I managed to tick off a South Florida Intellectual. As expected, he did not like what I had to say and soon enough succumbed to stereotype and I am now officially a Cracker. Must be the Pro-Second Amendment thing.
Actually, I’m not absolutely sure that this guy is in South Florida but if I were to take a guess, I would say Homestead/Redland or Western Palm Beach County.
Prejudice some? Do I have to be a White Guy that flies the Confederate Flag in his pick up truck with naked chick metal cut-outs in the mudflaps? The thought that I might be from Hialeah or Little Haiti or Doral never crossed your mind ? That happens when you do not take the time to find out about the person behind the blog or read the blog a bit or even care to check the About page. Then again I bet Rick spends most of his time trolling for dates between the Coconut Grove and Washington Avenue while trying to get a glimpse of the stars of Burn Notice.
Anyway, I wanna thank Rick for providing to my readers a living South Florida Intellectual for their examination and you may now return to your air-chin-hold.
Oh, and allow me to return the favor of a prejudiced visual: This should look like you.
And if you don’t like the fact that you have to share your breathing air with people that do not commune with your Hipster way of life (which incidentally are no Hipsters left , they mostly died of heroin overdose in the 50s) , there is always the recommendation by one of my readers:
Well played!
I’m always amused when the “Tolerant Left” starts telling the truth.
But of course the “Progressive” fall-back is “Racism against white people isn’t racist!”
Yeah he’d be more comfortable up here in Mass!
You’re funny and you write pretty well even though you don’t seem to know much. I’ll hang around for a while, if you don’t mind, to see if it gets tiresome, but I’m hoping it doesn’t.
Like football, guns are boring, and their fans rather narrow-minded. Sure there are exceptions. But that’s why they’re called “exceptions.”
Thanks for dropping by squathole. I am sorry to see that you also suffer from the standard prejudice against guns and gun owners but that is what you get when your source of information is Hollywood (The one in L.A.) and the NYT.
Stick around, we are always full of information for those who wish to learn.
If you’re willing to drop the attitude, you will learn alot. If you will stay the same snarky git, well, we can’t overcome shit habits.
I’m sure I don’t have the “standard” prejudice, whatever that is. Nor do I have anything against guns and gun owners. Like I said, I just find them rather uninteresting. Don’t put words in my mouth: that’s exactly the stereotyping you condemn.
You’re right about the NYTimes, which I read daily,and dead wrong about Hollywood, about which I know nothing at all. More stereotyping on your part. Try to cut through your own prejudices and concentrate on the content.
Are we getting through to one another here? Thanks for the invite to stick around. I will.
You did state that “guns are boring” which is one of the standard responses of the uninitiated & uninformed in the Gun Culture, a culture over 500 years in the making.
Like I said, stick around……
I have never heard anybody I would describe as “anti-gun” call them “boring,” and my use of the term was entirely original — as far as I know. I’ll take your word on this, and hang around for more.
Most anti-gun people I know describe guns and gun lovers (or “nuts”) as violent, childish, fetishistic, paranoid, etc. Never “boring.” Hell — none of those terms is boring, least of all fetishistic.
BTW, the sole reason I don’t have guns in the house is because my wife doesn’t trust me around them, and she has a point: I’m extremely incompetent with tools, machinery, and anything mechanical (other than lawn equipment), and I have ghastly eyesight. This is not the profile of a skilled marksman. I keep telling her I can be taught, and she’s starting to relent. This is a long battle. Will keep you posted
Miguel…my post, and my characterization of the kind of person you might be, was prompted by your bigoted and prejudiced post about “South Florida Intellectuals.” So I’m thinking that before you call out others on their prejudices, you might want to check yours. You don’t have to be “a White Guy that flies the Confederate Flag in his pick up truck with naked chick metal cut-outs in the mudflaps,” but your bigotry and the disgust you apparently have for anyone who may care to think certainly is just cause for someone to wonder.
By the way, I have nothing against guns or the people who use them responsibly. I’ve known several collectors over my lifetime [which is a little longer than the dude pictured above has been around] and while their passion for a hunk of metal has always been curious to me, it’s their passion. So be it. We all have them.
Anyway, my apologies if you aren’t what you aren’t what you sounded like in that post. Now if you’ll excuse me, Burn Notice has a shoot on Grand Avenue this morning….gotta run!
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It is not “bigoted and prejudiced” when it is the truth. And you proved it with starling reality.
As was his language so was his life.
Seneca
To be despised by Rick is a great compliment in life.
“… guns are boring, and their fans rather narrow-minded.”
No surprise that someone from Rick’s blog demonstrates classic psychological projection bias. Being a “fan of guns” (whatever that means) is such an overwhelming, defining factor for a human being, that it can serve as sufficient proxy to make general presumptions about the same person, for example, that she is “rather narrow-minded.” Right? That’s not analogous to racial bigotry, no sir! Only conservatives are prejudiced, never progressives!
