There are stupid people. They walk among us. The world, unfortunately, is chock-full of idiots. Those rare occasions when you can go the full twenty-four hours of the day without encountering one are truly treasures. But they are out there. And when not in public making your life miserable in any number of ways, they inhabit that wretched hive of scum and villainy called the internet. Today I’m going to highlight some of their questions concerning guns. So let’s get to it.
Before we start, an update on the dog. My German Shepherd puppy Kilo is now five months old. He’s showing a good bit of mental acuity, as he has figured out how to open cabinets and the garbage can without any training. He’s lost just about all of his puppy teeth, and is learning, slowly, to judge how much pressure to close his jaws with on us. On the plus side he hasn’t made me bleed in two weeks now. Minus he still doesn’t get the whole “no teeth on skin thing.” But he is trainable, and I expect to be able to incorporate him into a level of security for the casa.
Now onto this episode’s subject. The internet is like a pachinko machine…you never know where you're going to end up. You get there and start to research ballistics, ping around and follow different links, and the next thing you know you know more than you ever wanted to about farm tractors. If you’ve never heard of the website Quora, it’s a question-and-answer site. People post questions, and “experts” answer them. While most people asking questions are legitimate, it’s also a magnet for internet trolls and plain and simple morons. I visited the Guns & Firearms section today, and, seriously, found a lot of justifiable reasons for forced sterilizations. And, Guns & Firearms? It could have easily been one or the other. Is Quora deliberately baiting the field to encourage the low-info types to come in and ask questions?
I’ll go over some of the questions asked, and will not shy away from including the listed names of those who asked them, for the ones who had the balls to post them. If in fact they’re real. I’ll also provide the gut-level answer I’d have given them had they asked me in person, and then the actual answer to their question. Will I be kind? Come on, you're talking to a guy that runs solely on caffeine, sarcasm, and inappropriate thoughts.
Be forewarned, these vegetables with the ability to ask questions are currently allowed to reproduce, vote, and drive cars. It should frighten you that people such as this are allowed to walk the earth unsupervised.
Our first question: “For assault weapon owners, do you just want to show your toughness or any practical reasons, for example, you live in a war zone?”
Answer: For simpletons like you who get their information from CNN analysts that apparently draw their inspiration from the magic of Jagermeister and truck stop speed, absolutely. We want to be seen for the alpha males that we are, so that brainwashed chuckleheads like you give us as wide a berth as possible when you see us in public. Also, I may decide to visit New York or Chicago at some point. You know, the war zones that liberal policies created out of once-normal cities?
Now, I realize that this may be difficult for your mind to grasp, but guns aren’t inherently evil. Neither are hammers, baseball bats, steel pipes, etc. You could lay one of each on a table, and none of them would cause any harm to anyone. A carpenter could come in, pick up the hammer, and use it to create a beautiful piece of furniture. Conversely, he could come in, pick up the hammer, and bash in the skull of the plumber who just came in to get the pipe. See, it’s the person and how they use something that determines what the tool does.
Any weapon used to inflict harm on another is an assault weapon. And, by the way, the term “assault weapon” was coined by the liberal mainstream media. You know, that paragon of fact and virtue. And they only did this after the term “assault rifle” that they claimed AR stood for was debunked time after time. Because if you can’t play by the rules, change the meaning of the words. Your simple-minded demographic will swallow whatever they’re told.
John Britt asks “Why do gun nuts insist the AR-15 is semi automatic when it is quite clearly fully auto and has a high caliber clip?”
Well John, since it’s obvious that the Google is light years ahead of your technical abilities, and you’re probably banned from your local library for committing a lascivious act with a squirrel in the stacks, you’ve come to the right place.
There was literally so much wrong with it that reading your question brought me as close to having a stroke as I care to come. But you asked in good faith, so I’m required to answer it as foretold by the prophecy. We gun nuts insist the AR platform is semi-automatic because even though it really is full auto it doesn’t fire those high caliber clips fast enough to suit us, and we want the lizard people who are really in charge of the government to fix them and make them fire faster.
In simple terms, semi-automatic means that one round is fired with each pull of the trigger. Fully automatic means that the gun continues to fire as long as the trigger is pulled. And the term you’re looking for is “high-capacity magazine”, not high-caliber clip. So please, when parroting the phrases given to you by your leftist masters, use the proper terminology otherwise the low-info demographic won’t be properly terrorized.
A.L. Stoots asks “Why do people say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to own guns when it was written before guns were invented?”
I gotta admit, I like the answer supplied by another user. “You did it! You actually asked the most ignorant question I've ever heard on the internet. I'm not sure if you've ever been on the internet, but there are a lot of dumbass questions and yours wins the award for ignorance. In all seriousness how do you think we fought a war against England for Independence without guns? Do you think we were fighting with sticks and rocks?”
