[Leica] Armed America on the Road

[bd at bdcolenphoto.com (B. D. Colen)]

So once again, we read a thousand words of MJS's opinions on a subject, only
to be told the rest of us should confine our opinions on the same subject to
the Forum?
It would be funny, were it not so sad....


On 6/24/06 7:56 PM, "Marc James Small" <msmall@aya.yale.edu> wrote:

> At 04:39 PM 6/24/06 -0400, Jim Shulman wrote:
>> I understand that's the whole point of this project--that gun ownership 
>> is a
>> lot more "normal" than most of us non-owners would imagine.  While the 
>> usual
>> media image of a gun owner is some wild-eyed fanatic living in a garret,
>> Kyle is showing otherwise--that it's as ubiquitous as owning a Toro riding
>> mower or Veg-o-matic.
>> 
>> That's not to say more desirable than owning the mower or Popeil 
>> items--he's
>> not making judgments about that--but it is rather remarkable in that he's
>> putting faces on what had been anonymity.
> 
> A number of us on the LUG are gun owners.  I don't hunt but I do target
> shoot on occasion.  (My rifle is a 1909 Argentine Mauser rechambered to .30
> - '06 I picked up years back from my Secretary's father as part of a fee.
> I had a 3X-9X by 30mm scope mounted on it -- the scope was made by the
> Arsenal folks in the Ukraine, the guys who gave us those Contax RF clones,
> the Kiev cameras, for so many years -- it even has the oblate triune sphere
> logo on it.)  I don't own it for intimdiation, I don't own it for machismo,
> I don't own it for self-defense (though my wife came equipped with a.22
> Ruger target pistol along with a whole aresenal, so our differences tend to
> be VERY peacefully resolved <he grins> -- but, then, she is a Michigan
> farmer by origin and grew up around guns much more so than I did.)  I do
> take my rifle out every couple of years with a couple of boxes of 280-grain
> ammunition (have to use the high-power rounds as there is the barrel is a
> tad larger than the regulation .30 - '06 one, tehcnically it's a 7.62mm
> round in an 8mm barrel, though the actual measurements are a bit 
> different..
> 
> There were no firearms in my house when I was growing up but my father was
> retired from the Army and had commanded an anti-aircraft battery in Alaska
> in combat during the Second World War.  I learned to shoot when I was 12
> and taught marksmanship when I was a Boy Scout camp staff member and later
> as a Scoutmaster (along with teaching campcraft, pioneering, map work and
> orienteering, first aid, lifesaving and so forth).  I consistently shot
> Marksman in the Army, generally on the M1 or M14 or M16 but on occasion on
> the M1911A1 .45 automatic or on a substitute such as a .22 target pistol.
> The Army allowed me to fire a LOT of weapons from small-bore rifles and
> pistols up through 81mm and 4.2" mortars to 90mm and 105mm tank guns and
> even 105mm and 155mm and, on a few occasions, 8" howitzers.  I never had a
> desire to own a gun despite an intense interest in military history:
> during most of my time, I was much more concerned with the maintenance
> cycles and MTBF for, say, the M1 tank or the CUCV than I was on popping off
> rounds downrange.
> 
> I own a gun just because I own a gun.  Very few of my friends know that I
> own a gun and that my wife has an arsenal that would choke the average pawn
> shop.  We do not belong to the NRA or the like, we do not have
> bumper-stickers on our cars (well, at election time, I generally sport
> something along the lines of OCTAVIA JOHNSON FOR SHERIFF or the like), we
> do not go to demonstrations.  I know a bunch of other gun owners who are
> much of a sort with my pattern, and I suspect that most US gun owners just
> own guns and so be it.  It is not the central part of our lives, it is just
> something we do and, yes, my wife came equipped with a riding mower which
> seems a bit of an overkill on my small yard and I tend to do my cooking on
> cast iron.  The only Cuisinart I use is our coffee maker, though I prefer
> to grind the beans in a Krups grinder proving that even a mild techno-geek
> can go low-tech on occasion.  (I do have my late mother's Cuisinart
> processer but my wife simply refuses to use it, preferring the old ways of
> doing it by hand.  We are having strip steaks and blanched asparagus and a
> bottle of Chilean red wine in a few minutes:  we do eat simply but well!)
> 
> USian citizens have rights derived from the common sovereignity and
> expressed in our Constitution.  The Bible does not provide any "rights" to
> Chirstians as Paul makes clear that anyone saved -- and he does not
> restrict this to "Christians", interestingly -- is saved but through the
> infinite Grace of God.  We Christians do have a lot of obligations, most of
> which we miss -- how many of us have ever gone down to Skid Row on
> Thanksgiving Morning and brought it a couple of hungover street folks for a
> meal in the haven of our home? -- but at the same time we have no
> guarantees with Christ other than that if we throw ourselves wholeheartedly
> into his service, we shall earn His happiness.  But, again, there are only
> the haziest of guarantees in the Bible and I get fidgety when folks start
> talking about a "God-given right" to bear firearms.  The right came from
> the forefathers when they developed our common polity by drafting the
> Constitution, and is only as strong as we make it.  (I can discuss Second
> Amendment rights all day long but, as I note below, that is not a proper
> topic for discussion on the LUG., so contact me off-List, as I am not a
> member of the Forum.)
> 
> We can argue the radical fringes all we want but that probably belongs on
> the Forum and not on the LUG itself as we would soon be discussing ALL of
> the radical fringe elements and then we'd be into the sort of general
> donnybrook which makes my Riley blood elated but which causes my Hielan'
> ancestors to roll over in their graves at the wasting of a good fight on
> something which cannot be resolved.  So, the Forum is probably the place
> for the discussion of the social aspects of firearm ownership, while a
> discussion of these fine pictures is, of course, at the heart of the LUG.
> 
> Sorry to have rattled on so long, but I am responding in fine to a bunch of
> comments from other members and just wanted you guys to realize that there
> are gun owners on the LUG -- for that matter, our Senior Member, was taught
> BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) by William Tell shortly before he did that
> magnificent book of combat photographs taken during the Wars of the Roses,
> though I don't know that Ted has ever owned a firearm.
> 
> Marc
> 
> msmall@aya.yale.edu
> Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
> 
> 
> 
> 
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