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Old May 5, 2013, 01:54 PM   #1
Recoil1776
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The best pro-gun editorial in a newspaper, ever!

Seriously y'all, this is the best pro-gun piece I've probably ever read--and it's in a college newspaper!

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/opinio...a4bcf887a.html

Whoever that guy is, someone needs to hire him at a gun magazine or something so he can write gun stuff full time.
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Old May 5, 2013, 03:05 PM   #2
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That was amazing, and written by a (LE or Military veteran) senior in college.
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Old May 5, 2013, 03:25 PM   #3
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Awesome editorial. Thank you Barry Snell for ALL of your service.
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Old May 5, 2013, 04:41 PM   #4
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Absolutely excellent!
This needs to be shared far and wide.

Bravo Mr. Barry Snell.

And thank you Recoil1776 for making the link available.
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Old May 5, 2013, 04:42 PM   #5
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Fantastic.

I would send copies to my congresscritters, but I know they wouldn't read it so why waste paper, toner and stamps?
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Old May 5, 2013, 05:12 PM   #6
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In the American system, the rights of a single individual are what matters and are what our system is designed to protect. The emotional mob does not rule in America.
If only that were really true.
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Old May 5, 2013, 05:29 PM   #7
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When Recoil1776 does post a comment, I will definitely be listening!
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Old May 5, 2013, 06:05 PM   #8
Recoil1776
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When Recoil1776 does post a comment, I will definitely be listening!
Thanks Skadoosh, but I can't take credit. I saw it elsewhere and just passed it along. It was too good to keep to myself.

I hope everyone else spreads it around too. This thing needs to explode all across the country.
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Old May 5, 2013, 06:07 PM   #9
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awesome read. sharing this with all my friends.
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Old May 5, 2013, 08:00 PM   #10
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An excellent piece and I have sent a link to all my friends.
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Old May 5, 2013, 08:13 PM   #11
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I dont like how he compares the plant exploding to the Boston Bombings.

Two totally different things as we know right now.

The plant blowing up is assumed to be an accident.

The Boston bombings was a direct attack on America and our way of life......an act of terror.

I pray for all the innocent people in both tragic events.


Its a good article though with alot of truth in it.

Thanks for posting it.
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Old May 5, 2013, 08:31 PM   #12
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The Texas plant was an accident. We in society accept that accidents happen.
The Boston bombing was a deliberate act perpetrated by what at first appeared to be two men, now there appears to be more people involved. We have an over zealous AG clamping down on interrogations, another down play by the WH. Lastly there's plenty of shock videos of the bombing unlike in the Texas plant explosion.
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Old May 5, 2013, 10:46 PM   #13
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While I do not agree with everything he wrote, this part rang true to me:

Quote:
Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because while they were crying about the victims of 9/11 or Aurora or Sandy Hook, and thanking God they weren’t there, I and many other gun people like me were crying because we weren’t there, and asked God why we couldn’t have been. Many of us wish we were on one of the 9/11 airplanes, and not because we have a death wish but because we have a life wish. Because when we sit in silence and the world’s distractions fall away, the thought creeps in: Could I have made a difference?
Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because I and many of us are what they call “sheepdogs” and we’re proud of that. Yet anti-gunners make fun of us, calling us “cowboys” and “wannabes” for it. Wanting to save lives and being willing to sacrifice one’s own to do it used to be considered a virtue in this country. Anti-gunners think they have the moral outrage, but the moral outrage is ours. I have never expressed any of these feelings openly to anyone because they are private and deeply personal. Screw you for demeaning us and motivating me to speak them.
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Old May 5, 2013, 11:41 PM   #14
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Excellent writing.

Thanks for posting that link, sums up my feeling very quite well.
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Old May 5, 2013, 11:47 PM   #15
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Fantastic editorial. A lot of points I agree with. Great idea of the writer's to post links for those who truly want to see.
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Old May 6, 2013, 12:35 AM   #16
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I don't agree with everything he wrote, but he does make some good points. One of them is what he said about the difference in the way the media treat accidents and deliberate killings: the latter are more compelling and generate far more media coverage. He uses the Texas explosion and the Boston bombing as examples of this: the Boston bombing (and especially the manhunt that followed) has received far more media attention than the event in Texas:
To understand this, one need only look at the difference in coverage between the Texas fertilizer plant explosion, which killed at least 14 confirmed people and injured 200 more at the time of writing this, versus the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, which only killed three and injured a hundred others. Texas was on TV for a day, tops, while we’re still hearing about Boston and will for many weeks to come.
He wasn't comparing the two events directly -- he was comparing the way they were covered in the press in order to make a point about why guns (which are often used in mass killings) are demonized: his point was that although there are many things that kill people accidentally in larger numbers, overall, than are killed by people with guns, accidents get much less news coverage than killings, and this has a lot to do with why guns are demonized far beyond the actual harm that's done with them.
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Old May 6, 2013, 02:46 AM   #17
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Excellent work. The lad has, as they say, "been to school".

It occured to me just how the attitude shows in so many different ways. One of the underlying things about gun control laws is micromanagement of what we have, making us criminals, instead of what we do with them.

Guy owns a hundred guns, gets a traffic ticket once in two decades, and he's exactly the same as lunatic who steals (or murders) to get a couple guns and kills, sometimes dozens in a 'gun free zone"? I don't think so.

