If I had to pick a German-made performance car and money was no object, I'd probably go looking for a late-production Porsche 928. Or possibly a... I've forgotten what they're called, the less showy-offy replacement for the AMG SLS. The 928 is a handsome beast. Nicely understated.

>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".

If you're talking about handguns, most likely. Longarms fanciers will probably think of the Auto-5 shotgun first.

>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.

Well, it partially depends on which Hi-Power you're talking about; there have been a lot of variations. The latter-day attempts to Tactical It Up with synthetic grips and whatnot are all a bit sad, but the original version has a certain chunky elegance to it. I particularly like the "shoulder" toward the front of the slide, it adds a nice kinda-deco touch.

Still, this is all quite subjective, I freely grant that. Some people think Glocks are good-looking! Those people probably should not be encouraged to own firearms, given their obvious visual impairments, but don't go by me. :)

>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.

Yeah, Maine has always had open carry, but I'm not sure I've ever actually seen a civilian doing it, except for hunters. Also, a bit vexingly, the Legislature passed a law last year removing the requirement for a license to carry concealed. You can still get one if you want (a lot of people think they did away with them entirely, which is not the case), but the only practical difference is that if you're carrying without a license, you have to tell the cops first thing during any conversation you may end up in with them, whereas if you DO have one, you don't have to tell them unless they ask. Which is... weird.

It also, and it's alarming to me how many people don't appear to realize this, changes nothing about where you can and can't legally be armed. Courthouses, schools, etc., still off-limits, licensed or not. I've already seen a couple reports of blocks of Samsonite who assumed that because they didn't have a license, it meant they could do more than someone who had gone through the process. I mean... really?

Sigh.

>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.

Well, this is 2016 in America. Is there a middle ground left in any public difference of opinion any more? It doesn't feel like it to me, most days.

>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.

Yeah. Exactly. Every time there's An Incident, and people say "y'know, maybe we ought to do something about this," and the NRA et al. double down yet again on their NO EVERYTHING IS FINE AND EVEN IF IT WASN'T YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO CHANGE ANYTHING ANYWAY SO I'M DONE TALKING TO YOU routine, I just want to hide. Because I fully believe that all that accomplishes is to turn the people whose basic attitude was "well, it's not my thing, but live and let live, right" away from that stance and more toward "fuck me, these people are all foamy-mouthed maniacs, they shouldn't be allowed to have tableware, let alone weapons." They're constantly retrenching into an ever-less-tenable position with ever greater vehemence, and it's my biggest worry (in this particular context, I mean, I have lots of others) that when they do finally go down they're going to take all of us decent, inoffensive, law-abiding, non-people-killing shooters with them. (And more and more, it seems like that's what a lot of those guys want, because they don't consider us Real Gun People anyway.)

At the very least, their antics are going to make life harder for those of us who want to play by the rules, because that almost guarantees there will be more of them than there otherwise would've been. That's what happens when you refuse to compromise, or even consider compromising, and force a showdown, and then—as will inevitably happen someday—lose.

Phew. That was a bit of a soapbox derby, wasn't it. Moving on.

>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.

Yeah. And it makes me nervous. Whenever I'm someplace where it seems like there's the possibility of Things Going Wrong (which admittedly is not that often nowadays), my first thought isn't to try and predict who might start something; before that, I find myself looking around and thinking, All right, if something does kick off in here, which of these guys is the goddamn cowboy?

>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.

Well, they certainly aren't likely to calm anybody down, that's for sure.

>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!")

Mm. Makes me think of something I read about the time that guy shot his congresswoman (Gabrielle Giffords, IIRC, is her name) at the meet-n-greet in Arizona. The way I saw it reported, there was a CCW holder in that crowd, but he was way at the back or something. Whatever the details, he didn't have a shot, and he knew if he drew, he'd accomplish nothing other than make himself a target for the cops, who could not reasonably be expected to know his IFF status. So he didn't, and when it came out afterward that he was there he got nine miles of shit from the If I'd'a Been There I'd'a Wasted That Punk crowd. No, fuck you, guys, he's Doing It Right and you're not. The thing about tactical situations is that you have to use tactics. That guy did. I'm not so sure I would, so... yeah.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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