pigmode

Its funny. I hadn't touched one for about 33 years, but when my younger brother (LEO) showed me his last Oct., it felt strange holding it for about the first 10 seconds, but then I had it field stripped in the next 15. Bro was impressed.

genericbikedude

if I ever have to use a gun, I've already failed.

ken cummings

I have an old leather gun-shaped bag/case with a strap like a messengers' bag. Dad used it to carry a rifle or shotgun in heavy wet brush. I could use it but every cell phone user I pass would call 911. If life gets all dull and boring someday I'll ride down a freeway with it.

N_C

Aside from exercising your constitutional rights why do you carry a weapon? Unless you're a law enforcement officer who either has to carry on at all times or is allowed to carry one even while off duty, again why?

Do you ride in an area where that type of protection is that important? If you do & if it came down to it could you really take another human life? I mean could you? A lot of us say yeah we could, but are we sure about it?

If you do ride in an area where you need a gun then maybe you should not be riding in that area. Here's a clue, find a new route.

genericbikedude

^^^hint: people carry guns for the same reason some other people drive fast cars

KrisPistofferson

^^^It's funny: Anti-gun people invariably trot out their silly warmed-over Freudianism, yet in an actual conversation about Freud, they'll call him an overrated sexist hack. Ironic. Owning a gun because you have a small pecker is an old, overused, unfunny ad hominem that is irrelevant to this conversation. If you really feel Americans are better off without their rights, perhaps you should post on the "Living Constitution-Free" forum.

Oh, and, this thread is the gift that keeps on giving.

sunofsand

Who else thinks it extremely frightening for a guy who carries a Glock 19 while bicycle riding to also be using "LOL"

sunofsand

Lucking fosers.

rousseau

Can't link to the pertinent stats offhand, but that's not true any longer. You are many times more likely to be the victim of violent crime (including theft or robbery) in London than in New York, for example. Anecdotally, I've heard the same thing from friends and acquaintances. This is partly due to the binge-drinking phenomenon which has taken off in the UK since the turn of the millenium, where high streets have turned into no-go-zones full of alcohol-soaked 20-year-old thugs bashing the heads in of all and sundry, but it has been accompanied by an increasing sense of lawlessness, as well. Little old ladies getting mugged, for example. Often.

Here in Canada we like to think that we're less violent than Americans, but that's apparently not true. The statistics show our two countries to be mostly the same when it comes to the incidence of violent crime, save for in the classic category of murder by gun. No surprise, there. Though here's another difference: Americans seem to be paranoid, even neurotic, about "self-protection." I live in a town of 30,000 in southern Ontario. Statistically, I would be just as at risk of being attacked riding on the country roads around town as would someone in a town of 30,000 in Indiana or Arizona. Yes? Curiously, though, I would never, ever consider owning a firearm ever, and the notion of taking a handgun with you while you ride your bike seems patently insane to me.

There's a saying that "an armed society is a polite society," which, of course, is specious nonsense. Rather, an armed society is a paranoid society. If Americans don't believe me, I would invite them to come up to Canada where we have just as many barfights and burglaries and muggings and random attacks as in the U.S., but without the siege mentality or the omnipresent sense of fear that various people outside your front door are out to get you.

Having said that, I still find the U.S. freedom to own firearms to be intellectually defensible, as much as I loathe the notion culturally and socially. The freedom to own some sort of means of violence to be used in self-defense is the kind of thing that goes over well in a do-it-yourself kind of society, and from a macro-political point of view there’s really no argument against it that holds any water if you are a true democrat. Having said that, American gun-lovers tend to hold up this freedom as a bulwark upon which their civil and free society is built, which is crap (e.g. the lack of guns in Romania did not stop the people back in 1989). But this is getting a bit too philosophical, so I’ll end this there.

ZachS

Well-reasoned and insightful. But I would like to point out that the Romanians' (and others') lack of guns may have been one factor stopping the people from helping themselves before everything else fell into place in 1989.....

desmo13

I have no judgements about people who have a hard time seeing, or even mention the word "gun", just questions. Why are they so scary?
See, I speak from a point of ignorance about anti-firearms. I was born and raised in a rural area. I grew up hunting. For a large portion of my childhood, if we didnt hunt it, raise it or grow it, we didnt eat. In my adult years, I have had concealed permits in 3 different states. Don't think I actually ever carried it except in my truck while traveling the interstates 14 hours from college to home.
I then went to full-time carrying, U.S.M.C. Infantry. Now, I am a history teacher, in the 'hood. I have guns, multiple. But they are not some show off thing, not something to post pictures of, and brag about. They are just things. Things that have certain uses. Just like all other things. There are guns from time to time at my school and the adjacent High School. And people (kids) have died. Same with knives, pipes and fists.

But on the topic of the thread, If I did have to bicycle commute to work, I joke I would carry. But I don't. Maybe I do not because I dont want to wake up each morning and question if I should.

But I could never imagine, not having firearms in my home. I have a family to protect. I try to understand the anti-gun people. I really do. But I do not see any rational for taking my ability away to protect my wife and daughter in my own home. My guns will never harm a soul whoe doesnt cross the threshold of my door and windows. I know some would offer alternative forms of protection. All those other forms are a compromise. A compromise in efficiency and effectiveness. You may be willing to compromise the safety of my family. I am not willing.

lyeinyoureye

Guns are for killing people (Or shooting clay pidgeons/targets/bottles, but those usually don't go floating by when I'm out riding), and I hope I never piss someone I don't know off enough to neccesitate killing them in order to insure my own physical safety. Otoh, given how much I irritate my friends, I should probably carry a small thermonuclear device around at all times, just in case...
Ya know?

slide

Oh, I'm not sure of that, but so what if it's true? Do you wish to die because you made a miscalc? I sure don't.

Cyclist0383

Here's what I don't understand; where does the paranoid and fear of being attacked come from?

slide

Here's what I don't understand. Why do you ascribe an abnormal psych condition (paranoia) to the reasonable concern people have about being attacked?

Cyclist0383

What reasonable concern? Concerned enough to carry deadly force? It seems to me if you are that worried about being attacked you shouldn't leave the basement. Reasonable concern about being attacked, please...

BTW, do you get attacked often?

pigmode

These kind of posts are thread crapping. If you go back to the OP, he asked a simple question without direct reference to political implications. There's the Bazooka counter-thread for those who hold to other points of view. Please allow like-minded members the space to have a discussion without distracting interference.



In fact even I'm bordering on thread crapping, because I don't carry.

Albany-12303

I bike a lot at night and I would like to carry a gun to shoot the ***ing deer and rabbits that get in my way!

sentinel4675

Folks, it is not paranoia. Unfortunately, some people live life with rose colored glasses. I am a police officer and know how people can treat people. Some people still live life like this is the Leave it to Beaver days.

Cyclist0383

Um the OP was over 700 posts ago.....the direction of threads do change.

And where were 'direct reference to political implications?'

Johnny_Monkey

Have you ever actually been to London?

I think you should link some pertinent stats before you start writing such utter tosh.

Johnny_Monkey

Presumably the OP was trolling anyway.

Johnny_Monkey

In what city are you a police officer?

sentinel4675

South Bend, IN.

Cyclist0383

Are you a campus police officer at the University of Notre Dame or a city officer?