Don't matter. Much.
-
If you enjoy the forum please consider supporting it by signing up for a NES Membership The benefits pay for the membership many times over.
See? Gun owners are paranoid white guys.
- Thread starter rogersmithiii
- Start date
Don't matter. Much.
No joke. My oldest friend is a cop, and several years ago I asked him why cops keep killing unarmed people. He told me his department had been training to view EVERY altercation as a life-and-death struggle, based on the shitty logic that "the perp might steal my gun." Ergo, everyone who struggles is a potential threat to the officer's life, and needs shootin'.
I'm not sure how long that model of training had been going on, nor how widespread it is/was, but I wasn't expecting to hear it.
rogersmithiii
NES Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,911
- Likes
- 4,184
I think it’s a Jewish guy. Never understood how any Jew could remotely consider one whiff of gun control after seeing what Hitler did to 7 million of them during WW2.
rogersmithiii
NES Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,911
- Likes
- 4,184
I remember the folks in Koreatown during Rodney King. No bats there.
rogersmithiii
NES Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,911
- Likes
- 4,184
If I come home and see a stranger in my house, I drive away and let the cops handle it. I don’t need to do the job that I already pay taxes for someone else to handle.
alan226
NES Member
This may be a contrary opinion, but I didn't read this as a "hit piece".
It is obviously a left-leaning article bur pointing out situational awareness, safety etc.
Cosidering the source, I think this is more balanced than other stuff I have read,
Instructors repeatedly told me that a big part of their job was to make people feel vulnerable, to make them aware of dangers they were not conscious of before to understand that bad things can happen at any time
I heard on numerous occasions; it’s the consequences.
Officially, the message is caution. A line I heard from multiple instructors was: If you are not about to die in the next three seconds, don’t pull the trigger. If you are not 100 percent sure, then don’t shoot. But relentlessly harping on the dangers that surround us changes the way students assess those risks.
I don't see anything outrageous in these statement.
Maybe it's just me....
It is obviously a left-leaning article bur pointing out situational awareness, safety etc.
Cosidering the source, I think this is more balanced than other stuff I have read,
Instructors repeatedly told me that a big part of their job was to make people feel vulnerable, to make them aware of dangers they were not conscious of before to understand that bad things can happen at any time
I heard on numerous occasions; it’s the consequences.
Officially, the message is caution. A line I heard from multiple instructors was: If you are not about to die in the next three seconds, don’t pull the trigger. If you are not 100 percent sure, then don’t shoot. But relentlessly harping on the dangers that surround us changes the way students assess those risks.
I don't see anything outrageous in these statement.
Maybe it's just me....
rogersmithiii
NES Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,911
- Likes
- 4,184
hpm
NES Member
Bold statement in these uncertain times
While I can't say I completely disagree with OP's article, if you go to a class on saving lives and stopping the bleed and only classes on stopping the bleed it will skew your idea of first aid.
I think we hyper focus on what to do with those dangerous metal objects and probably not enough on how to de-escalate and walk away, which most of us agree is the most important step of defensive gun use. The fight you didn't get into is far better than the alternative. With that said though, there's few danger avoidance classes out there, they wouldn't have been covered by the scope of OPs classes, and most of us (correctly or incorrectly) would assume we have the whole back off thing covered.
I think we hyper focus on what to do with those dangerous metal objects and probably not enough on how to de-escalate and walk away, which most of us agree is the most important step of defensive gun use. The fight you didn't get into is far better than the alternative. With that said though, there's few danger avoidance classes out there, they wouldn't have been covered by the scope of OPs classes, and most of us (correctly or incorrectly) would assume we have the whole back off thing covered.
MaverickNH
NES Member
Other quantitative firearms research indicates that non-gun owners are actually more fearful about their world, in general. Who stayed locked-down during COVID, wore masks religiously and disdained “anti-vaxxers” with natural immunity from prior COVID infections? Who fears sending their kids to school over extremely rare mass shooting concerns? Who was certain the 2022 elections would kick off Civil War 2.0? Liberals/Progressives/Democrats.
Part of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and every other war machine - diminish and dehumanize the enemy. That way, you fear less guilt from their suffering and violent defeat.
Sociology and psychology research suffers from a crisis of replication - little research is repeated and that which is repeated fails to replicate results.
