What is it about white, male conservatives and guns?

[HardWorkingDem]

I just don't get it - this bizarre phallic attraction to firearms.

I own (inheritance, gifts, et cetera) probably more guns than most Americans, but am completely baffled about the bizarre attraction many of these nuts have toward guns. Yes, the craftsmanship of a firearm is amazing, but wow, the attraction some of these folks have toward guns is nothing more than insane.

[ZombieHorde]

1. Why do you think it is phallic?

Do people who love their yards have a bizarre phallic attraction to hoses?

[HardWorkingDem]

3. Don't know...but is it......

Have you ever noticed how lacking in masculinity some of these characters are? And I don't mean to insult feminists or imply a woman can't be tough. But look at the head of the NRA. He is a pasty, wimpy character. Or how about the nutjob on Hardball the other day or the pudgy fellow interviewed on a following day.

Are these "men" trying to make up for something in a different way or what? It's almost like guns are the extension for their missing maleness.

[GA_ArmyVet]

29. So do you think the same thing

of all the people of color who own guns, or is this just a white, male owns a gun so he must have a small penis stereotype rant, with no substantive facts or meaning?

[pecwae]

35. As the owner of a vast collection

you should be able to answer your questions for yourself. How do you excuse yourself from all the stereotypes, accusations and insults with which you've saturated fellow gun owners?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Its not phallic, but its a common slur

[paulsby]

9. exactly

the same people that would NEVER make such bigoted, unjustified and ridiculous comments about blacks, native americans, etc. feel free to espouse stupip stereotypies about white male conservatives. the phallic thing is just DUMB. it really is.

[HardWorkingDem]

14. Have you even watched some of these nuts on tv...or...

even been around them?

Obviously, you have never been around the hunting crowd or gun toting crowd.....

[paulsby]

17. wow, talk about an unfounded statement

1) i have been around the hunting crowd and have hunted myself. my buddy in hawaii hunted feral pigs with a knife. my buddy hunts deer and elk - and i get some sweet meat out of it. my best friend is a native american who gets hunting access to some of the best pristine hunting land in the state, due to an old treaty.

2) i "tote" a gun. i have carried concealed for over 20 years. i also carry openly as a requirement of my job.

3) i TEACH firearms use and deadly force law to police recruits.

yea, other than that i have never been around the hunting crowd or gun toting crowd...

[HardWorkingDem]

19. Did you see...

the guy interviewed by Matthews on Hardball? The guy who was carrying the firearm at an Obama appearance?

And I have been around the hunting culture my entire life. I have constantly seen fat, white, conservatives tote around guns like they are the last resort before Armageddon for years.

My question is what Howard Dean asked a few years ago......what is it with the strange affliction between white, male conservatives and guns?

Are these people so insecure that only a gun can make them complete?

[paulsby]

21. considering that you made,

unfounded assumptions about me and my personal experience, i don't know why i should feel obligated to respond to your question, but im a forgiving sort, so here it goes.

i don;'t think there is a "strange affliction" between white male conservatives and guns.

i am well aware that conservatives are more likely to support a (imo) correct reading of the 2nd amendment and i find it sad that many liberals are not on board respecting ALL of our civil rights, and ALL of the bill of the rights.

i don't think it has ANYTHING to do with insecurity or a gun making one complete, for the VAST majority of people who own guns, conservatives or otherwise.

i think a large part of why guys like the guy on hardball feel such a compelling need to openyl carry and make their point about guns is that they live in a society where the media specifically consistenyl promotes false stereotypes about gun owners. iow, they feel (correctly) that they are misunderstood, misrepresented and stereotyped.

this is my experience. let me give you one example. in sitcoms, tv dramas, etc. "normal" people do not carry guns, concealed or otherwise. in my day to day experiences, i deal with people all the time, who either own and.or carry concealed. but these people DO NOT exist EXCEPT as wackjobs in the media. up until the brady bunch, NO tv couple slept in the same bed. that was a misrepresentation fo reality.

guns are still pre brady bunch. look at the show frasier. frasier's dad is a retired seattle cop. retired cops often carry. did you EVER see frasiers dad strap a gun on his hip before heading out? of course not. he was a sympathetic character. media will simply NOT portray a NORMAL person carrying a gun. only law enforcement, criminals, secret agents, or normal people somehow placed in some sort of crazy situation will choose to carry a gun.

i was caught in that vacuum as well. grew up in a liberal east coast city, amongst liberals, etc. never saw people carrying guns, and people who carried guns were thought of as marginalized crazies by people 'in my circle'. when i joined the "real world" and saw people in different environ,ments, i realized the stereotypes were wrong.

ime "gun fetishists" are a piddly minority of gun owners. but yes, there is *some* affection for guns, as guns were the instruments that helped us wrest our freedom from the brits, defend against the nazis, aid in the expansion westward, and are just a part of our culture.