Their only answer is ban/restrict ownership of whatever kind of gun pushes their hot button this decade. A couple decades back it was Saturday Night Specials, which meant to the anti-gunners any handgun you could conceal, or just any handgun...

ARs, FALs, and many others were available back then too! Even before the Fall of the Evil Empire (after which AKs get added to the list), military style semi autos were popular with a good percentage of America's shooting public.

Why are they such a big ticket thing today in the shooting market? Because they are good guns, for one, and are featured constantly (most often in the legally restricted full auto versions) in our entertainment? And, then there is also the fact that our govt passed a law that for ten years made these semi auto guns "forbidden fruit".

Its been nearly 10 years since that law expired, and while prices are hugely higher, there is more of the stuff they banned under that law in the market (and in our hands) than there ever was before they got so many of us interested by telling us we shouldn't, and couldn't have them.

It is a legal and moral crime of the greatest magnitude to kill people for fun or profit. And it has been since long, long before the founding of our nation. Some say the basic idea is the founding of civilization. In fact, our main religions teach us a murder was commited soon after man was cast out of Eden. Its been going on ever since.

There are those who would do murder, in large or small for their own percieved gain. Owning an ax, or a whole shed of them does not make one an ax-murderer. Murdering someone with an ax does.

I believe I read somewhere, "by their deeds shall ye know them"...not by their words, nor by what they own, but by what they do. Always figured that was the smart way to look at it.

One other thing I did like about the editorial, was the point that the author (and a lot of the rest of us) are or have shifted from "we haven't done anything wrong" to "Screw you!, we haven't done anything wrong!"

"Stripping motivated people of their dignity and rubbing their noses in it is a very bad idea."
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Old May 6, 2013, 02:57 AM   #18
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A few stumbling blocks in the article. I always think it's a mistake to conflate the gun rights issue with the abortion issue, and it's done pretty commonly by the pro-gun side. They're wildly different issues with wildly different things inforiming them - namely, no one disagrees that murder victims are human beings, but the pro-choice view is that a fertilized zygote is not a human being. His argument sidesteps that entire argument as though we've all agreed they're human beings, and a large swath of gun owners, including me, are pro-choice. It doesn't do from a political-strategic perspective to divide the pro-gun base when we're under siege like we are now. The issue at hand is guns that that is where the focus should remain. I also though the Boston bombings versus Texas explosion bit was off-target for reasons others have touched on.

The vast majority, though, was brilliantly stated. Overall an excellent piece.
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Old May 6, 2013, 06:40 AM   #19
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I read the article and thought it to be well done.

The problem is the people who support the Second Amendment will endorse it. The people who are anti-gun will not be swayed. They have it fixed in their minds that disarming Americans is going to make them safer.

I really don't have a way to gauge how the fence sitters will respond.
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Old May 6, 2013, 08:03 AM   #20
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One other thing I did like about the editorial, was the point that the author (and a lot of the rest of us) are or have shifted from "we haven't done anything wrong" to "Screw you!, we haven't done anything wrong!"
America has been "in your face" about civil rights for about 50 years. With gun rights it got started in the 70's and really took off after the AWB. Hard to forget Heston's "From my Cold Dead Hands" speeches or Liddy's "jack booted thug" commentary.
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Old May 7, 2013, 12:09 AM   #21
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I am constantly amazed at how ‘our’ sound bites are almost instantly twisted and turned back upon us.

‘Cold dead hands.’ ‘Jack booted thug’ and the most recent ‘The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.’

The gun grabbers grab these points and by sheer force of there being so many of them in the media almost instantly are able to denigrate them and use them to make gun owners seem paranoid and irrational. Rather like a pack of school children that grab something an unpopular kid says and uses it to make fun of them.

I think the opinion column shows there is a backlash against the anti-gun folk and the fact it ACTUALLY GOT PRINTED (and in a college paper no less) heartens me.
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Old May 7, 2013, 06:41 AM   #22
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I think the best approach with a fence sitter is a systematic look at the facts, something both sides of the argument are guilty of glossing over. The problem is people are constantly being lied to by governments and media so they either don't believe a word of it or they drink the kool-aid. It was a very informative piece, and Mr. Snell was certainly getting angry and, like most of us here, is "sick of it". He was very right about us having to approach this discussion with a mutual respect, something anti-gunners aren't willing to give gun owners. This is also completely ignoring the fact that we're talking about politicians that fight for gun laws, but own guns with no restrictions themselves. While the article makes me want to beat my war drum, sadly, I don't think it makes a darn bit of difference to anyone on the other side of the argument.
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Old May 7, 2013, 06:49 AM   #23
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I think the best approach with a fence sitter is a systematic look at the facts, something both sides of the argument are guilty of glossing over.
We don't live in a thinking era. We live in a time where politicians manipulate the emotions of the masses through media and other means to achieve the results they want.
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Old May 7, 2013, 08:21 AM   #24
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bump to the top again.

Fantastic points, especially the "we don't trust anti-gun people because" reason # 4455, and the "screw you, I haven't done anything wrong" point.
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Old May 7, 2013, 12:30 PM   #25
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Well written article.

I am impressed that he was able to keep it from devolving into a foaming-at-the-mouth-rant (it easily could have) given how frustrated he seemed to be with friends and colleagues.

I especially like the use of links as footnote/citations to back up his points.

I hope he continues to be a vocal part of the media in some form (even if it isn't at the Iowa State Daily).
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