The 2022 Sociological Perspectives journal article this work is based on is quite poor. The journal itself is low on the ranking of Impact Factor at 1.8, with 10=Excellent, 3=Good. The authors use opt-in Facebook/Instagram surveys targeting colleges in 10 states to accumulate data. They outright admit their data are not representative and justify excluding most colleges in the Western and Northeaster US as attitudes on guns vary less. The results are presented as simple bar charts w/o error bars or statistical analysis for significance. The use anecdotal narratives to evoke emotional reactions in the reader to bolster their weak dataset and analysis.
Academics like these who list media pieces on their CVs have one intent - to prove they get bang for the buck. All to the end of getting the next tranche of funding from anti-gun foundations.
TOP COMMENT - they just love Veterans, Police and Fudds who confess guns are bad…
“I ceased to carry concealed in the early 2000's for the reason that I noticed in myself a reality I didn't like; when carrying, just about every stranger looked like a threat. Having a .380 at hand made me more paranoid, not less.
Perhaps this is a function of the adage, "If you have a hammer everything looks like a nail."
Last edited:
BigEd
NES Member
eboos
NES Member
Bingo
allen-1
NES Member
I will agree with your absolutes as stated, but I think I would say that believing that almost anyone could be a threat isn't paranoia.
So, that being said, this looks like great place to relate something that just happened to me.
I left Georgia at 3PM Friday, headed to CT, after waking up at my normal 5AM and putting in a day's work. I don't like driving very much, and the longer it is, the less I like it. Around 11 PM or so, I was pretty tired. Pulled into the Chesapeake House rest area stop near the top of Maryland. FIgured I'd use the facilities and take a quick nap.
Parked somewhat away from any other vehicle and started walking towards the building. I'd already seen that a car was pulled out of their slot and partially blocking the roadway to the left, but I didn't care, because I was going to leave to my right. As I walked towards the building, I saw that the car wasn't moving, then that it didn't have lights on, and then that there was no one in the driver's seat. I started circling to the right, giving it a wide berth.
As I got past it, I saw a person crouched down behind the rear quarter panel, on the driver's side, (the side away from where I'd initially approached), and I palmed my knife. Said person suddenly "bounced" towards me giggling, and I realized it was a girl/woman, heavy, with her shirt down around her waist. I instinctively shifted to be ready to block, and looked to see if someone else was coming towards me using her as a distraction. Fortunately not.
I'm somewhat road dized, tired, and not as quick in thought as I might otherwise be. She stopped about a foot from me, laughed some more and said "I bet you won't like it if I touch you". "nope, I won't". She reached out a finger and tapped my left arm. I said "don't do that", scanned one more time for any "accomplice", and walked away, still holding my unopened knife.
Went inside, used the facilities, and came back out - knowing I wasn't taking a nap in that rest area. Gave an even wider berth to the car that was still parked there. Walked around my truck to make sure no one was waiting for me, (flashlight in one hand, knife in the other). Hopped into my truck, and saw her running towards me. Locked the door, started the truck and left.
She didn't reek of alcohol, so I'm surmising either trashed on something else, or just not all there.
same correlated push to render all the existing and potential gun owners as mentally ill individuals.SKIP TO CONTENT
OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
Firearms Classes Taught Me, and America, a Very Dangerous Lesson
May 16, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET
Credit...Jérôme Berthier
By Harel Shapira
Harel Shapira is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin.
I did not grow up around guns, but 10 years ago, I started attending firearms training classes. I wasn’t there to learn how to protect myself or my family. I was there to learn what was taught in the classes themselves, which a broad coalition of groups — including many police officers, Republican and Democratic legislators and gun violence prevention organizations — have hailed as a path out of the nation’s epidemic of violence.
I found something very different. The classes I attended trained students to believe that their lives are in constant danger. They prepared us to shoot without hesitation and avoid legal consequences. They instilled the kind of fear that has a corrosive effect on all interactions — and beyond that, on the fabric of our democracy.
I took 42 classes and conducted interviews with 52 instructors and 118 students, in traditionally red states like Texas as well as blue states like Massachusetts, in urban areas like Newark as well as rural Southern Illinois. (The instructors knew I was there to conduct research; in keeping with my university’s academic protocols, I had permission to take notes in class and to record interviews but not to publish anyone’s names.) Most of all, I immersed myself in firearms schools in Texas, where I live, that cater to people who wish to learn how to use guns for self-defense. Some instructors in these schools told me they have been involved in drafting public safety protocols or running active shooter drills for public school teachers. Some of these instructors’ students have gone on to open training programs of their own.