Shooting sports, like most precision ballistic sports (golf, archery, billiards, darts, bowling, bocce ball, curling, etc.) are often boring for spectators…like watching paint dry. But for the participants, they are an emotional roller coaster. Something about hitting a target at distance is something almost all human beings find addictive once they learn the basics.
I obviously have not met each of the millions of gun owners out there. I run primarily in the precision rifle target shooting crowd. The wide and colorful variety of people in that discipline continues to amaze me. Sure, we tend to share a common personality trait of attention to detail (which is of course necessary to hit an apple-sized target at 600 yards), but beyond that, you’ll find every race, creed, profession and political viewpoint imaginable. With the exception of a few active military, almost none of us have any camo in our wardrobe or confederate flags flying on our stoops.
If you are serious, squathole, being “extremely incompetent with tools, machinery, and anything mechanical (other than lawn equipment), and [having] ghastly eyesight” are absolutely *not* impediments to enjoying the shooting sports or even achieving master level marksmanship. You have false preconceived notions about the aiming process and the mechanical skills required to accurately release shots. I can only speak for long range rifle, where the most important skill is the mental ability to paradoxically balance Zen-like patience and hair-trigger aggressiveness. Eyesight and hand-eye coordination are almost irrelevant.
Rick-
“By the way, I have nothing against guns or the people who use them responsibly. I’ve known several collectors over my lifetime”
Go to Rick’s blog and try leading with, “I have a few gay friends so I understand their culture , but I oppose gay marriage because …” or, “I have black friends so I understand their culture, but I oppose Obama because…” He and his moveon.org fanboys will light you up for it.
That’s right, Rick is, in my opinion, a moveon.org operative, and you’ll see he rips a lot of his material directly from there, mediamatters.org and so on. He says he’s not sponsored, I doubt it, but either way he gets his marching orders from there.
The ONLY reason Rick is expressing tolerance for guns is because moveon.org and Obama have strategically put the issue and the Brady folks on the back burner going into 2012.
Watch this:
Rick-Heller was correctly decided. Discuss.
JM:
1. I am not “from Rick’s blog.” I don’t understand what you meant by that.
2. I have in fact gone recreational shooting with competent gun owners, so my views about what is and isn’t an impediment to enjoying the sport are not per-conceived, but based on personal experience. Not my thing, is all. Neither is football. BFD.
3. Those shooting outings occurred well before the events that caused my vision to deteriorate to the point where it is impossible for me to focus effectively, so that aiming at even a stationary target for me would be like bowling blindfolded for a normal person. Throw in instant headaches, too. So while I appreciate your general statement about what is and isn’t necessary to enjoy shooting sports, you don’t know me or my specific conditions, so you’re judgment is useless, condescending, and plain full of shit.
4. Stop generalizing. It doesn’t strengthen your positions, quite the contrary. I’m not Rick and Rick’s not me and neither is anybody else. Arguing against groupthink makes as little sense as groupthink arguments. (No, Miguel, that isn’t Seneca.)
squat-
My apologies if I have you confused with someone else.
As for eyesight, my intent was not to be condescending. It simply comes from the experience of knowing many shooters who overestimated the effect poor eyesight would have on shooting, only to find out that through use of gun mounted optics or specific shooting glasses they could both enjoy and excel at the sport. And many who didn’t grow up around guns or tools or mechanical things, and somehow convinced themselves that they could never shoot well.
But that’s where my apology ends, the rest of the whining is on you.
Nicely done Miguel. Anything that both gets a rise from the left and ellicits interest from a non-shooter is hitting pretty close to the mark.
Squathole,
To refer to guns as “boring” is fair enough and displays no prejudice. After all, there are many things that other people find interesting (fishing, golf, stamp collecting, M. Night Shamyalan films festivals) which strike me as dull as dishwater.
However to continue on and describe those interested in them as “rather narrow-minded” strikes me as rather, well, narrow-minded. Would you not agree?
Given the sheer number of people who own firearms, to claim that you can tell the “exceptions” from the norm is statistically implausible. Having been involved in the firearms business for nigh on two decades now, I would offer my (slightly better informed) opinion that they are as varied in their broad-mindedness as any other demographic core sample you’d care to take.
Tam: While I am speaking from my own experience with gun owners and collectors, I recognize it as a limited sample, and would be perfectly at peace with discovering it to be invalid. So, yeah, it was narrow-minded of me as you say. Judging by your comment here, you certainly don’t fit the mold.
JM: I don’t whine. Ever. About anything. You need to grow up and focus on what’s in front of you, not on your giggling fantasies. And I trust from this point forward you won’t confuse me with anybody else ever again.
Tam is not very good at mold-fitting. Story at 11.