The truth as I feel it tonight

DannyinJapan

DannyinJapan

Joined
Oct 9, 2003
Messages
5,594
All this talk about guns stirred something in me tonight and it all came out, like some strange epiphany and I saw myself in a clear way as I never have before.
I am a martial artist living in Japan, but I was born in Texas and got my first gun before I finished elementary school. OVer the years I have owned and trained with dozens of firearms. I studied them in every possible way. I shot them, took them apart, read about them, modified them, cleaned them, you name it, I knew it.
I was a small arms expert in high school. I was missing something, though, and I never really understood it until now. I wasn't afraid of guns.
I'm not saying you need to avoid guns or be scared of them to the point that you refuse to have them in your house, but there is a kind of fear that you need to have. You need to understand the sheer horror that guns can create.
Horror is what happens when you, the gun expert, accidentally shoot your own mother one night. It didn't happen, thank God, but it nearly did. The bullet went into the piano.

You don't want horror. You might think you do, that you are tough and you can handle it, but you don't. You cant. You don't have any idea what horror is and I hope you never do. Cops and soldiers kill people legally, justifiably even honorably, but it's still horror. They are still sick inside form the horror.

Once upon a time my uncle pulled strings and got me on the fast track to a career in the F.B.I. I aced the entrance exams and got my letter to take the secondary exams. When I went to that meeting, I watched these videos about various dangerous situations, etc.. The agents in the room all glowed with this excitement talking about shooting these banks robbers. I knew right then my dream career wasn't for me. I like guns. I like fighting stuff. But I don't want kill anybody.

My uncle asked me later on why I didnt fill out the secondary app (background stuff) and go back for the second interview. (I got a little emotional.) I said "Uncle Phillip, I dont want kill anybody, but they do...they do..."
His demeanor changed completely and he said "I know, I know. It's ok." And he never brought it up again.

Don't take this as an attack on the FBI, I deeply appreciate the fact that they keep the mafia from eating our nation entirely as it has done to Japan and Italy.

I guess you can fool yourself for a long, long time about who you are and what you want, but it just wont last forever. I love the martial arts, but I dont want to kill anybody. I like guns (I have owned dozens) but I don't want to kill anybody, not even in self defense. I hope everybody here buys guns and keeps their 2nd amendment rights alive, but I pray that you all have a healthy amount of fear for guns. They can create horror in a tiny moment, and you don't want horror.

Foolish children create horror. Horror creates monsters.
Remember: Every gun is loaded and it's never really pointed in a safe direction.
Call it respect, whatever you like, but never ever let your guard down.
 
DannyinJapan said:
I pray that you all have a healthy amount of fear for guns.
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Guns have made it to #3 on my list of high-speed horror producing equipment. #1: Saws of any description that have motors attached. #2: Motor vehicles. Only my guns are kept behind a combination lock, oddly enough.
 
Thank you, Danny.

I remember a thread that was starting to talk about the potential effects of this or that weapon on a human target ... where Sarge spoke up briefly, saying "We all know what weapons do." Effectively shut that tangent of the discussion down, with the gravity of a man who's seen and lives with the horror.

I'd hate to have to kill someone too, and wouldn't willingly take up a career where it was a potential bit of the job. I would take up such a career, if the threat was large enough (think WWII), but with fear and loathing. Not an endorphin rush.

t.
 
Danny,
Many who THINK they would do fine in a shooting find out afterward that it is a terrible thing to take a life. Sometimes necassary but terrible none the less. I have trained to inflict injury in self defense but I pray I will never be forced to harm anyone.
I teach my children that guns, knives and any tool can be used for good or bad and I teach them the consequences of misuse/carelessness. Respect keeps us safe from ourselves.
Bill
 
People with sick minds create horror.

Sometimes they use guns.

Sometimes they use aircraft.

Sometimes they use national policy.

You did have a friend get murdered with a pistol, Dan. The bodyguard at that concert. That brings reality home. But the pistol didn't kill him, the scumb_g lunatic's intent to do mindless harm did.

I don't fear guns, I fear the evil that resides in mentally sick people. And the fact there are so many of them out there.

All you can do is protect what you love in the world. And that protection, ironically, can come from that exact same pistol.