While American gun culture has diversified in recent years, the overwhelming majority of firearms instructors — in Texas it’s 75 percent — are white men. Many have a background in the military or law enforcement. Nationwide, more than 125,000 of them have taken a certification course offered by the National Rifle Association. Many states require instructors to complete additional training.
First, the good news: Every firearms instructor I encountered was extremely serious about preventing accidents. When a student inadvertently pointed his gun at me for a moment, our instructor immediately chastised him. And when the student objected, saying he didn’t have his finger on the trigger, the instructor became livid and threatened to kick him out of class.
But teaching people how to avoid shooting someone by accident is a small part of what these classes are about. The primary lessons are about if and when to shoot someone on purpose. And this is where the trouble begins.
Instructors repeatedly told me that a big part of their job was to make people feel vulnerable, to make them aware of dangers they were not conscious of before to understand that bad things can happen at any time. One instructor told me he encourages students to carry their gun at all times. If students say they plan to leave it in the car, he responds, “So what you’re telling me is the only time you are ever going to get attacked is if you are in your car?”
The instructors describe a world teeming with violent and deranged individuals. And not just any individuals. The scenarios cluster around the public spaces of racially diverse cities. “More often than not,” an instructor who had been a high-ranking police officer said, the place you’re likely to be attacked is “in an urban part of society.” Another instructor, also a former police officer, tells students to keep their gas tanks filled at least halfway to avoid situations in which “it’s the middle of the night and you need to get gas in downtown Houston.”
Outside a restaurant in Austin, an instructor saw a disheveled man sitting on the curb and nudged me in the other direction, directing me to pick up the pace. He said he had detected “potential predatory behavior” and wasn’t sure if this man was a panhandler or someone about to stick a gun in our faces.
Instructors repeatedly told me that statistics about crime are meaningless when it comes to the need to carry a gun. It’s not the odds, I heard on numerous occasions; it’s the consequences. I have been taught strategies for avoiding interactions with strangers. I have participated in scenario training sessions in which students carrying guns loaded with plastic ammunition enact mock burglaries, home invasions, mass shootings and attacks by Islamic terrorists. Repeatedly the lesson was that I ought to shoot even when my instincts might tell me otherwise.
For example, in one scenario, an instructor pretended to punch someone I know and care about in the head. The instructor’s back was toward me, so I held my fire. Later, I told him that I hadn’t had enough information to act. Wrong answer. Being punched in the head can be fatal, the instructor told me, so there was no time to wait. I had never heard someone advocate shooting an unarmed person in the back. The instructor did it with a sense of moral, legal and tactical clarity and conviction.
Officially, the message is caution. A line I heard from multiple instructors was: If you are not about to die in the next three seconds, don’t pull the trigger. If you are not 100 percent sure, then don’t shoot. But relentlessly harping on the dangers that surround us changes the way students assess those risks.
I experienced it myself.
On a recent night I saw a driver who didn’t appear to realize that he was going the wrong way on a one-way street. As the other car approached, I began to slow down, roll down my window and stick my hand out in a friendly gesture. Suddenly I worried the other driver might have a gun. How might he respond to someone slowing down a car and waving at him in the middle of the night? Would he shoot? Probably not. But it’s not the odds, I remember telling myself; it’s the consequences.
That’s the great irony of firearms training: In learning how to use a gun for self-defense, something that seems like it might give you confidence and a sense of safety, people end up feeling more afraid than before. “I knew the world was dangerous,” a student told me after class one day, “but this was a real wake-up call.” “He scared the daylights out of me,” I heard from another student, who went straight from class to a gun store. Others who already owned a gun told me the classes made them feel the gun should be bigger, with a larger caliber and more capacity.
Firearms instructors are not the only ones who make an appearance at self-defense classes. Lawyers do, too. Lawyers who specialize in defending gun owners. They go to classes and tell students how to talk (or not) to 911 operators and police officers in the event they shoot someone. In one seminar, a lawyer emphasized the importance of explaining, “I had no choice.”
With more than 200 mass shootings in our country this year alone, advocates of gun regulation often cite the tragic number of lives lost or the fact that gun-related injuries have surpassed car accidents as the nation’s leading cause of injury-related death among people under 24. But another, less recognized casualty is the kind of public interactions that make democracy viable. The N.R.A. says that “an armed society is a polite society.” But learning to carry a gun isn’t teaching Americans to have good manners. It’s training them to be suspicious and atomized, learning to protect themselves, no matter how great the risk to others. It’s training them to not be citizens.
