Shameless self-plug: If you liked the quotes in this article, there's a 19 page document in PDF format of the best of the best right HERE.
Posted on 06/01/2002 6:34:06 AM PDT by George Frm Br00klyn Park
NewsMax.com / CommentMax
Signatures of the Gun Culture
Dr. Michael S. Brown
June 1, 2002
Anthropologists study a culture by interviewing individuals and observing group meetings. Now that communications are mostly electronic, an easier way to gather data is to monitor e-mail lists and bulletin boards.
Many Internet correspondents set their e-mail program to automatically add a quote or slogan at the end of each e-mail to support their beliefs. These are called signatures or ".sig files" and in no other American subculture are they more popular or seen in greater variety than in the gun rights movement.
Anyone who wishes to understand this segment of society would be well advised to scan these brief sub-messages. They reveal a depth of knowledge that belies the image of the ignorant redneck gun owner. Let's read a few and you'll see what I mean.
Invoking the words of respected historical figures highlights the concept that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Many signatures have included this popular Benjamin Franklin truism:
Those that give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.
A popular quote from Thomas Jefferson is actually his quotation of brilliant criminologist Cesare Beccaria:
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Famous authors are often quoted in e-mail signatures, especially Robert Heinlein, whose science fiction novels influenced a generation of baby boomers. The most famousHeinlein aphorism is:
An armed society is a polite society.
Even before the groundbreaking work of Prof. John Lott, this statement was a powerful reminder of the positive effect of guns on human behavior.
Author William S. Burroughs contributed this gem:
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it.
Some gun rights activists use their signature messages to change the terms of the gun control debate. Rejecting the anti-gun concept that guns are useless and dangerous, they include slogans like these:
Guns protect moms and kids.
expresses the feelings of many gun owners who believe they are being treated like criminals.
Save a life, teach a woman to shoot.
Self-defense is a basic human right.
When did they revoke innocent until proven guilty?
Another popular theme is to highlight the stupidity of the opposition. An activist named Sam Cohen came up with this one:
<B>The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90 MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.</B>
A speaker at the Million Mom March uttered this infamous malaprop:
If someone comes at you with a knife or gun, say, "I know you're upset." We all want to be valued as human beings.
This rather crude apothegm has been popular for years:
Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.
A new group called "Pink Pistols" promotes the firearms rights of sexual minorities; some members have modified the previous statement to read like this:
Gun Control: The theory that Matthew Shepard hanging from a fence post in Wyoming is morally superior to Matthew Shepard explaining to the local sheriff how his attackers got those fatal bullet wounds.
Famous firearms instructors also contribute their share of quotes. Col. Jeff Cooper, considered the father of modern pistolcraft, said:
Owning a handgun doesn't make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.
Massad Ayoob, the most famous currently active instructor, stated:
The irony is, if you're willing to kill a perpetrator, you probably won't have to.
I believe the most popular and significant signature of the gun rights subculture is an ancient challenge issued by King Leonidas of Sparta. In 480 B.C., he and 300 of his Spartan warriors occupied the narrow pass at Thermopylae to delay the onslaught of the gigantic Persian army. Historians put the size of the Persian forces between 150,000 and 2 million men.
When ordered by the Persian commander to give up their weapons, Leonidas shouted back, "Molon labe!" or "Come take them!" The valiant Greeks fought to the last man and bought precious time for their countrymen to prepare.
If the leaders of the anti-gun lobby had been aware that Molon labe! is a highly popular rallying cry among their enemies, they might have realized that their plan to force their views on American society was doomed to failure. Unfortunately for them, they were not comfortable monitoring the communications of their foes. They probably feared exposure to contagious ideas.
Dr. Michael S. Brown is a member of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws (www.dsgl.org). He may be e-mailed at: rkba2000@yahoo.com
THIS article at NewsMax.com
"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it."
Guys, Yep. That's it. Peace and love, George.
Shameless self-plug: If you liked the quotes in this article, there's a 19 page document in PDF format of the best of the best right HERE.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin
Glad to see I'm not the only person who thinks this way.
I thought "molon labe" meant "kiss my @$$".....
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them." - Walter Mondale
Ex-Presidential candidate Walter Mondale said that? He was (is?) pro-gun?!!!?
Having had pistolcraft instruction from Colonel Cooper, this quote rings very true. More new gunowners need to take this to heart. The presence of a gun may often prevent an attack from taking place, but the gun "user" better project some confidence or he/she could quickly become a victim anyway. Predators are good at reading fear and hesitation in the eyes of their intended victim.
Please do pass on the RKBA quotes doc, as well as anything else you find of use on my site, to anyone and everyone you know. That's what it's all there for.
2nd Amendement bump.
"A pistol is what you use to fight your way back to the rifle that you stupidly left behind."
You gotta love the guy! I'm currently reading his seminal work, "The Art of the Rifle". A very concise and brilliant work, wrought from the hand of experience.
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Dies Irae, Dies Illa
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There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.
--Marcus Tulius Cicero, 106-53 BC
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Any government that would attempt to disarm its people is despotic; and any people that would submit to it deserve to be slaves!
--Stephen F. Austin, 1835
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A government that fears arms in the hands of its people should also fear the rope!
--General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA
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A society of sheep by nature, must beget a government of wolves.
-- Bertrand de Jouvenel, In Freedom
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All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.
Marbury vs. Madison, 5 US (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803)
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I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
What I can do, I should do.
And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do.
-- Edward Everett Hale
********************************************************************************* None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
-Johann W. Von Goethe
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Governor, had I foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no, sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand.
-- General Robert E. Lee to Governor Stockdale of Texas, August 1870
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The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather to your bosom his wives and his daughters.
-- Genghis Khan, 1226
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My new signature file for e-mails bump.
"A pistol is what you use to fight your way back to the rifle that you stupidly left behind."
Actually, I think that one comes from Clint Smith at Thunder Ranch, but either sensei might well be quoting the other. My 1978 Orange Gunsight API 250 course served me well, and I felt much more comfortable going in harm's way with *only* a handgun than previously, and I certainly don't think of the Colonel, then or now, as at all undergunned with both a good handgun and the knowledge of how to use one effectively.
That said, there were generally some pretty serious longguns, or at least medium-longish ones around me in those days, particularly in the work vehicle I had then. And in these as well....
-archy-/-
Damn, I like this one, too for a sig file. Decisions.....decisions...
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