Mike
 
When I 'found' firearms, I'd come from a liberal background, and guns were bad.
Firearms are to be feared and respected. They impart a responsibility that can never be forgot. Martial arts probably do that too.

Almost all of us who can kill a person, wont. That's a good thing. We're the last who will brandish a weapon, threaten, or look for trouble. Once you know your firearm, you have no interest in pulling it unless life is in danger.

Criminals fear armed citizens because even Aunt Bea can shoot Bubba. That's a great thing.



munk
 
"Horror"......

IMO, too strong a word to use in the context of firearms.

"Respect", more applicable, IMO.

I handle, carry and shoot guns just about every day. I don't want to kill anybody, either accidentally or purposely. But, again IMO, "horror" is over the top.

When I lived in Germany I found that my attitude towards guns and gun ownership, while still positive, was blunted somewhat because of the company I kept and the expectations of those around me. I couldn't talk about guns or shooting without getting the young German pacifist line.

Humans need tools, and humans need weapons, just as we always have. They are a part of us and have helped us be what we are.

My daughter is a fencer, but told me the other day that she is "anti-violence, anti-gun, anti-weapon". She has successfully sublimated the history of the sport she partakes of, and turned an honorable and age-old skill into a passtime. What once was of life-and-death importance has become a four-hour-a-week opportunity to sweat for a pacifist 16 year old.

IMO, a futile attempt to sever humanity from reality.

Most of us live artificially safe lives today. That could change in a heartbeat. Better not to become so afraid of our own shadows that we forget how to be violent ourselves.

Andy
 
I don't feel horrible at the thought of killing someone while under orders or in self-defense...I was brought up with the concept of righteous war, and have been a hunter for years. I'm used to killing things, though hopefully not wastefully or for spite.

at the same time, I look sadly at some of the guys- the elite, even- in our camp, who were eager for the weather to warm "so we can go kill guys". Boring is good, in a war zone.

John
 
Well, I'd hate to have to kill someone, or even to see someone killed with a firearm. (My dad saved my mother the horror of seeing it recently, but you could see in his eyes, and hear in his voice that it was horrible.)

I wish I could say, as John did, that I wouldn't feel horrible if I had to do it, but truth is that I don't know what I'd feel. I can say I'd feel duty to do it if someone were threatening my girls with a weapon. But as to how prepared I'd be for the aftermath, I don't know.

I know my dad's voice was full of panic, terror, sadness, and horror when he called me after seeing my grandad. A .308 causes horror. This I know. (I inherited that gun, btw.)
 
It is great that aunt Bee can protect herself against a 300 lb badass but the down side of that is evil is not confined to the strong, more often it is found in the weak. I've met a few people who I was not the least bit afraid of but would be terrified to see with a gun. Dont get me wrong (despite my location) I am not anti-gun per say. Nor am I in favor of american style proliferation of firearms. I dont mean that I think the US should have less guns, I mean to say that I would not like to see Canada in a similar situation They really are different countries despite what some people say, and while I am in favor of your second ammendment, I don't belive we need an equivilant up here.

I guess the thing that scares me about guns is how easy they make it to kill, I guess that is the way of progress though, back when we were cave men if you wanted to kill someone you had to hit him over the head with a rock, not much chance of accidently killing a bystander there.

I guess familiarity breeds contempt, the more I study martial arts the more I find myself abhoring violence and the less fights I get into, none in years now. Maybe someday I'll be as good as Danny,, but even now one of my gretest fears is that I will someday have to kill someone.
 
Well, the 'easy availability to death' theory took a beating in Canada when handguns were severely limited. They'd been blamed for Canada's high teen and young adult suicide rates. When the arms became restricted, leaping suicides, if you'll excuse the expression, 'climbed' upwards.

Physically weak psychopaths will find a tool to dominate others with. In the US states with 'shall issue' concealed carry laws, violent crime rates consistantly go down, even during times when nationally they were on the rise.