Harel Shapira is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin. His book on American gun culture is forthcoming.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
'as only a mentally ill person may want to own a gun'. that is the popular spin on the mental wellness programs for now from the socialists, as, whatever works, as long as it is all for the same goal.
hillman
NES Member
Yeah, I wasn't joking. I went through that. I don't think I was racist before I went through the academy, but I sure as hell came out that way. I'm a very self aware guy and I watched it happen like it was happening to someone else. "Everyone everywhere is trying to kill you, but THESE people are trying harder than everyone else."
How dare you assume their gender .
Reported to the PC police.
mibro
NES Member
REVEALED: ADL’s US-Israel Police Exchanges Militarize the Police
“The ADL’s cover is blown once and for all. There’s nothing Jewish about fighting against Palestinian freedom or militarizing the police.”
www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
namedpipes
NES Member
I'll be honest - not kidding, not yet drinking.
Were I in a class like that and the instructor had us role play through a typical interaction where, armed, you go into a diner, order a coffee and cheese danish, eat it, pay your order (WITH a tip, cheapskate) and leave, I'd appreciate it as a reminder of the absolute normality of carrying a firearm as you go through ordinary life events. Having a gun doesn't turn you into Jason Bourne-Lite. It just means you have a tool handy to help you react IF something happens. I'd be annoyed if the scenario were hashed out TOO far or repeated in endless variations.
Heads up... reaching for a glass, so further comments may not be thought through before posting.
MisterHappy
NES Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2009
- Messages
- 28,409
- Likes
- 17,595
It's a nearly-perfectly written piece, if you look at it from the point of view of the intended audience.
It's not hysterical - it's actually far calmer in tone than many of the "hit pieces" (Like the idiot that thought an AR fired indoors was loud....no kidding!), so it does a better job of drawing a "reasonable" line between the Enlightened Ones and the paranoids, clinging bitterly to their guns and religion.
Boxes checked: Academic - yes. Study's protocols mentioned for veracity and gravitas - yes. Wide sample size - Both TX and MA - yes. Repeated similar responses (all are there to make you afraid) - yes. Use of LEO quotes - yes.
The people that read this in the source material will take their confirmation bias and add this to the list of proof. I mean not that many people get pushed onto the subway, or are assaulted in a parking garage. Yeah, it's paranoia.
Oh....one other button....75% of the instructors were White Males. Well, that's the biggest box to check of them all....
It's not hysterical - it's actually far calmer in tone than many of the "hit pieces" (Like the idiot that thought an AR fired indoors was loud....no kidding!), so it does a better job of drawing a "reasonable" line between the Enlightened Ones and the paranoids, clinging bitterly to their guns and religion.
Boxes checked: Academic - yes. Study's protocols mentioned for veracity and gravitas - yes. Wide sample size - Both TX and MA - yes. Repeated similar responses (all are there to make you afraid) - yes. Use of LEO quotes - yes.
The people that read this in the source material will take their confirmation bias and add this to the list of proof. I mean not that many people get pushed onto the subway, or are assaulted in a parking garage. Yeah, it's paranoia.
Oh....one other button....75% of the instructors were White Males. Well, that's the biggest box to check of them all....
Lol. I call that "daily life." I don't need a reminder of it. Certainly not if I'm paying for a course. They'd probably upcharge, too, calling it an "enhanced realism training fee." And they'd also make you pay for the coffee.
If doing my daily tasks while armed is "training," then I'm one SERIOUSLY well-trained MFer.
Sparky123
NES Member
If you're white, yes, it is.
The old adage applies to this: “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
Blackbeard83
NES Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2022
- Messages
- 252
- Likes
- 433
If my house is empty I would do this. But if my dogs are in there I'm going in.
Blackbeard83
NES Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2022
- Messages
- 252
- Likes
- 433
I knew something was up as soon as I started reading it.Research funded by the Joyce Foundation, a non-profit used to launder Bloomberg anti-gun money so academics can appear unbiased and legitimate. The connection with Everytown gives it away.
Dr. Harel Shapira: How Attitudes About Guns Develop Over Time
Dr. Shapira’s research explores the factors and social processes that lead people to think about guns in the ways that they do.everytownresearch.org