But if I were to answer, I’d say that the forefathers were prescient. It’s a well known fact that Thomas Jefferson, having mastered the art of astral projection with the help of Alexander Graham Bell’s newfangled electricity advised the signers of the Constitution on such matters. On one especially high amperage trip he foretold of a giant gold nugget replacing the state of Ohio. We’re still waiting for that one.
A.L., you’re obviously the product of a woke pair of parents who sent you to one of the finest indoctrination centers. Your knowledge of history doubtlessly only goes far enough to identify Southern Civil War generals so you can lobby to have their statues removed. A history class from an actual accredited college would have taught you that firearms came about around 1000 AD in China
While we let that history lesson sink in, let me tell you where to go to get your photo and video needs met.
Carl Armstrong Jr. asks “Why do police, military, special forces, and NATO peacekeeping forces use the 9mm Luger round when they could be using the more powerful .380 ACP round?”
Carl, Carl, Carl. They can’t use the .380 round as it’s outlawed by the Geneva Convention. Their explosive performance and penchant to light the dismembered remains on fire guaranteed that no civilized nation would ever use them. Carl, research and reading comprehension is key. Instead of quoting what the gun counter guy who was trying to sell you that Hi-Point 380 told you, just do a search for ballistic charts, and read them.
Carl, the reason those mentioned carry 9mms as opposed to 380s is because the 9mm has been proven to be more effective than the 380 in real world usage. A quick internet search will point you toward case studies, ballistic gel tests, and ballistic data that will show you the difference.
J.D. White asks “Do the gun fetishists seriously believe that hearing a prowler at home can be responded to by opening a locked safe, loading an empty pistol or rifle in the dark, etc.? Do they seriously think hunting with an AR-15 is sport?”
J.D., not speaking for all “gun fetishists”, but hearing a prowler in the dark will get me to respond all right. And it’s just adorable that you’re so ill-informed you think we lock our guns up. You’re so cute.
Hunting with any firearm is sport. See, there’s a little more involved to hunting than just shooting an animal.
Jim Dressel asks “Why are gun supporters so mentally ill and ignorant they ignore all evidence suggesting guns are dangerous? Why is the 2nd Amendment supportive of domestic terrorism?”
This one was already a dumpster fire before it began. Not even going to try and answer this obvious troll. I’m guessing the woman he was lusting after ended up with a shooter of some kind, probably a Soldier and his new girlfriend is a coconut taped to a mop.
If you haven’t noticed the trend, the anti-gunners and trolls all use the same elements of speech (“gun nuts”, “so mentally ill and ignorant”, “they ignore all evidence”) in their questions. Let me dig way back into my psychology degree and, ah, here it is. Projection. Projection is the process of displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal, or object. The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another. For example, if someone continuously bullies and ridicules a peer about his insecurities, the bully might be projecting his own struggle with self-esteem onto the other person.
Like anything else on the internet, any forum eventually devolves into abusive interactions replete with name-calling on par with the third grade. The incidence of anti-gunners coming to a gun-related forum and being, well, dicks is far greater than shooters going to the tofu recipe forums and returning the favor.
The shame of this is that on a site like Quora, the truly innocent who are asking questions really are looking for answers. They probably don’t feel comfortable going to a true gun forum. And probably rightfully so, as a constant is that someone new to guns will join a forum and ask a question a new gun owner would ask only to get hammered by the “experts” on the forum. Leading your answer off with something like “that’s such a noob question” and following it up with an over technical answer will guarantee they never ask again. Of course it was a noob question. They’re new. And, recognizing that they’re new, did you really need to find it necessary to use a bunch of trade jargon and acronyms that you know they’re not going to understand? Could you have not phrased your answer simply, and asked if they had follow on questions?
I always go out of my way to answer the new shooter’s questions civilly and in a manner they can understand. As should any of us on any forum. Consider yourself an ambassador of the craft.
The trolls on the other hand? Feel free to put them in their place as harshly as possible. However, don’t say anything that could be remotely construed as a physical threat. Granted, a lot of these anti-gun pansies take everything as a threat, so be especially careful when responding to them.
That’s all for this episode. Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. If you have suggestions on this topic or one you’d like to hear about, please by all means let me know. Put it in the comments section if the app you use has that feature, send me an email or text, use a carrier pigeon or smoke signal, whatever it takes. I’m actually very responsive to comments, and extremely appreciative of anything that would help me make this podcast better and offer more value to the shooting community.
We still have openings for our Saturday, October 21st South Carolina Concealed Carry class. Register for it in Shootingclasses.com. Link is in the show notes.
As always, if you enjoyed this podcast consider letting one of your like-minded friends know about it. We’re listed in all the major podcast directories, or you can listen in at our website. Until next time, shoot safe.
