« Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog | Main | Hot Air and Kurt Russell rip up the latest gun control theme »

Sensible talk from PopeHat blog

Right here.

"If we had the "reasonable gun control" I keep hearing about, what guns would be limited? I'm arguably not a complete idiot, but I can't figure it out. I hear "nobody wants to take away all your guns" a lot -- which seems demonstrably false -- but what guns do gun-control advocates want to take away, or restrict? Most of the time I don't know and I suspect that the advocates don't know either."

"It's hard to grasp the reaction of someone who understands gun terminology to someone who doesn't. So imagine we're going through one of our periodic moral panics over dogs and I'm trying to persuade you that there should be restrictions on, say, Rottweilers.

Me: I don't want to take away dog owners' rights. But we need to do something about Rottweilers.

You: So what do you propose?

Me: I just think that there should be some sort of training or restrictions on owning an attack dog.

You: Wait. What's an "attack dog?"

Me: You know what I mean. Like military dogs.

You: Huh? Rottweilers aren't military dogs. In fact "military dogs" isn't a thing. You mean like German Shepherds?

Me: Don't be ridiculous. Nobody's trying to take away your German Shepherds. But civilians shouldn't own fighting dogs.

You: I have no idea what dogs you're talking about now.

Me: You're being both picky and obtuse. You know I mean hounds.

You: What the fuck.

Me: OK, maybe not actually ::air quotes:: hounds ::air quotes::. Maybe I have the terminology wrong. I'm not obsessed with vicious dogs. But we can identify kinds of dogs that civilians just don't need to own.

You: Can we?