I of course understand your heroism and very intuitive choice of words at the moment, but for a woman to be with a baby and say such things instantaneously with obvious enjoyment of the blood and violence...you are a monster. .
"Have you used a gun?" Many, and with much fascination. There are certain weapons that trigger nostalgia for me. US attitudes about weapons are often a little bit strange to me, especially among my more redneck friends- my "bonding" with them often involves caring for and operating their most military weapons. But we had very different initiations into weaponry, that most of my friends here have trouble relating to. When I was a lad in Beirut, guns were as ubiquitous and as casually employed as other ordinary gadgets like cameras. Technically, I have always admired well-crafted and well-functioning firearms, and I still enjoy target and skeet shooting. Shooting consistently well requires a particular focused relaxation that is satisfying to develop. But killing has lost all sportiness for me, and I would only go hunting again out of unlikely necessity. Gun rights activists often opine that weapons guarantee our way of life, but I have seen how the collapse of any way of life is always accompanied by a ready abundance of highly-efficient weapons.
Once again Hype, you are scarily adroit in your observations. My weapon of choice is a speargun and it brings me satisfaction and food of a primal source. Guns for protection usually equals dead kids, not pretty, not pretty.
SCUBA spearfishing was a great adventure for me, and that's a form of hunting I would be tempted to do again. Whenever I go fishing with line and pole, I lament the randomness, and the injury to fish I don't want to eat. Spud Emperor: "Guns for protection usually equals dead kids, not pretty, not pretty." I've never been in a situation where I felt safer having a gun. But there are ways to keep them safe from kids, just like other dangerous things.
Hype, don't mean to demean but scuba spearing is well against the laws here. One breath, in a foreign and adverse environment is the essence. Didn't mean to be so brutal with the dead kids thing but recent events in my local area have un-nerved my thinking.
Spud Emperor: "scuba spearing is well against the laws here." I didn't know that. I wonder if spearfishing is illegal in Australia because of the danger of shark attack. I've never dove among truly dangerous predators, but there must be ways to be smart about it (situational awareness, sealed game bags, avoiding chum/blood, etc). Spearfishing seems to involve far less collateral injury to fish than conventional hooking and netting, so I think it's a pity. "One breath, in a foreign and adverse environment is the essence." So true- It's so amazing. And free swimming as a fish-person is incredible- a lot like the freedom of flying to me.
Spearfishing is legal, just not on scuba ( you can take crays,2, and scallops on scuba) evrything else is freediving. Hype, I am often a passenger in helicopters and small planes and I love it. Diving is close to the feeling of flight but bodysurfing is my 'thing'. Equal to sex, better than skiing, damn good.
I spent a bunch of my growing up years in the deserts and mountains around the El Paso area. Pretty much everyone there has guns. My first rifle was a Ruger 10/22 that I learned basic marksmanship with when I was 12. When I was 14 I got a Remington 700 VTR ruggedized varmint rifle (.223) with a Leupold 9x40mm zooming scope that was amazingly precise, capable of shooting sub-MOA all day long with nary an adjustment or malfunction, turning all manners of nuisance wildlife into colored mist at long distances for not a lot of capital, on account of mil surplus M193 ball ammo being available for dirt cheap. I later sold this beautiful weapon to afford my first handgun, which has since proven to be a decision worthy of much regret. I continued to shoot in college. I was the captain of my university's pistol team junior and senior year. We practiced twice a week with our Hammerli .22LR pistols, and I usually visited the range once a week or so on my own to shoot the bigger stuff. After college I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and have been doing this swell pimpin gig ever since. It involves a fair amount of trigger time, of course, a lot that is good (training) and a little that sucks (combat theater) but overall not as much of the kind that I like (although crewing a M240B or Mark 19 is pretty cool). In any case, I still find time to shoot recreationally, which also means I still get to buy pieces for my growing collection. Peoples' differing responses seem to depend on their own background and exposure. In west Texas, we love guns. Everyone has one, and if you don't like them, it means you're either a pantywaist or a fucking retard whose dad never showed any attention (I'm stereotyping). My wife's family is from Boston, where they don't like guns so much, and their delicate, powdered urbanite asses can't fathom the idea of having just one, nevermind as many as I do, because who the hell would ever need one of those??? Only ignorant killer rednecks that's who! (The other stereotype.) The world is full of people who know best how others far removed from their own small sphere of existence should be living their lives.