[HardWorkingDem]

22. Well......

I can only draw a conclusion from the people who put themselves out there in the open.

Frankly, in my experience, there are about only two or three people who carry firearms on a regular basis: the larges majority being cops and the others being those so insecure they shriek when hearing a loud bang.

Though don't get me wrong, I believe the 2nd Amendment is quite clear and I believe we all have a right to protect ourselves.

My original point goes back to what is it with the bizarre fixation with white, male conservatives and guns. If you look at victimization in America, white, male conservatives is the one group of least victimization, but seem to be the largest crowd in fear of needing to carry a firearm. If this is not an irrational fear, then I don't know what one is.

[Zavulon]

26. Are you so insecure that only stereotyping others can make YOU complete?

[Zavulon]

25. As is the original question and the author's

stereotyping of gun owners as not being masculine enough for his taste. This is one of the most ignorant threads I've ever seen, and that includes those started by trolls.

[Historic NY]

2. tiny penis's a gun makes them feel potent.

[subcomhd]

4. HMM

I had the barrel of one of my shotguns shortened. I guess I'm compensating for a giant......

[Kitty Herder]

6. LOL

[Kitty Herder]

7. I think it's about having power over others

White male conservatives have lost a little bit of their unearned privilege and power over others and they feel frightened and insecure about that. They think they are entitled to be the most powerful in the society and as they see tiny bits of that entitlement slipping away, they compensate with guns. A person waving a gun has almost total power over those being threatened with it.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

8. Since they haven't been waving them, who do they have power over?

[subcomhd]

10. Waving, maybe not

but they have been displaying them in legal but highly irresponsible ways.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

15. Just trying to be precise about the behavior.

[Kitty Herder]

12. It's about knowing they always have the potential to do so. Another thing...

There are lots of people with legitimate gripes against conservative white males and they know it. So I think they have this fear of those they have oppressed fighting back. They needn't worry. The state will always protect their interests first and foremost. But the fear is still there, so they arm themselves.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

13. Given the amount of violent crime in the US, their fear may be appropriate.

Given the average police response, their firearm possession may be advised.

[Kitty Herder]

18. I'm all for self-defense.

What I'm pointing out is why white men may be more paranoid than most. They've pissed everybody else off.

[Vickers]

11. I'm a white male liberal with guns.

Go figure.



P.S. I'm watching "Bullitt" right now.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. I am a mixed race mildly gender bent male with a lot of guns

Some are my late wife's which I am passing on to our daughters.

[mwb970]

31. I am a white male liberal who has never owned a gun.

And I hate "24". Go figure.

[safeinOhio]

16. Didn't Freud once say

"sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

23. Then there is this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlzoL-wQwio

African American blazing away in traffic

[Zavulon]

24. I'm white and male and I love guns, too.

What is it about white males with guns that bothers you so? It's not just conservatives, it's not just whites, and it's not just males, but you've got your own little view of the world and it's as prejudicial as a lot of things I hear from the most mindless rednecks I know. Disturbing, insulting, ignorant...

You know what? Don't answer. After reading your original question, I know your answer wouldn't interest me in the slightest.

[Lagomorph]

27. Zombies

Going out and blasting away hundreds or thousands of rounds is something only the young or foolish do. Most of those guys can't shoot worth a damn and don't go anywhere near shooting ranges, where they would be ripped to pieces for safety violations.

More than a few of us had to use guns, as a tool, during military service. We secretly admit to ourselves that the only useful thing we learned in the military is how not to hurt ourselves when handling guns. After we admit we only LOOKED badass in the military, some of us choose to actually learn how to shoot, while others, with far more common sense, walk away from the discipline forever. With sniper slots not being easy to get (you actually have to be able to shoot just to get a sniper slot) many of us have to wait until we get out.