Physicaly weak individuals often seek unarmed situations to do their 15 minutes of infamous fame. School shooters know the school is unarmed. Car jackers know cars are unarmed in California. Men rape women who are generally weaker; Sam Colt equalizes this gross imbalance.


munk
 
The US is the land of living dangerously. People drive cars instead of public transportation risking car wrecks. People eat, smoke, and drink their way to major health crisises. Way it's always been.:rolleyes:
 
I agree with pretty much everything you say there Munk. I guess what I really mean is I am glad I live somewhere that my safty and the safty of those I love does not depend on me carrying a gun. I have been to places where I have had to carry guns for protection from wild life of the four and two legged kind, I didn't enjoy it but it was definatly necisary. I am just glad I dont live in any of those places.
 
the greater majority, in the states where concealed carry is legal, and/or encouraged, do not carry or need to carry. just the possibility that they are shifts the fear to the criminal who must always think that the victim may be armed, unlike in some where they know only the criminals are likely to be armed. liberal anti-gun activists refuse to accept that in such carry states that the crime rate is going down, obviously this goes against their emotions, so it must be the govt. and nra lying to the 'people' rather than the perps hauling their butts out to a more lliberal state.
 
DannyinJapan said:
You don't want horror. You might think you do, that you are tough and you can handle it, but you don't. You cant. You don't have any idea what horror is and I hope you never do. Cops and soldiers kill people legally, justifiably even honorably, but it's still horror. They are still sick inside form the horror.


I guess you can fool yourself for a long, long time about who you are and what you want, but it just wont last forever. I love the martial arts, but I dont want to kill anybody. I like guns (I have owned dozens) but I don't want to kill anybody, not even in self defense. I hope everybody here buys guns and keeps their 2nd amendment rights alive, but I pray that you all have a healthy amount of fear for guns. They can create horror in a tiny moment, and you don't want horror.

.
Click to expand...

Real wisdom here, troops.......I still see the faces....................
 
Just to try and bring this back closer to, I think, what Danny started with ...

Horror is far from easy to live with. A friend was a paramedic for a dozen years, 'till she got tired of scraping testosterone-laden kids off the lamp posts they'd wrapped their motorbikes around. Another friend (an internet friend, this time) flew helicopters in Vietnam ... but had his most horrifying experiences in Iran during their revolution.

He said that the crowds looked for people suspected of being informants to the Shah's secret police, and quite literally tore them to pieces. He and his buddies were on the run in Iran for some months, knowing what would likely happen if they were found. It's hard, he said, to hide in a country of 5'9" brown skinned folks when you're 6'1" and fair.

The horror's not left him yet.
 
Danny in Japan said - "I was a small arms expert in high school. I was missing something, though, and I never really understood it until now. I wasn't afraid of guns."

Fear enters my heart when I think of my 16 year old daughter beginning to drive..... and I ain't kidding, here.

Andy
 
Danny in Japan said - "Remember: Every gun is loaded and it's never really pointed in a safe direction.
Call it respect, whatever you like, but never ever let your guard down."

I'll take this part.

Andy
 
DannyinJapan said:
The agents in the room all glowed with this excitement talking about shooting these banks robbers. ...

I said "Uncle Phillip, I dont want kill anybody, but they do...they do..."
.
Click to expand...

Yes, the guns that cops and members of the FBI strap on each day are not just for looks.
And the target practice is not just to pass a marksmanship test.
You got to be willing to shoot people every single day, or you are just no good to hire.

Being able to strap on a weapon, and drive to a job where the day's challenge may bring your shooting skills into play is not for everyone.

We have a family member now in Iraq.
The 20 year old kid drives a truck in the streets , driveing right behind houses, point-blank , nose to nose with the unknown.

He has told me and other members of our family that he cant wait to catch someone causeing trouble for him or his team members.

Thats they attitude you got to have.
You have to be more that willing to face the challenge.
 
You have to be more that willing to face the challenge
Click to expand...

Friend, I'd say you have to be willing, but I don't like being around those who are eager. :(

I reckon I was eager at 19. I was in my first year of college, after having been talked out of enlisting, when Gulf I went down. I was so pissed that a war was going on, and I wasn't there!

I didn't miss this one, but only because I felt it was my duty, not because I was eager to get into the fray. I ain't eager to have even the worst sorts in my sights. I think of it about like taking out the trash. I'm not real keen on it, but it has to be done.

John
 
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