I've fired a 22 rifle at cans. It was OK, nothing I'd go out of my way to do again. My whole early life I was around people who owned firearms as a rule - farm country. But my mother said there were too many little kids in the house, and no room for guns until they grew up. My father,who had gotten his fill of weaponry in the army, agreed. And I was the oldest. I didn't actually miss them for myself - I liked to wander, I liked to explore and listen and watch, and guns are clumsy - but I grew up accustomed to having them around in other people's hands. The only people who bother me by carrying guns are deer hunters, as a group, and that's because of their common character and hazardous obnoxiousness. Nothing wrong with armed neighbors - keeps the thieves honest. My take on guns is still that they are expensive, loud, and heavy, the ammo is worse, and most of the people who make a big deal out of carrying them around for self-protection are being silly. I've known people to carry a 9 mm automatic for miles, hiking in the northern woods, in case they meet a bear or something ! I'll pack another beer, if I want entertainment weight. I'll trap and snare and net, if I want to kill food. I'll throw a roll of twenties in the glove box if I want a trouble magnet or thief target. But if the woman and I do find this little farmhouse we've been looking for, there will be a loaded gun on a rack over the kitchen door leading out back to the garden. Probably a 410 shotgun, or maybe something a little bigger with cheaper ammo. It'll come in handy.
SAM: "May I ask about your initiation into weaponry?" I missed that post earlier, and didn't mean to ignore it, Sam. " What was different about it?" It was different in many ways from what I observe as the typical USAmerican initiation. Guns became ubiquitous in Lebanon during the on-and-off civil war. You would encounter all sorts of people toting M-16s, Kalashnikovs, G3s, etc. because these were at least as common as other gadgets like Nikons or WalkMans. Being a curious lad, I took interest. People were very casual with weapons, and not in a necessarily dangerous way. The machismo that I find associated with weaponry in the USA was almost entirely absent. In the right context (like a lull in fighting) learning about a weapon was very straightforward for an American teen like me. In retrospect, I think the novelty was mutual in several encounters: Sometimes I just walked up to guys (or gals) on the street and said something like -"Marhaba, mish-hayda M-16?" _"Na'am" -"How's that thing wor..." (click-kachik, clip out, breech open) hands it over to me _"Jeeb- this lever is the fire selector, kid" etc... -"Saheah? Cooool!" (I aim it down a busy street, funny glances from people who then go right on with mundane city life) Stuff like that was a little different than Mayberry USA. There was even some gun chic, when it seemed like weapons were almost like a fashion accessory- teenage girls with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders along with book-bags: I thought that was way cool. I never saw or heard of an accidental shooting- I'm sure that must have happened, but people I met always seemed to just have a lot of common sense about gun safety. Being the curious type, when I visited folks, I'd often ask about their guns, and usually would get to handle and (in the right circumstances) shoot them. In times and places of actual fighting, things were of course very different, and my family and I spent the most dangerous days and nights hiding in basements. But in the more prevalent "normal" Lebanese routine throughout the war years, there were some common scenes of complete craziness with guns in Beirut. In heavy traffic, sometimes somebody would "shoot" their way through an intersection (just firing in the air). It does quicken the pulse for a moment if you're not used to it. Sometimes honking horns escalated into tat-tat-tat of guns- once I saw the interchange progress from horns and gestures to a pistol to rifle to heavy machine gun (all fired in the air) and of course the wielder of the largest weapon was courteously given right-of-way. All those rounds going up, whether in traffic, celebration, or in plinking at Israeli jets were scary when you thought about them- Which I never did, until a 7.62 bullet crashed down into the railing of my apartment balcony while my hand was on it (maybe 2 meters away) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There were some scarier times, but the funnier times are the best memories. Basically, when it came to weapons I was a little jaded by my teen years in Lebanon. Later on in the US Navy, basic weapons training was underwhelming for me, and not at all what I expected. And around my redneck friends here in the USA, it's much the same. Gadgets that became everyday things for me when I was younger in Lebanon are a Big Deal here in the USA in so many ways, as if it's some kind of advanced technology that isn't all over the "3rd World". It's strange disparity of common proficiency with a technology that USAmericans are most prone to trumpeting about in terms of the politics and bravado of gun ownership. And that's part of the reason things get so deadly for typical young USAmerican soldiers patrolling Mideastern streets, confronting civilians with weapons in a place like Iraq: You really can't tell who is who, and what their intentions may be by the weapons they carry or keep, and you can't expect people in a civil war situation to go around (or sit at home) unprotected. There is an immense culture-gap between USAmericans and the residents of less stable parts of the world when it comes to gun culture, and I've seen it from both sides of some very different and clashing attitudes.
