This is true! I don't like how the designs feel* in my hand, but they're beautiful to look at.

(* the M1911 being an exception, for some reason. Too bangy for my tastes for a regular shooter but damn if it doesn't feel nice in the hand.)

>Heh, you say that, and then the first German sports car I think of is
>the Audi R8, with those ridiculous Christmas lights around the
>headlights. :) But I take your point.

Well, I was thinking more like the Audi A6... :)

>
>Well, there's no need to keep you in suspense; I wasn't deliberately
>trying to be coy. It's the Hi-Power (aka P35, GP35, L9A1, Inglis Mk
>I, etc.).

Ha! I had said to myself "I bet it's a Hi-Power", and bam. :)

Which, I mean, look, it's like *the* gun people think of when you say "Browning". Even if the M1911 is more popular, most folks think that's "Colt", not "Browning".

Looking forward to it. The Hi-Power is one of the ones that do fit my hand properly (and the last one I fired was a joy, responsive and accurate), but I don't particularly find them visually appealing. They're not ugly, they're just in the "meh" category for me, appearance-wise.

>OK, fair warning, all—this gets into the politics and/or psychology
>of firearms ownership and whatnot, more than I usually tend to do
>around here, 'cause if you've been paying any attention to the news
>out of the USA lately you'll know that this is a Big Ole Can of Worms.
> But I did offer, so here goes.

I like to think we can have a discussion round these parts without dipping into said can.

As long as you keep your crypto-lesbian subtext out of it, I mean. :)

>I got my concealed firearms license in 2003 or 4, while I was working
>at the newspaper here in the little (at the time in the process of
>becoming-)ex-mill town in Maine where I live. I did this for a number
>of reasons.
>
>One was, well, just because I could; I had recently come back
>from a 10-year stretch living in Massachusetts and California, two of
>the harder states in the Union to be a civilian shooter in, and it was
>a novelty to be back in a place where that kind of thing isn't
>automatically regarded with Official Suspicion.

Whereas my shooting career (so to speak) began in Arizona and continued in Utah and Washington, all of which are ... let's say they're on the friendly side.

Arizona especially. I mean, wow. The TLDR version is haha-not-really-joking summed up as "If you can carry it, you can carry it." Concealed carry is fairly well-regulated there, but there wasn't much in the way of limits* on open-carry items.

(* while I was living there, anyway; presumably it's changed but I suspect it hasn't changed much)

>All this kind of came to a head with the paper when my then-editor
>managed to piss off both the Town Council and the leadership of
>the (then not-quite-defunct) paper mill's biggest union, and through
>them a fairly large percentage of the town's aforementioned
>strapped-and-desperate contingent—this was more to do with his raw
>personal charisma than his reportage, but nevertheless, we started
>getting threatening notes at the office, and a couple of folks told
>Mr. Editor that "you and your people" should, I believe the phrase
>was, "watch yourselves after dark."

This sounds like a story! And, to steal a phrase, you magnificent bastard, I read your book! ... I don't think this was in it, though. :)

>Anyway. Long-winded setup, but I think the details are probably
>important here. At any rate, I carried the Hammerless fairly
>regularly for the rest of my time on the paper, and a couple of years
>after it folded (er, as it were)... and then one day, when I came home
>and took it off, I looked at it and I just thought,
>
>What the fuck am I doing? Seriously?

Without intending to suggest that one is inherently right or wrong (carry vs. non-carry), I really wish more owners would ask themselves this. Even if I don't personally agree with their decision (whichever way they go), I would feel better about it if I knew they'd thought about it this deeply.

(More on this later.)

>I have zero philosophical or Constitutional problems
>with the idea that a person ought to have to demonstrate a baseline
>level of competence and... what would you call it, societal
>trustworthiness... before he or she can hide a device enabling lethal
>action at a distance upon his or her person and walk around in public.
> In fact, I think it's quite a good idea.

I think this, in broad strokes, is what a CCW permit is supposed to entail. Some jurisdictions do it better than others. The ... debate is too nice a word, but the debate surrounding guns, in the US at least, seems to me to ignore, or at best marginalize, the folks who choose to carry responsibly in this fashion. All you hear about are either the nuts yammering about full-auto or the headcases who shoot up public places. Or the jerks who want to Make A Statement and open-carry everywhere.

(I'm a bit bitter about that last group in particular because there's been a spate of them in my area recently, taunting the cops and swinging their dicks around. I'm not pro-police, I'm pro-don't-be-a-dick.)

Makes it really hard to enjoy a hobby.

>No, basically what changed was, I did a realistic re-evaluation of my
>own capabilities—what I know about how I respond to stress, my level
>of training, and whatnot—and decided that I'm not
>sufficiently competent to be doing that.

Just for having done that, I'd be more comfortable with you carrying than with a lot of folks. (My opinion and a buck-fiddy will get you a cup of coffee, but for what it's worth and all.)

>But, well, me in a gunfight? Forget about it. So there's no point,
>because that's the only reason, besides pigheadedness, that a
>private citizen would carry a concealed handgun: in case the stars
>align in such a way that he or she has the misfortune to find him or
>herself involved in a gunfight. It's the old Good Guy with a Gun
>premise and, unlike a lot of the rhetoric, most of the time I believe
>it's sincerely meant when people espouse it.

I think you're right that it's sincere, but I get the feeling that most have not done the sort of rational self-analysis you describe above. Which is unfortunate.

For me, I've taught rifle safety and been a surrogate rangemaster I dunno how many times. As kinda hinted at with the family history, there's a lot of experience there that I was able to draw on when I was learning how to use firearms. And for some damfool reason, both my wife and I seem to have a knack for being on-scene in crisis situations. In the past year alone, one or both of us have been there, or first responders to: an old dude getting the crap beaten out of him by a punk with a skateboard, a gas station robbery (with shots fired), a three-car pileup with injuries where I ended up directing traffic until the cops got there (and then after, when the cop determined he was too busy and I was unlikely to get myself run over, gee, thanks), and I dunno how many other minor incidents. It's a curse, I swear.

And in the past, back in my Misspent Youth, I've had guns pulled on me twice and been shot at once. It's not fun.

Anyway! Point is, I know how I react in stress situations, and I'm safe with firearms; I have no doubt that I could carry safely. But I don't think I should.

From what I've seen... guns rarely de-escalate a situation. I think it's usually the opposite, in fact. I get the impression that a lot -- maybe not most, definitely not all, but a goodly chunk -- of CCW holders carry because they see themselves as the heroic type. "If bad shit happens, I can be prepared!" (to save the day).

That's a wonderful thing for fiction, but it doesn't translate to the real world all that well.

I guess what it is, is that when such a situation arises, I'm hoping the CCW person is thinking "Damn, I hope no one gets hurt" rather than "Damn, I better drop that bad guy". (Or worse: "Finally! Here's my chance!")

And I don't know which I'd be. I know which I'd rather be! ... but I don't know, and don't want to run the risk of finding out it's the wrong one.

--sofaspud
--