I asked some questions last week & I got a few answers.
All but two folks who answered my questions are in Cali. The exceptions are a gent from Massachusetts & another fellow who works in D.C. but lives in Virginia.
I still don't get it. What I was really hoping for is someone who lives in a gun-unfriendly state who is cool with the gun laws there to tell me why he's cool with it & why he reads rkba sites. Barring that I was also curious as to why folks stayed some place where they suffer such legal prejudice.
The reasons some folks gave for staying were what I expected. That's home to them & they don't want to abandon it. They'd rather stay & try to fight & make things better. Then there's the familial obligation thing. For one he thinks it's a choice between moving out from his wife (to escape to a gun friendly state) or trying to make things better if possible where he is. There's also financial concern. One reply was that he'd love to move & if he was offered a similar job in a gun friendly state he'd move. & while one fellow did try to point out that Cali's laws were stupid but not overly burdensome it wasn't quite close enough to the acceptence of gun control I was hoping to find out about.
So any more readers willing to tell me why they live in states that are not friendly (even downright hostile) to gun owners?
Posted by Publicola at November 15, 2005 04:57 AM | TrackBackWell, I live in Texas, not known for being a place unfriendly to gun owners or guns, but there are quite a few silly gun laws even in Texas.
What we do, mostly, is just ignore the hell out of them, then bitch a lot when we get caught. I bet that's what they do in other places, too.
Posted by: jdallen at November 15, 2005 07:05 AMI live in Minnesota, the state that gave the US Senate Paul Wellstone. It's a notoriously liberal state, yet has strangely dichotomous (almost bipolar) sets of attitudes. From the GFW's in the Twin Cities to the camo-clad gun-toters in the sticks, we span the range of attitudes. Minnesota just recently passed a version of a "shall-issue" CCW permit system, despite the fevered warnings of shoot-outs at every traffic accident, so possibly we're not as hostile to gun ownership as I thought. Yet, should anyone use (or even display) a firearm in self-defense, it is the stated policy of the Minneapolis PD to "arrest the gun", regardless of circumstance.
Why do I live here, as opposed to, say, Idaho? I could claim several reasons, including proximity to the family and friends of my wife and myself (an essential support structure), a variety of seasons in our climate, the physical beauty of parts of the state, and the fact that both my wife and I have jobs that would be essentially impossible to duplicate in either income or intangible rewards in any other locale.
But in all honesty, I believe that I'm still willing to put up with the nonesense simply because it's still too comfortable, and I'm too lazy. Too comfortable, because the "costs" of compliance with the various and sundry laws and regulations have not yet outweighed the benefits of staying. Too lazy, because changing course at this point in time would actually take an effort. It's SO much easier to just keep doing what you're doing, rather than get up off my butt.
I think that if people were honest with themselves that they would probably realize that a lot of the "reasons" for staying in a state with a true antipathy towards firearms are very similar.
Posted by: Blackwing1 at November 15, 2005 12:17 PMPublicola:
"So any more readers willing to tell me why they live in states that are not friendly (even downright hostile) to gun owners?"
I'd be more interested to learn why gun manufacturers set up shop or stay in states that are so politically hostile to what they make.
The jobs would be better-suited to friendlier regions.
Regards;
Posted by: Bilgeman at November 15, 2005 06:39 PMI must be one of the people you're referring to as I live in NJ and visit your site regularly. Long story short, I'm from NYC and my family is still in that area. While my job is in NJ, and I could theoretically move to PA and commute, I'm spoiled and don't want to trade a 15 minute commute for an hour or more. Call me crazy (or lazy) if you will.
Honestly, I was never really into firearms for most of my life. I had been on my highschool's very unoffical rifle team for a few months and had the obligatory boy scout trip with some .22 shooting but never felt the need to own one of my own.
Like so many others, 9/11 modified some of my thought processes. No I can't easily purchase an eviiil assault rifle in NJ (need a special license per black rifle), but even here they can't gather enough support to totally abolish firearms.
Isn't it funny how your honest question caused me to defend my decision to stay here...
Posted by: Will at November 18, 2005 03:39 PMOh! Great looking Garand btw.
Posted by: Will at November 18, 2005 03:42 PMI don't fit your bill so I won't bother to answer your question with information you aren't seeking.
I will state for the record, however, that I suspect the reason for your failure to attain responses from the demographic you are seeking is that there are very few creatures around who fit your bill.
Those who suffer from sheeplike acceptance of bad policy rarely voluntarily expose themselves to opinions/evidence that would make them "feel bad" about themselves. On some subliminal level I am sure that they are aware that they are idiots for supporting such "feel good" ineffective gun control schemes, but you will not find them readily admitting such and you will not find them perusing your type of web site which might just cause them to begin questioning their beliefs and support for such obviously bad policy on a fundamental level.
Basically, they don't want to hear it; so, they avoid reading RKBA web sites.
Sailorcurt
aka Captain of a Crew of One