Knimrod
11-17-2005, 10:46 PM
“Responsible Gun Owners,” Criminals, Or Both?
November 16, 2005
A sobering story in the Guardian Unlimited illustrates very clearly how nonexistent the line is between “responsible gun owners” and criminals (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1642080,00.html). On the gun forums of Something Awful (http://www.somethingawful.com/) (a rowdy website known for its out-of-line humor and profanity– don’t click that link if you’re at work), an anonymous poster who later identified himself as William Freund, 19 years old, asked firearms afficionados where he could get ahold of buckshot for his shotgun, to protect himself against a gang he thought was threatening his life.
“Every shop I go to that has it claims it’s a waste of money and birdshot is better for personal defence,” he said. Shopowners, he said, tried to offer him birdshot and treated him “like I’m buying some armour-piercing bullets or something”. So where could he get buckshot in Orange County?
The users leapt in. “A wooden door could stop birdshot,” said Radioactivelego. “Just get some buckshot at Turners in Fountain Valley.” Millions Knives agreed. “Birdshot makes a nasty but shallow wound … Use birdshot for little birds. Use 00 buckshot for bad guys.” Only The Walrus seemed to think there was a problem. “Wait wait, people are shooting pumpkins with BB guns, and you’re going to respond with ‘a bunch of 9mm rounds heading your way!’? … You’re going to get the chair.”
Then, on October 29, a 19-year-old named William Freund shot and killed a man and his daughter in Aliso Viejo in Orange County, then killed himself.
What’s even more interesting is that the gun guys on the message boards soon realized what they had done.
It took until November 2 for the users of Something Awful to realise that something awful had happened. “Deep breaths, guys,” posted Target Practice. “Did we make fun of an autistic kid, tell him where he can find buckshot, then laughed about it? Oh *******.” King Hotpants replied: “Yeah, we did. And then he killed people. And himself. I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight.” “I told this guy where to get *******ing buckshot,” wrote Radioactivelego.
…But, faced with the prospect of accusations of culpability, the mood at The Firing Range turned defensive. “The thing is, we did nothing wrong. We didn’t tell him to shoot people,” said Inspector_71. “At worst we merely made it clear that buckshot is more lethal than birdshot, which isn’t exactly super-hard-to-find knowledge.”
And it’s also interesting that they justify themselves just as quickly. All they did was tell him where he could legally buy a legal product that just happened to also be lethal, right?
But that’s the problem with these weapons being completely legal– there is no line between “legal” action and “criminal” action– Freund could very well have been buying the buckshot for self defense, and it would have been completely within the law. The NRA tries to say repeatedly that there are “good gun owners” and “bad gun owners,” that some people who own weapons will never do wrong, and other people who own weapons always will.
But the truth is that there aren’t “good” and “bad” gun owners– there’s just gun owners. And they don’t “defend” or “attack”– they shoot. They kill. That’s why guns are such a problem in this country, because people are taught by the NRA to believe that some guns can do “good” work, that they can defend families and households. But they don’t. They destroy families. They crush households, and then end lives over and over again, every day of every week.
Link to article (http://www.gunguys.com/?p=343)
November 16, 2005
A sobering story in the Guardian Unlimited illustrates very clearly how nonexistent the line is between “responsible gun owners” and criminals (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1642080,00.html). On the gun forums of Something Awful (http://www.somethingawful.com/) (a rowdy website known for its out-of-line humor and profanity– don’t click that link if you’re at work), an anonymous poster who later identified himself as William Freund, 19 years old, asked firearms afficionados where he could get ahold of buckshot for his shotgun, to protect himself against a gang he thought was threatening his life.
“Every shop I go to that has it claims it’s a waste of money and birdshot is better for personal defence,” he said. Shopowners, he said, tried to offer him birdshot and treated him “like I’m buying some armour-piercing bullets or something”. So where could he get buckshot in Orange County?
The users leapt in. “A wooden door could stop birdshot,” said Radioactivelego. “Just get some buckshot at Turners in Fountain Valley.” Millions Knives agreed. “Birdshot makes a nasty but shallow wound … Use birdshot for little birds. Use 00 buckshot for bad guys.” Only The Walrus seemed to think there was a problem. “Wait wait, people are shooting pumpkins with BB guns, and you’re going to respond with ‘a bunch of 9mm rounds heading your way!’? … You’re going to get the chair.”
Then, on October 29, a 19-year-old named William Freund shot and killed a man and his daughter in Aliso Viejo in Orange County, then killed himself.
What’s even more interesting is that the gun guys on the message boards soon realized what they had done.
It took until November 2 for the users of Something Awful to realise that something awful had happened. “Deep breaths, guys,” posted Target Practice. “Did we make fun of an autistic kid, tell him where he can find buckshot, then laughed about it? Oh *******.” King Hotpants replied: “Yeah, we did. And then he killed people. And himself. I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight.” “I told this guy where to get *******ing buckshot,” wrote Radioactivelego.
…But, faced with the prospect of accusations of culpability, the mood at The Firing Range turned defensive. “The thing is, we did nothing wrong. We didn’t tell him to shoot people,” said Inspector_71. “At worst we merely made it clear that buckshot is more lethal than birdshot, which isn’t exactly super-hard-to-find knowledge.”
And it’s also interesting that they justify themselves just as quickly. All they did was tell him where he could legally buy a legal product that just happened to also be lethal, right?
But that’s the problem with these weapons being completely legal– there is no line between “legal” action and “criminal” action– Freund could very well have been buying the buckshot for self defense, and it would have been completely within the law. The NRA tries to say repeatedly that there are “good gun owners” and “bad gun owners,” that some people who own weapons will never do wrong, and other people who own weapons always will.
But the truth is that there aren’t “good” and “bad” gun owners– there’s just gun owners. And they don’t “defend” or “attack”– they shoot. They kill. That’s why guns are such a problem in this country, because people are taught by the NRA to believe that some guns can do “good” work, that they can defend families and households. But they don’t. They destroy families. They crush households, and then end lives over and over again, every day of every week.
Link to article (http://www.gunguys.com/?p=343)