ZakCarter
07-14-2014, 03:39 PM
"Last month, I did something I’d done only once before: I went to a range and shot some guns. Lots of guns. All shapes, ages and sizes.
This is a very strange thing to do for a guy born British. Guns feature nowhere in British culture.
Accordingly, I was unsurprised by the reaction of my mother when I called home and told her that I’d had a great time learning about firearms and discovering I wasn’t a bad shot, even with a second-world-war Enfield. “That’s the last thing I’d ever imagine you’d enjoy doing,” she said to me. She wasn’t being judgmental: it was an expression of genuine surprise.
“That’s because you just can’t imagine why nice or normal people would enjoy guns … because you don’t know any… no Brits know any,” I replied.
Mom thoughtfully agreed.
Many decent people who have no interest in guns simply can’t imagine what it must be like to be someone who is passionate about something whose primary purpose is to kill people. Although the gun debate is waged using words, logic and fact (to different ends by both sides of course), the arguments constructed using these three tools are not what brings people to their pro or anti-gun position. Rather, most people are emotionally or intuitively committed to a position first, and deploy these tools retroactively in defense of their position. Despite what we like to think, we most, if not all, of our political views this way. Studies show, time and time again, that David Hume was right, when claimed,
And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles."
Read the rest of the article at - http://benswann.com/your-problem-with-guns-or-gays-is-not-political/
This is a very strange thing to do for a guy born British. Guns feature nowhere in British culture.
Accordingly, I was unsurprised by the reaction of my mother when I called home and told her that I’d had a great time learning about firearms and discovering I wasn’t a bad shot, even with a second-world-war Enfield. “That’s the last thing I’d ever imagine you’d enjoy doing,” she said to me. She wasn’t being judgmental: it was an expression of genuine surprise.
“That’s because you just can’t imagine why nice or normal people would enjoy guns … because you don’t know any… no Brits know any,” I replied.
Mom thoughtfully agreed.
Many decent people who have no interest in guns simply can’t imagine what it must be like to be someone who is passionate about something whose primary purpose is to kill people. Although the gun debate is waged using words, logic and fact (to different ends by both sides of course), the arguments constructed using these three tools are not what brings people to their pro or anti-gun position. Rather, most people are emotionally or intuitively committed to a position first, and deploy these tools retroactively in defense of their position. Despite what we like to think, we most, if not all, of our political views this way. Studies show, time and time again, that David Hume was right, when claimed,
And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles."
Read the rest of the article at - http://benswann.com/your-problem-with-guns-or-gays-is-not-political/