Am I the only one baffled by deliberately unarmed people?

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Jack 99

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There was another post here on TFL about how there's really no obligation by LE to protect individual citizens that reminded me of something I've reflected on sporadically over the years. Namely, Deliberatley Unarmed People (DUPs).

I'm just at a loss on this issue. What are these people thinking? I'm not talking about the extreme antis, or pinkos, or pacifists, I'm referring to those average Joes and Janes that are law abiding, tax-paying citizens who are more or less nuetral on RKBA issues; able to own a weapon that just choose not to.

It seems that I keep hearing the same stories over and over. Do these sound familiar to you?:

DUP situation #1
Unarmed female stalked for months/years by ex-husband/boyfriend/scumbag off the street who becomes more and more violent and intense in his desires. The restraining order ends up being just some meaningless piece of paper (BIG surprise). She ends up dead and the news media calls it a "tragedy." You see the story on Dateline or Hard Copy and you keep asking yourself "why didn't she just get a f*&%$#@ GUN!" Of course, Jane Pauley doesn't bother to ask this question. In my book, a tragedy is somehow unavoidable. Not to belittle the loss of human life, but if there's an immenent threat to your well-being, sometimes existing for a period of months or years, and you fail to take necessary and prudent measures, who's fault is it if you end up dead? I mean, really, the first time OJ Simpson beat up on Nicole, didn't it occur to her he might one day become more violent, perhaps even murderous? I'm baffled.

DUP situation #2
Hurricane/Tornado/Earthquake/Riot breaks out and looters show up soon after. Neighbors with guns protect those without. DUP then says something like "thank God DC was armed, otherwise the looters would have taken everything." You never see this on the evening news, but from Hurricane Andrew to the LA riots, there are lots of folks who are very glad they have even lightly armed neighbors. Well, how about ARMING YOURSELF! Are these people under some hopeless delusion that bad things only happen somewhere else, to other people? Reminds me of a punk rock song sometime back. The only lyric was "nothing bad ever happens to me" sung over and over. I can't fathom the amount of self-deluded thinking behind the "I will never need a firearm" mentality.

I'm sure you can think of other situations where DUPs, time and time again, would have been very well served even by a cheap revolver or lever action 30-30. Just to have a gun that sits in the closet 364 days a year is better insurance than you'll ever get anywhere else. CAN'T THESE PEOPLE SEE THE OBVIOUS!?!?!

These things make the news again and again and these people stay unarmed, ON PURPOSE! I'm baffled, to say the least. I put this type of mentality on par with people who have unprotected sex with prostitutes, or drive without insurance, or try to cross a swollen stream in early Spring. Just no common sense.

Rant over.

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"Put a rifle in the hands of a Subject, and he immediately becomes a Citizen." -- Jeff Cooper
 
People have been convinced that if they touch a gun they will instantly turn into every sterotype for us that there is. Be it a redneck or sneering sociopath or a drooling idiot. I have people in my own family who laugh at me for carrying a gun with me. They call me paranoid, but they won't even go to the store at night for fear of something happening to them. I don't really know what people are thinking, but I know they don't do enough of it.
 
Jack, you're not the only one. I can't understand people who think:

1) The police will protect them
2) Crimes only occur in bad neighborhoods
3) If they touch a gun, they'll instantly turn into cold-blooded assassins
4) Pepper spray is a proven manstopper (yes, I've heard this), therefore a gun is simply overkill, NPI

Shaking my head in sadness at the blindness of the sheeple, I am.

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"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
-- John Hay, 1872
 
Chad, that's a great point. I thought I was the only one with family who say "Do you have to carry that knife everywhere? You're some kind of psycho" and "You can't go to that store after dark, you'll end up getting robbed or worse." in the same breath. It never occurs to them that it's because I have the knives and the will and (some) skill to use them that I'm able to move about freely while they can't. (No, I don't go to the "bad" side of town and deliberately walk through bad neighborhoods at night--but Springfield, IL is too small to really have a "good side" of town where you're safe at night.

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Don

"Its not criminals that go into schools and shoot children"
--Ann Pearston, British Gun Control apologist and moron
 
In true form again Jack99. I can't tell you how amny times a day I ponder the same question.

And the DUP's (gosh I just love that acronym...) aren't necessairly women either. Many men are the same way! The testosterone is gone - poof! Soon they'll be wearing bonnets on their heads in a true show of "sensitivity".

