marine6680
New member
Seen it mentioned again in another thread... Something along the lines of:
Why do people buy these cheap guns, whats your life worth?
It just really gets to me when I see that.
:EDIT: Some may loose my meaning in my following little/long rant... Basically I feel the whole "whats your life worth" argument is pointless. It often comes off as condescending or uninformed. Some are simply unable to spend more than a couple hundred on a firearm, and we should try to accept that and steer them in a direction of something that they can afford and will also serve them well. Be it a cheap used S&W revolver, or an even cheaper Hi-point 9mm.
There are some cheap brands to avoid, but some function well despite the low cost and crude manufacturing, and thats the most important thing.:EDIT:
(copying my post in the other thread here so more people see it)
The "whats your life worth" argument was brought back up again...
Its like some people don't understand the term "budget"...
Some people would love to own a nice HK, Sig, Colt, etc, etc... But they can't even afford to buy a used Glock.
There are people out there that find it hard to save $150 over the course of several months or more... Live paycheck to paycheck, always worried they can't pay rent this month... or the alternator on the car goes out, and now all they can afford to eat is pinto beans for the next month... You really expect them to save up $800+ for a new gun?
Then there are those that are not so bad off, but $400 dollars spent on something less than directly practical, like a tv or gun is a big consideration... and the intangible what if/maybe scenario of needing to defend oneself sometime in the unknown future is even more hard to justify.
When a bad guy is in front of you, the $150 Hi-point in your hands now... is a hell of a lot better than the $800 Sig still sitting in the display case at the gun shop.
Just because you can afford to spend the $800... even if you have to save for several months... Does not make you a better person or better as a gun owner... Don't forget that there are those much less fortunate than you... And they deserve to have the ability to defend themselves just like anyone else... they are not inferior just because they are poor.
I've lived the "pinto bean poor" life as a child... We were not on welfare or food stamps... My parents were too proud for that, both worked long hours to keep bills paid... They would work so long of hours, that me and my sister had to learn responsibility young. We got ourselves up for school and handled most of the household chores. (including cooking when we got old enough... about 12-13) I often lived in some shady trailer parks in small town Alabama... definitely some white trash places full of questionable motives.
One day when I was about 7, the sole of my shoes started coming loose, soon it got so bad that I let my parents know... my mom said I would have to wait until she could save up enough for a cheap pair, and that I might just need to use duck tape or something until then... My dad didn't like the idea of sending me off to school like that. We went to walmart and I got a cheapo pair of $10-15 shoes... that little bit of money spent on shoes wiped out our food budget, and we had to eat pinto beans every day for a week.
Did I or my family not deserve the same as everyone else? (At least within our capabilities anyway, we didn't do handouts)
Fortunately I am no longer in that situation, as I grew older, our lives improved, we managed to get into a house in a better neighborhood. I finished school and pursued well paying fields... and my mother is doing much better now. Finally got a decent paying job, and she is remarried to an engineer, they just built a real nice house as they approach retirement. She deserves it... she worked long hours sometimes two jobs and even attended college courses at night for a while.
Ok... end long tangent filled rant
Why do people buy these cheap guns, whats your life worth?
It just really gets to me when I see that.
:EDIT: Some may loose my meaning in my following little/long rant... Basically I feel the whole "whats your life worth" argument is pointless. It often comes off as condescending or uninformed. Some are simply unable to spend more than a couple hundred on a firearm, and we should try to accept that and steer them in a direction of something that they can afford and will also serve them well. Be it a cheap used S&W revolver, or an even cheaper Hi-point 9mm.
There are some cheap brands to avoid, but some function well despite the low cost and crude manufacturing, and thats the most important thing.:EDIT:
(copying my post in the other thread here so more people see it)
The "whats your life worth" argument was brought back up again...
Its like some people don't understand the term "budget"...
Some people would love to own a nice HK, Sig, Colt, etc, etc... But they can't even afford to buy a used Glock.
There are people out there that find it hard to save $150 over the course of several months or more... Live paycheck to paycheck, always worried they can't pay rent this month... or the alternator on the car goes out, and now all they can afford to eat is pinto beans for the next month... You really expect them to save up $800+ for a new gun?
Then there are those that are not so bad off, but $400 dollars spent on something less than directly practical, like a tv or gun is a big consideration... and the intangible what if/maybe scenario of needing to defend oneself sometime in the unknown future is even more hard to justify.
When a bad guy is in front of you, the $150 Hi-point in your hands now... is a hell of a lot better than the $800 Sig still sitting in the display case at the gun shop.
Just because you can afford to spend the $800... even if you have to save for several months... Does not make you a better person or better as a gun owner... Don't forget that there are those much less fortunate than you... And they deserve to have the ability to defend themselves just like anyone else... they are not inferior just because they are poor.
I've lived the "pinto bean poor" life as a child... We were not on welfare or food stamps... My parents were too proud for that, both worked long hours to keep bills paid... They would work so long of hours, that me and my sister had to learn responsibility young. We got ourselves up for school and handled most of the household chores. (including cooking when we got old enough... about 12-13) I often lived in some shady trailer parks in small town Alabama... definitely some white trash places full of questionable motives.
One day when I was about 7, the sole of my shoes started coming loose, soon it got so bad that I let my parents know... my mom said I would have to wait until she could save up enough for a cheap pair, and that I might just need to use duck tape or something until then... My dad didn't like the idea of sending me off to school like that. We went to walmart and I got a cheapo pair of $10-15 shoes... that little bit of money spent on shoes wiped out our food budget, and we had to eat pinto beans every day for a week.
Did I or my family not deserve the same as everyone else? (At least within our capabilities anyway, we didn't do handouts)
Fortunately I am no longer in that situation, as I grew older, our lives improved, we managed to get into a house in a better neighborhood. I finished school and pursued well paying fields... and my mother is doing much better now. Finally got a decent paying job, and she is remarried to an engineer, they just built a real nice house as they approach retirement. She deserves it... she worked long hours sometimes two jobs and even attended college courses at night for a while.
Ok... end long tangent filled rant
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