Once we've given up on anything that actually requires coordination, reflexes, superior intellect or regular exercise, and we've been laughed out of a MENSA meeting, we fall back on the sport where we can just sit or lay down and spend hours looking like we're doing something badass, after we've recovered from our rugby injuries, climbing accidents, motorcycle wrecks or whatever else convinced us to give up on real, high speed, sports.

For those of us who indulge in the sport, we have great fun arguing about 9mm vs .45, HK vs Colt and M-16 vs AK. All of this requires learning vast amounts of otherwise utterly useless information about ballistics, chemistry, metallurgy, plastics, thermal properties... those engineering classes in college gotta go somewhere...

You have to know the differences between Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Romanian, Polish, Yugoslavian, Bulgarian, Iraqi, Egyptian and American AK's, as well as the rate of fire for each variant. Knowing all the different calibers, bullet weights and manufactures of military ammo and the kind of wood used in their stocks is worth bonus points. It goes on from there to the type of finish on the wood, parkerized or blued, chrome or chrome-moly...

You must be able name every gun used in the movie "Heat" and who used them. Not just by manufacturer, but the specific model and variant of each and every one, shotguns, rifles and handguns.

Shooting is something you get better at, the more you do it. You try and try, year after year, to win the holy grail of putting two bullets through one hole at 100 yards, then 200 yards and on and on. Eventually you go for 1000 yards, so when you watch movies, you can ridicule the actors for their poor technique with credibility.

All of this is done for one of two reasons...

It distracts the guys who can't stop talking about cars, or, so you can get somebody else to buy the beer on boys night out.

Actually going out and shooting something is an entirely different discipline called "Hunting". There is some overlap, more in the rural areas, than in the cities or suburbs. Personally I think it's kinda weird, what with Albertson's across the street.

I can do this whole conversation, all over again, about baseball, football, basketball, fishing, cars, bikes, climbing gear, airplanes and BBQ...

Now, my wife either owns, or can name, every kind and color of silk used in cross-stitching, from every country on every continent. See has a vast database of addresses for silk shops all over the world, where she can buy silk by the strand.

She can speak endlessly about fabric, needles, patterns, magnifying optics and other strange and exotic cross-stitching tools. She can reverse engineer a 200 year-old antique sampler and make her own pattern, stitch the piece with custom ordered silk to match the original type and colors, and then lock it away in her stash, never to see daylight again, except at highly secret cross-stitch meetings were us males are looked on with suspicion, or mercilessly ridiculed for being male and thus, hopelessly stupid, but occasionally amusing. And she doesn't even own a sewing machine.

[Caliman73]

28. A few questions...

You own more guns than most Americans by your own admission, yet you are questioning/insulting the ownership of guns by white male conservatives. Normally I don't really care about White conservative males being questioned/insulted, having been pressured endlessly to accept the White conservative Male based "American" ideal in order to be considered a true American, which most White conservative Males would probably never accept anyway because I am a liberal male, am darker, speak Spanish, and have a Latino surname. So, I have my own issues with White Conservative Males....However I find your post curious. Here are my questions:

What about Black or other minority conservative males who own and like guns...are they insane too? More? Less?

What about liberal/progressive White males?

Minority males? Women?

Why do only White male conservatives have a "bizarre phallic attraction" to firearms, or is it not only them? If not who else?


What differentiates You, who own more guns than most Americans, from White male conservative gun owners? Are you saying that your larger than average collection of firearms is sane while a White conservative male owning maybe 1 or 2, maybe say up to 5 guns is insane? If so, why?

[Kickin_Donkey]

30. It's not just conservatives ...

Even on this supposedly liberal board, there's a bunch of gun nut wankers. And you wankers know who you are -- you have to pull your shiny piece out at the slightest instance of mostly imagined provocation.

[1]

32. not what you think at all, and if you don't know? you'll never know...

i would feel so sorry about myself if i were you.

and so happy that i am not...

[DU GrovelBot]

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[pipoman]

34. 80,000,000 gun owners in the US

men, women, white, black, hispanic, native american, asian...you are an idiot if you believe this stupid shit and a bigoted idiot if you espouse it publicly.

edit...Oh, and IIRC it is a violation of DU rules to make idiotic phallic comparisons on this issue?

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Locking

The language of the opening post is acting as flamebait.