My wife, [boast]a beautiful red-head,[/boast] shoots everything in my arsen.., um I mean gun safe. She carries her CCW pistol everywhere it is legal. She knows how to use it, and she will use it if necessary.

These DUP's, they never even seem to consider defending themselves - in any matter.

If someone here ever has an answer to "why people don't arm themselves", please post it, because I for damn sure don't have one.

CMOS


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GOA, TSRA, LEAA, NRA, SAF and I vote!
 
People don't carry guns, because they are afraid of them. They don't know how to use them, and think they will kill themselves or someone else.
 
People don't take the necessary steps to protect themselves because they aren't worth the effort. Who am I to argue.

Darwinism works, it just takes time.

(a little grouchy today)
-L
 
I read someplace about some of the riots in LA where a gun owner offered to lend a spare shotgun to his neighbors during the "troubles". The husband did not want to take it but the wife said, "Gimme that sucker, how do you load it and where's the ammo." [not an exact quote mind you] Which one in that family would be 'food' as Clint Smith calls the unready?

Why people that can be armed and are not is a mystery. Perhaps, they believe that they are in a state of grace and nothing evil can touch them. And then they bemoan their lot when evil does appear and smites them between the eyes.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
I'm not so sure it's fear that keeps DUPs unarmed. Some fit in that category for sure, but not all. Apathy maybe? Ignorance?

In any case, I suppose I'm just too left-brained to let some irrational fear keep me from owning a device that could save my life, or keep me from being robbed, or worse. I still don't "get" people that are absolutely defenseless. Even if they don't enjoy shooting, put a trigger lock on the thing and stick it in the closet. Life is just a little too unpredictable to be unarmed and the old cliche is right: when you need a gun, you REALLY need a gun.

Probably most of the same people don't have a fire extinguisher anywhere in the house or car. A simple grease fire will burn their house down and they'll stand on the sidewalk watching it burn. Maybe even then it doesn't occur to them that a $10 cheapo fire extinguisher could have prevented the whole thing.

Oh well. Maybe its for the best.
 
Jack, you're making the same mistake that President Johnson made with Ho Chi Mihn, assuming that they think the same way you do. I spent Thanksgiving with my liberal-to- the-max inlaws. Things were a little slow, so when my chance came, I engaged them about their views on gun control. I won't bore you with the blow-by blow, but the bottom line is- they just don't get it and never will.They think that guns are evil and that they will always be protected by the police/government and are willing to give up your freedom to ensure it. The most telling point was when I asked my brother-in-law (Harvard grad and postgaduate degrees, has 3 small children, wife, lives in Denver) how he would protect his family in a home invasion- happening more - or a carjacking. The look on his face was classic, he had never given ONE MINUTE of his life considering it!! At that point I realized that it was hopeless, that they're sheep, and always will be. I hope that they live long,uneventful lives,and are never jolted out of their dreams. On the way home my wife said "did you do that just because you were bored?" I said yes. She said "what do you think they would have said if they knew that you had a .45 under your sweater?"
 
Many people believe in the inherent goodness of his fellow man. They take it to the extreme and are literally shocked when something bad happens. I have heard people say, 'I can't believe this happened to me.', and actually MEAN it. They literally have no concept that they could be robbed, raped, beaten, or kidnapped. It is something you hear about happening to other people, it NEVER occurred to them that it could happen to them.
 
It is generally laughable. Many otherwise sensible people do not have a gun because they believe that they could not kill anybody under any circumstances.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
DUPs -- I love it and will appropriate it in any letters to the Ed or other rants, "con su permisso".

I agree that it's apathy and "it can't happen to me".

There was a thread, elswhere I think, that discussed what would you do as a CCW if people were in mortal danger by a perp (but not you or yours).

At first I thought one response was hard-hearted, but as I'm about a month away from CCW, I am keeping it in mind.

To wit: "Why should I expose my life (or my family's) to a possible deadly situation or
risk being finally ruined because others, who had the same right to arm themselves, didn't do so?"




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The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
 
My first response if out in public and encountering an armed bad person is to get my family out of harm's way. An orderly retreat is the plan covered by my .45 ACP.

The DUP's can come up with their own solution without my help.
 
All of these arguments have merit, but I think you're all missing the most fundamental truth for DUP's:

They are CONDITIONED by our ultra-liberal gov't (and I consider "modern" Republicans to be the same as the Dems), in many cases ALL THEIR LIVES, to abdicate their personal responsibility for their own safety to the "authorities".

