Ok, Lucy ‘splain this to me

[snowman1967]

I think a lot of new/fairly new gun owners acquire their gun out of necessity, fear, or wanting to be "cool" and accepted by other gun owners. A lot of the newbies are going in and at least talking to someone who is knowledgeable about guns. Most go to a LGS. Most of these people don't know all of the differences between the various handguns, other than the difference between a semi-auto and a revolver. While I am sure most LGS employees are more than happy to discuss with them the differences, they are probably going to recommend something that is easy for them to understand and operate, along with the proper holsters and carry positions (hopefully).



Most of these newbies have an impression of what a gun is supposed to look like from less than reputable sources, or from what they see in the news/online. I currently own several semi-autos and a 1911, but am looking at the CZ 75 C or 75 D PCR to incorporate into my EDC rotation. Most of these newbies don't know the differences between SA, DA, SA/DA, etc, and when you start trying to explain it, most will give that glazed look, or don't want anything that is complicated. Or worse, want something you can "set and forget", or something that goes into their sock drawer once things settle down for them.



Going into a LGS and "drooling" over the display is akin to going to a car show and "drooling" over the cars there. We've all been there. I think the best thing to do is to try to explain things to them in a way that will get their interest, and hopefully make an impression on them. Even if they just stick with what "works" for them, hopefully they will be respectful of others choices and actually put some range time and practice into what they have. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Sgt. Buzzard]

Yeah, and it's not only youngsters either. I'm working a pistol match as RSO at our local club. Pretty informal, not at all cutthroat. Now I'm 74 and this really old timer is getting jams and calling for alibi to the time. The third time I ask to see his weapon and tell him "it's dry as the Gobi desert, you need to oil it. I'll give you the time, I have oil in my kit."

By now the whole line is listening in. The geezer tells me with much disdain, "I don't believe in a oily gun" "OK, but you get no more alibis." We finished the match in a timely manner and the old guy was quite a few rounds short. That was the last time we saw him. He was old enough to know better.

 

[Yaworski]

People are stupid. They will never be otherwise.

Being a boomer, I was mocking millennials for the standard things of not knowing cursive or no being able to do arithmetic in their heads. My daughter (late 20s) pointed out that it was my generation that

• Invented the participation trophy
• Decided to eliminate shop and home ec classes
• Decided to let 1st graders use calculators for arithmetic class
• Decided that cursive wasn't important
• Decided that children should never be out of sight when playing
• Decided that monkey bars are too dangerous
• Decided that everyone needs a helmet on a bike
• Decided that children can't go to school if it is cold
• And much, much more.

The previous generation is responsible for many of the ills of the current generation.

 

[BAM-BAM]

With age, and experience, comes wisdom!

 

[haywood]

Another reason I never wanted to work in retail sales…

I worked in Gun Shops part time for 20 years. People have some wild ideas. One that was profitable for me was the husband that knows it all. He says my wife needs a lightweight snub. We tried to tell them, it’s not a first time gun and not a gun to introduce most women for learning. Well, a lot of guys listened and let the wife decide. What to try, learn, and buy. Those that didn’t listen, ended up selling back a like new gun with very few rounds through it. Of course when you know it all you are not happy with getting a used value for your brand new gun. Back then Gun Stores profit was was highest in used guns. I also got a few Lightweight J-Frams for myself. I still have a pair of the 442’s today.

 

[steelslaver]

I had never dealt with either DA autos or striker fired semis. But, one of our range officers is a very knowledgeable guy and as he lead an informal get together once a week at one of the handgun ranges, when I asked he was more than willing to show me all about them and let me handle and fire his.

I doubt I will ever own one. But, that is no reason not to have a basic working knowledge on them

If I had my way, basic gun safety would be a required subject in schools. While not everyone has a gun or wants to have a gun and some even hate them with a passion, the odds are that at some point in their life they will encounter one or more. Even if they never touch it, they should be able to recognize that anyone doing so is handling it in a safe manner.

Teaching basic gun safety will no more make anyone a gun fanatic or killer, than teaching basic sex ed will make them sex maniacs, prostitutes or rapists.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My dad was a died in the wool Colt guy! He taught me by age 8 about Colt thumb and grip safeties on his Model M in 32! My sons were all shooting 1911s by age 10 or 11 and each received one for their 21st birthday!

