't being properly stored, where is it? probably in a cabinet, and chances are your access to said cabinet would be restricted by the PEOPLE STANDING IN THE WAY WITH GUNS.


    so A) PF cited actual facts. and B) it's HER fucking blog. she isn't writing it for YOU. she's writing it primarily for HER, although i'm sure most of us regulars enjoy it.
    it's not her job to educate you. it's not her job to "cite facts" that you agree with. if you don't like it, don't read it.
    but don't demand that a private person, writing a personal blog, whose main use is communicating about her REACTIONS to things with online friends, write what YOU want. if you want it, YOU write. as a private blogger, PF has exactly -ZERO- obligation to write what YOU want.
    and your demand for it is just plain rude.

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  5. I tried to find a case of home invasion where people have been shot in Germany, but I couldn't find a single one where the weapon came from outside (we had some cases here where adolescent boys shot their whole family but they usually used daddy's gun.
    Even the dozens of armed gas station or supermarket robberies I've found ended without anybody shot.

    It takes a lot of stress out of a robbery if you can be fairly certain that your victims won't shoot you, which means you don't have to shoot at everything that looks strange.

    I still think dogs are much more effective than guns.

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  6. I always enjoy denelian's triumphant returns. We need more of them.

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  7. Ah-Ha! You said:

    "More preschoolers were killed by guns than officers in the line of duty."

    So the obvious lesson to be learned from this is that preschoolers should be issued guns. Any Real American can see that.

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  8. To Audacity, the fact that the defender's actions resulted in the attackers fleeing with no harm to anyone means nothing. The family gets no credit because they “didn't 'defend themselves'”. In his world, a cell phone is not a weapon and thus cannot be used to protect anyone.

    See what they should have done is, give that 7yo a weapon and teach him how to use it, so that if anybody threatens his family he can Be A Man, and Stand Up For Himself, Protect His Wimmen, and not be a feminized, emasculated Pussy crying for help. If everyone dies in the process, well, he Died A Good Death, and is a Hero.

    People like this love to become Law Enforcement (never Peace) officers, and then you get home invasions like these two.

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  9. You might find the following interesing:
    It's statistically more deadly for your kids to have a pool in the yard than owning a gun. Also, low restrictions on gun ownership results in fewer firearm homicides. See Switzerland for example.

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  10. "It's statistically more deadly for your kids to have a pool in the yard than owning a gun."

    And that has what, exactly, to do with a risk/benefit assessment of the usefulness of firearms in stopping home invasions?

    "Also, low restrictions on gun ownership results in fewer firearm homicides."

    Do you have a cite handy for that? 'Cause I'm not sure the single example that you mention supports such a general conclusion; I'm pretty sure that Somalia, for example, also has low restrictions on gun ownership.

    Don't get me wrong; I'm a gun owner. I live in a concealed-carry state. I'm also an amateur martial artist, and for that matter a passable swordsman.

    And if someone kicks in my front door and starts waving guns at my family, I will try to call 9-1-1 - because I am not an idiot. Every gun I own is locked in its case, and those cases are locked in cabinet in the garage (because I can't afford a gun safe). Swords and other martial arts crap are locked away in their own cabinet.

    Yes, that makes them completely useless for home defense. It also keeps them from being a danger to my three year old - who can get into anything - and my pregnant wife, who knows what she's doing but could easily be endangered by our son. On the whole, I firmly believe that this arrangement is far safer for my family than keeping the guns in any place where they might be usable to stop a home invasion.

    When the zombie apocalypse finally arrives, I will consider revising the arrangement. Until then...

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  11. *blush*
    thanks, PF :)
    and it's not that i'm not here - it's that i don't generally feel a pressing need to spank someone. you normally do all the work [and have all the fun!] in your post :)

    also, been not well. so not wasting a lot of energy. but the snow is GONEGONEGONEGONE and spring gives that little boost :D

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Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

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