Remember, government's PRIMARY REASON FOR EXISTANCE today is to convince the masses that they're not responsible for themselves, they shouldn't think too much, and "daddy gov't" will take care of them from cradle to grave. It's just unfortunate that so many sheeple buy into that BULLSH*T, and the "to the grave" part may be closer than they think.

Oh well...

Heil Der Arkanfuhrer!
 
IMHO:

Most people haven't been faced with real
danger. Thus, they see guns as an instrument
that hurts folk and if they didn't exist
they would be safer.

When they do come to realization that
danger exists in the world, they separate
into two groups.

1. Those that can only consider flight or
hiding. They cannot conceive of overcoming
the inhibitions for face to face
violence that folks like Grossman discuss.

2. Those who can conceive of using force to
defend themselves (this is not to
say that running for your life might be
a good thing in some situations).
They take actions to defend themselves.

Sometimes at work, we have this argument, when
folk find out that I carry. I tell them that I make these set of promises:

1. If we have to go out together for business
and when we go to the parking lot to
our cars, I see you being assaulted, I
promise to be a good witness and go run
for help. I will not make a move to
help you.

2. If we are together and accosted, I will
defend myself. I feel justified to point
out to the BG that I am armed but you
aren't and I will make no effort to
intervene if the action continues against
you.

3. If you live next door and you, your wife
or child arrives screaming and bleeding
at the door, perhaps with a raving
mad man in pursuit, I'm calling the police
and hope they arrive in time. I will
point out the average 8 minute response
time. Ain't coming out for you.

This usually takes them aback - but they
don't change their opinion. Just mutter
about loonies.

bye
 
And speaking of loonies...TANSTAAFL!

I am taking three more co-workers to the range over next week. They do not own guns...but if they ever must use one, their training would at least help them figure out the basics.
 
Logic doesn't usually faze DUP's. Every statistic and every headline won't make a difference 99% of the time.

The decision to be deliberately unarmed is usually an emotional one. They may use logic to back up their position. Nuts, we use logic for our position.

Some reasons I have seen in DUPs:

"I can't shoot anyone. If (horrendous crime) happened to me I guess it would be my time to die." I actually heard these words more or less from this one girl in '91 (I sure am glad our relationship didn't go too far). As far as I can figure, some people don't care enough about themselves to fight for their life. Talk about a grasseater in a herd of grasseaters.

"Violence never solves anything"
Read Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" and he has a great moral discussion on this one. Something like violence and naked force has solved more issues in history than any other factor, and those who forget or ignore this fact always pay for it with their lives and freedoms. Some other comment about the contrary opinion is historically untrue, thoroughly immoral and wishful thinking at its worst. (I hadda go grab my copy of the book to paraphrase this).

Some other reasons why a DUP is a DUP:

Responsibility for one's self is hard to find. Tell someone their own life is in their own hands and most will look baffled and aimless.

Some people don't feel they have the fortitude to make a decision on total right/wrong: I am right, you are wrong, I will end your wrongdoing BAM! BAM! It takes a leap of faith or something to say to yourself I am important enough to make such a decision. I don't see what's the big deal but to sheeple it's a hurdle as big as Mt. Everest.

Some sheeple feel if they have a gun then they will use it wrongfully. I am guessing they think about how they'd use a gun wrongfully (like road rage, shooting the spouse, whatever) and so actually getting a gun is scarier than living with their irresponsible thinking.

Finally, I think most DUPs would rather be a sheeple in a herd of sheeple and hope that when the wolves come, they will be one of the 100 that run and survive instead of the 1 that got caught/eaten. Me, I'd rather be a sheepdog/shepherd. Good analogy, actually. The sheep don't appreciate you until the wolves show up.

Edmund
 
Edmund: Good observation on the nature of DUP's. To take it a step further: These same people, in a lot of cases, respond completely differently when the hypothetical disaster includes their children or their spouse.
Maybe we should advocate that they arm themselved "for the children" and let Hillary take the credit.
There are a lot of good points in this thread, particularly the concept that you are not necessarily your brothers keeper and that your first responsibility is yourself and YOUR family and who can you count on to protect your family if you get yourself killed trying to save DUP's ?
And since I have mentioned Hillary I ought to mention olslick as well. He would not risk himself to save ANYBODY. He would send someone else even though he sees himself as the savior of the world.
This entire thread is a question of a person's concept of self. Are you a doer or a doee? (This is a good example of what happens when I am up at 3AM.)

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
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