Not everybody's dad teaches them the facts of life or cares enough to give the very best. Have pity on those that were never instructed properly by their fathers, as in the first post! Boys need instructions about firearms and safety, manners, and respecting others. Most usually, if they got one, they got the other things too. (It has been interesting, watching my sons and daughter train the next generation! The 5 teenagers are what most parents and grandparents dream of. Even though they are on the East coast, they know gun safety! Respect, manners, and actually know how to ask intelligent questions!) Respect to my kids!

Ivan

 

[steelslaver]

Being a boomer, I was mocking millennials for the standard things of not knowing cursive or no being able to do arithmetic in their heads. My daughter (late 20s) pointed out that it was my generation that

• Invented the participation trophy
• Decided to eliminate shop and home ec classes
• Decided to let 1st graders use calculators for arithmetic class
• Decided that cursive wasn't important
• Decided that children should never be out of sight when playing
• Decided that monkey bars are too dangerous
• Decided that everyone needs a helmet on a bike
• Decided that children can't go to school if it is cold
• And much, much more.

The previous generation is responsible for many of the ills of the current generation.

I never decided any of those. In fact the majority of us didn't. BUT, we made the mistake of standing by and ignoring that it was happening. My siblings, cousins and friends were definitely a "free range" kids, who learned from pain and the "heartbreak" of not winning anything. My family is full of welders, mechanics, machinists and carpenters.

I will say that as far as I am concerned teaching and using cursive is total waste of time. At this point it is about as necessary as learning to run a slide rule. Lots of cursive, written by those who spend years learning and using it, is illegible or at least liable to cause confusion or errors. Printing is every bit as fast and far more legible. I wish every second I spend practicing cursive had been spend on proper printing or properly using a keyboard.

My step daughter will be the school valedictorian, she is a nation merit scholarship finalist. She can handle a rifle, a 1911 or a revolver. Step daughter number one didn't have a 4.0 but did great, she is going to vo tech for welding and working part time in a metal shop, drives a 5 speed stick and carries a J frame. Neither can write in cursive.

 

[Echo40]

Many opinions on firearms safety are just that, opinions.

Also, the topic of safety in general inevitably welcomes in the What-if Brigade and their endless assortment of unfortunate possibilities/consequences can occur under certain conditions, so every firearm and every method of carry will be scrutinized with some flaw called to attention along with some way it may cause unintentional harm.

Ultimately, a firearm by nature cannot be perfectly safe because its very function as a weapon is to inflict harm.

Ironically, you don't see the same sort of arguments in regards to bladed weaponry, perhaps because there aren't as many socio-political implications involved with them, so folks aren't so defensive in regards to their potential safety, capability to inflict harm, or question in regards to what their purpose is.

I think the issue all comes down to mindset, with folks being conscious of the fact that firearms are potentially deadly, yet choose to think of their firearm as utterly harmless or inert until it is deliberately called to action, which is obviously false, but the belief that their firearm couldn't possibly do harm unintentionally because it's just too safe or otherwise the margin for error so small enables them to carry it with greater confidence.

I think that if firearms owners in general were more willing to accept just how dangerous a firearm potentially is at all times regardless of built-in safeties and assumed full responsibility for safety while handling their firearms in the same manner as those who own/carry knifes do, then folks wouldn't be so concerned over the mechanical safeties (or lack thereof) on their firearms because they'd be adequately self-assured of their own personal capability to handle it safely.

 

[Yaworski]

I never decided any of those. [/In fact the majority of us didn't. BUT, we made the mistake of standing by and ignoring that it was happening.

That makes us accessories.

. . . or properly using a keyboard.

At the very least you need cursive to sign legal documents.

I had one semester of typing in 1973. Most of the class was dedicated to doing things like laying out letters. Touch typing isn't that hard.

BTW, both of my kids went all the way through high school without ever having a "keyboarding" class. In the third grade they spent a couple days going over the keyboard layout. As a consequence, when my daughter started college she failed the school's typing test and had to take remedial typing. At 65, I still type faster than she does.

 

[Brian Parrish]

Group Identity

Being a boomer, I was mocking millennials for the standard things of not knowing cursive or no being able to do arithmetic in their heads. My daughter (late 20s) pointed out that it was my generation that

• Invented the participation trophy
• Decided to eliminate shop and home ec classes
• Decided to let 1st graders use calculators for arithmetic class
• Decided that cursive wasn't important
• Decided that children should never be out of sight when playing
• Decided that monkey bars are too dangerous
• Decided that everyone needs a helmet on a bike
• Decided that children can't go to school if it is cold
• And much, much more.

