Quote of the day—Martin Fischer

I had a liberal colleague giving me grief about guns and that gun owners are crazy, so I just put the question to her – if someone handed you a loaded gun, what would you do with it? She said “I’d look for someone to shoot”. I told her “That’s the difference between me and you – I’d be looking to be sure it was pointed toward a safe place. You’re the one that needs professional help, not me.”

Martin Fischer
October 4, 2014
Comment to AND SHE STABBED HIM IN THE HEAD: Why Gun Control Supporters Don’t Trust You With Guns
[H/T to Paul Koning.

I have nothing to add.—Joe]

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7 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Martin Fischer

  1. “She said “I’d look for someone to shoot”.

    To the extent that “she” (the unnamed anti rights woman) can be believed, it would be because she’s been trained to think like that. Trained by the anti rights movement to think like that. Trained by people who say they’re against “gun violence” and in favor of “gun safety” and her first thought would be of finding someone to shoot.

    Now how many of you, recognizing that this is in fact programming, would think first of taking over and redirecting that woman’s programming, reprogramming her? And if your first thought after “being handed a loaded psychological weapon” so to speak, would be to find someone to infect with it rather than unload it while keeping it pointed in a safe direction? So are you really all that different from her or are you just more subtle?

    The woman (along with millions of other people) does need help, though saying so is taken, and usually given, as an insult. Would anyone in the APA know how to give it to her? I doubt it. Most of them are programmed themselves, and so part of the problem, aren’t they?

    What if you could authoritatively say to her, “Would you like to be free of those kinds of disturbing thoughts?”

    • Good thoughts, Lyle. But I don’t know that it’s a foregone conclusion that she’s been “programmed” to say what she said. Perhaps she was simply thinking of unexpected power being thrust into her hands, and how she’d have a desire to use it — presumably on someone from her “persons who would be much improved by death” list.

      And perhaps that’s the difference. People who understand what firearms can do, and go to some trouble and expense to buy them legally and to know how to use them, have voluntarily taken on a mindset of taking firearms seriously (and taking seriously the heavy responsibility of carrying one). An anti-gun person who is (hypothetically) handed a loaded weapon has been through none of that.

      In the specific case at hand, I don’t think I’d want to ask if she wants to be free of these disturbing thoughts. but it might be illuminating to walk with her for a while. “Okay, you look for someone to shoot. Who? Someone you hate? Someone who bothers you? The person who just handed you the gun?” Then some follow-up questions: “Okay, you shot him. Maybe you missed the first time, maybe not. Maybe you shot him in the groin, maybe you shot him in the head, maybe in the heart. Now what? Do you stand there waiting for the police to arrive? What do you say when the police eventually find you? Murder is still illegal, you know.” And so forth. Walk her through the process of seeing that, yes, a gun CAN be used to pick off the next several people who annoy you, but a tool need not be used for everything it CAN do. (By similar logic, just because my car CAN go 130 MPH doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, or that the police wouldn’t be perfectly justified in arresting me for trying it.)

  2. Though far from intentional, I seem to be developing a tendency to shut down conversations. Not sure how to interpret that.

    The more arrogant conclusion would be that once I’ve explained it, there’s nothing left to be said. That’s Rush Limbaugh’s tongue-in-cheek thesis regarding his own comments, though it could be stunned silence, or polite refrain from calling me batshit crazy. Almost no one else talks like this, and so it could simply be un-interesting, or it doesn’t register, or more specifically it fails to provide the emotional stimulation or distraction for which some people frequent certain blogs.

    • As you know, I’m not exactly reticent here. But I don’t reply to every post. Some don’t capture my interest. And on others, the previous comments already said what I wanted to say, and I didn’t happen to feel like being redundant that day.
      Your comments tend to be in that second category. So you could think of that as “shutting down” the conversation. Or you could think of it as completing the conversation. I think the latter is more accurate.

  3. I can’t get to the actual comment: I see no way on the site to display any comments, Facebook or otherwise…. What trick am I missing?

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