…is the title of UD’s latest post at Inside Higher Education. (If it isn’t up yet, it’ll be up shortly.) All of her gun-related posts – including one later today, after she returns from her visit to the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Virginia – will appear at IHE. I will update readers here, as each new IHE post goes up. And remember that on your right … over there… see? … there’s an automatically updated list of my IHE posts — just click on the titles.
Off I go.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:40AM
I can’t believe this: you’re going all touchy-feely on us, heading for the vicarious experience of being around gun owners, a Second Amendment equivalent of The Tunnel of Oppression. If you buy one of the plush guns that the NRA sells in its gift shop (on the shelf with NRA Barbie and "Make My Day" Elmo), your reputation for being a hard-nosed, cynical academic is just plain shot.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:55AM
Chuckle. You don’t have to take the Metro. Just look up Bob Cottrol in your college of law. Published Second Amendment scholar, gun collector (he loves the British Enfields).
June 6th, 2008 at 12:43PM
The Tunnel of Oppression! Right down the street from the Roller Coaster of Racism.
We could chip in and buy UD her own .30-06
June 6th, 2008 at 1:08PM
good for you. i don’t know where you stand on self-defense, but as a scientist whose job it is to be wrong almost every day, i like to see people demonstrating a little bit of maturity and overcoming their ignorance, however meager it may be.
particularly when their peers behave like pack animals.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:23PM
Good for you! I commend your willingness to overcome peer pressure, and personally investigate the use of the OTHER tool specifically protected by the Constitution. (As an academic, you are of course familiar with the first, the printing press.) Those wacky Founders, actually putting the power of life and death in the hands of mere citizens! They must have been spending too much time in Washington’s hemp field. What were they thinking?
Eric S. Raymond explains, in his outstanding essay, "Ethics From the Barrel of a Gun", by way of four crucial lessons to be learned at the range:
* It all comes down to you.
* Never count on being able to undo your choices.
* The universe doesn’t care about motives.
* Right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgment of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.
He continues:
"Too many of us have come to believe ourselves incapable of [responsibly arming ourselves]. We fall prey to the sick belief that we are all psychopaths or incompetents under the skin. We have been taught to imagine ourselves armed only as villains….
"To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is…to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from “the dignity of a free man” would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important."
Read the whole thing.
Also of interest to those making their first trip to the range:
* The Tao of Gun;
* A Human Right;
* For balance, "Forty Reasons to Ban Guns. Heh.
* And my own Compensation. Heh heh heh.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:09PM
I think UD’s next field assignment should be to go to a Student Affairs conference, as this student-reporter from Duke did not long ago. (IHE can pick up the tab…
June 7th, 2008 at 12:15AM
I watched you on PBS after being directed here from Arms and the Law.
On your trip to the range you will need eye and ear protection.
Start out small, .22 calibre pistol or revolver, your instructor will explain the difference.
Even these diminutive guns hold a lot of power most easily controlled. Then move on to 9mm .38 and .357. Neophytes tend to fear at their great power when exposed too soon.
The most important thing you will learn is that all guns are always loaded treat them as such. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire. Never ever let the muzzle of your weapon cross anything you do not wish to destroy. And always maintain control of your weapon. Ladies please wear a blouse or shirt that can button to the neck – there is nothing worse than a ’spent shell’ or empty case finding its way inside a blouse then lodged in a bra. They frequently are very hot and can blister on contact with skin. Jumping around with a loaded gun in your hand trying to retrieve that pesky case may scare the life out of your range mates.
You are taking on a huge responsibility in more ways than one. The power of firearms can be controlled, not so much so the likely disdain of your peers.
Congratulations however for you may become one of us – your neck will turn red, your IQ may decline to double digits and you might whistle through a tooth. But you will be free like you never thought possible.
June 16th, 2008 at 4:19PM
[...] pro-gun-control English professor is off to the range, specifically to educate herself about [...]