The previous generation is responsible for many of the ills of the current generation.

The idea of group identity is so basic to modern society that the young people who say these things think that they are actually saying something. To continue with your example, the Boomers, my generation, were partying at Woodstock while the Boomers were honorably serving in Viet Nam. I am a Boomer but I did neither of those things.

In sociology there are certain limited applications for such generational experiences, but these are very few. There are far better ways to understand human behavior and choices. Sociology is such a soft science that there are those who do not even consider it a real science. Within sociology there are sub-categories that are more useful and clearly defined than others. If generational identity is the only part of sociology that you ever need and use, then you may happily discard the entire subject!

The concept of generations works within a family. You were generated by your parents. Your daughter was generated by you and her mother. Your daughter has been programmed by the herding function of the government school system to think that she is connected in some way to the other clod heads in her class growing up. Not. True.

Kind regards to you and your wonderful girl!
BrianD

 

[Yaworski]

Ironically, you don't see the same sort of arguments in regards to bladed weaponry, perhaps because there aren't as many socio-political implications involved with them, so folks aren't so defensive in regards to their potential safety, capability to inflict harm, or question in regards to what their purpose is.

We have plenty of stupid knife laws created out of fear, just like stupid gun laws.

I am almost never without a pocketknife and most people find that odd. I am frequently asked, "Why do you need to carry a knife?"

 

[NFrameFred]

I'm constantly amazed at people that think a Glock (as well as 99% of the other striker fired handguns) has a safety.

Or as Col. Cooper said, " . . . kinda like writing the combination on the safe door."

 

[NFrameFred]

Ultimately, a firearm by nature cannot be perfectly safe because its very function as a weapon is to inflict harm.

Or as an old Russian general was purported to have said, . . . "SAFE?!?! . . . ees GON ! . . . ees NOT safe !! "

 

[steelslaver]

NO you do not need cursive to sign a legal document. You can print it, draw a simple design or a complicated one. A signature is simply an acknowledgment. When I sign mine you can make out a cursive J some squiggles then kind of a V that could easily be a U followed by a bit more squiggle. Hard time calling it an actual Cursive Signature, yet the IRS has accepted my return and cashed my check every time

From FindLaw

Usually, a signature is someone's name written and stylized. However, that is optional. All that needs to be is some mark that represents you. It can be a series of squiggles, a picture, or even the traditional "X" for people who can't read and write. As long as it records the intent of the parties involved in a contractual agreement, it's a valid signature.

 

[Matt_X]

At least they were interested in firearms, and it appears they learned something that day! Sounds like a win to me!

Egzactly!

My reading is the point that touches a nerve was their assumption that they understood what they saw.

When he leaves the two young guys immediately go into a “did you see that”, “he was carrying a Cocked pistol”, “man, that’s scary s..t”.

If either had begun the conversation by asking the store owner "why is he doing that?" "Isn't that dangerous?" in a non-dramatic way, I think most people's reaction would be a bit different. But that type of response, one that is calm and inquistive, rather than cock-sure and dramatic, seems to be more of a rarity.


Reminds of Paul Harrell on "overly confident conjectural statemement"

 

[AJ]

You guys forget that cursive is the old peoples way of keeping the folks who can't read it in the dark. "Secret Writing"!

 

[Sgt. Buzzard]

Funny, the older I get the worse the arthritis in my hand, the more my cursive looks like I went to medical school.

 

[AJ]

Funny, the older I get the worse the arthritis in my hand, the more my cursive looks like I went to medical school.

It use to be a standing (but true) joke, that if you saw several nurses looking at a piece of paper that they were trying to figure out what the doctor wrote.

 

[Brian Parrish]

Thanks!

Egzactly!

My reading is the point that touches a nerve was their assumption that they understood what they saw.

When he leaves the two young guys immediately go into a “did you see that”, “he was carrying a Cocked pistol”, “man, that’s scary s..t”.

If either had begun the conversation by asking the store owner "why is he doing that?" "Isn't that dangerous?" in a non-dramatic way, I think most people's reaction would be a bit different. But that type of response, one that is calm and inquistive, rather than cock-sure and dramatic, seems to be more of a rarity.


Reminds of Paul Harrell on "overly confident conjectural statemement"

Thank you, and thank you to Harrel for this.

Kind regards,
BrianD