From TPM Reader LS …
I know that you have probably far too many emails about guns and tribes to deal with. However, I feel compelled to provide some additional lines of support for your position:
I am a competent, mentally healthy individual who is very successful in my field. I am also a ditz with respect to anything that requires coordination. I am the kind of person who drives into a drive-in window and has to back-up cause I went too far. Over Christmas, the family was talking to my brother in law –a sheriff in rural Maine, a hunter, an NRA member –about the possibility of limiting guns, and the “defense argument” –that we all need guns to defend ourselves.
From TPM Reader HM …
What if I belong to two “tribes”?
Back then I described a city youth with lots of rural experience through a Dad who enjoyed camping and also through the Boy Scouts of America (The Hitler Jugend).
I own (luckily) property and homes on the Upper Delaware River in NYS. I am an avid fly fisherman (as I mentioned) and a deer and bird hunter. I do not own a pistol although I could easily obtain a concealed carry permit (excluding the 5 counties of NYC). They are fun to shoot but I responsibly decline the responsibility.Carrying a loaded weapon is enormously taxing on your powers of self awareness for the safety of those around you. I also have never believed that citizens should be armed in tightly packed urban situations. I possess none in this jurisdiction.
Last week there was a big commotion about that NRA ad calling the President an ‘elitist hypocrite’ for sending his daughters to a school with armed guards while denying that same armed protection to kids around the country.
Most people focused on how disgusting it was to drag the President’s daughters into a political attack on the president or how the president actually wasn’t opposed to schools having armed guards and a bunch of other stuff. After all, the leadership of the NRA is one of the most rancid players in US politics. But it turns out the critics weren’t aiming high enough with the critiques. Read More
