“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!” “Speak truth to power.” Those are allegedly a couple of the credos of the modern journalist. So imagine our surprise when we heard that the ink-stained stay-at-home wretches at The New York Times want to venture into the unknown and talk to some of the 10 million or so people who have bought their first gun in the last couple of years.
From their perspective on the west side, why any sane individual would choose to buy a firearm is downright puzzling. We can just imagine the story on Gun Nation they’re cooking up.
Anyway, if you’re one of the first-timers who have joined over 100 million of their friends and neighbors as firearm owners, the NYT wants to hear from you. You might want to give them an eye- or an earful.
A record number of more than 20 million guns were sold in the United States in 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and sales have remained at high levels since. Many of those guns have been sold to first-time buyers.
If you purchased your first gun in the past few years, we’d like to hear from you on why you bought it.
We may contact you to hear more. We won’t use your name or any identifying information without contacting you. If you’d prefer an even more secure means of communication, you can send your responses (and any records, images or other information) to nytimes.com/tips.
— The New York Times in Have You Recently Purchased Your First Gun?
No.
I’m sorry–it’s more polite to say, “No thank you.” Besides–I’m neither a first time owner nor of their desired demographic.
the civil unrest of 2020…and the lack of a police response in the face of a rising crime rate as well as the widespread release of criminals back into society are the prime motivating factors…it ain’t rocket science….
Hold on for a moment. We can consider this.
Suppose a hard-headed highly opinionated person (institution) sees the evidence accumulating that undermines his belief system. He will persist far beyond the point where he ought to pause to reconsider. Some will persist to their graves. A lot will do so.
Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions. One occurs when there is some enormous shock. A woman who is suddenly raped. Or her child is kidnapped. Another is when your livelihood is threatened. Clinging to your belief starts to look like a death spiral.
It’s possible that the NYT has awakened to the possibility that it just might be on the wrong side of the arc of history. And were that the case, it would be better to hedge its editorial bets. If the winds shift they will want to try to point out that they were among the “first” to recognize the change of facts on the ground.
Bruen was a tsunami. They understand this. The doors are open to the last bastion of potential gun carriers on the Left Coast (and the East Coast). BLM, defund-the-police, no-cash-bail all screwed the pooch. They realize that no one can rationally cling to the belief that the Criminal Justice System will keep crime under control.
The individual will be torn between Left-Think vs Survival. When the Survival instinct is provoked acutely enough, it will prevail. The publisher of the NYT is believed (known?) to hold the coveted NYC Carry Permit.
I would advocate that there is little to lose by talking to the NYT to support their article. The bunker mentality is self-defeating.
Imagine if you were a member of a minority of 1%. In such a scenario it might make sense to keep your political views and your gun hidden. You can’t prevail against the power of the majority. The best you can hope for is to take one or two of them with you at the time they choose to kill you. Yet, your cause is lost.
Of course, if you were a member of a majority of 99% there would be nothing to fear. The bunker mentality would make no sense at all.
The real scenario is that we PotG are about 1/3 of the total population. We are a formidable opposition. Politically, we can’t be ignored. Militarily, we could – and WOULD – make tyranny overwhelmingly expensive. Every tyrant would have to calculate that he will have a target on his back and there would be no one who could effectively protect him.
Therefore, gun-control politicians are apt to make great rhetoric to appease their base. Yet, the legislation they pass will be mostly toothless. Look at the AWB. It was window dressing. They only raised barriers to a pair of cosmetic features. We were right to oppose it. Right to ridicule it. Nevertheless, it didn’t do anything to infringe on the caliber, barrel, upper receiver, lower receiver or fire control group. We could live without both a barrel shroud (the shoulder thing that goes up) together with a bayonet mount.
The real fight is over self-defense. That’s mostly handgun carry and any gun in the home. Remember, we WON Heller+McDonald+Caetano+Bruen. It took a long time, but we are now on the inside track. And remember, Miller supports weapons suitable for militia purposes. That’s the ultimate backstop.
We need to remain in our responsible gun ownership posture and continue to harp on the fact that when seconds count the police are still a lifetime away. The government is committed to NOT protecting you. It’s committed to: defund-the-police; BLM; mostly-peaceful protests; reining-in police brutality; no-cash-bail; prison reform; and the rest of the Progressive agenda. The government that the voters think they want is not going to be there when your back door is being kicked-in (unless, of course, it’s a no-knock warrant).
The NYT probably sees this to be the case. And they want to lay-up a hedge against being seen in retrospect as the last to wake-up and smell the Latte.
“The NYT probably sees this to be the case. And they want to lay-up a hedge against being seen in retrospect as the last to wake-up and smell the Latte.”
That train has already left the station for many conservatives, I think, and guns are not even close to the only reason why.
But back to the point … Say as a new gun owner you contact them. The NYT, to preserve journalistic standards, will likely want your real names, where youlive and at least the basic type of gun (pistol, rifle, etc.) you bought, if not exact make and model.
I wouldn’t trust NYT with that information, would you?
Exactly. Do any of us actually even suspect that the Gray Lady, supposedly representing “All the news that’s fit to print,” isn’t in bed with the Feds?
all these guns…and new gun owners…are a symptom of what ails society…not the cause….
Perhaps we should remind the ny slimes how their newspaper catered to nazis and nazis catered to Gun Control and millions of defenseless Jews were rounded up, separated from their families, placed on freezing trains to concentration camps and were either worked to death, died of starvation or used for grotesque human experiments.
Arguing on the behalf of I need a gun for this and that and it is my right goes only so far. Unless the racism and genocide inherent with Gun Control is laid out on the table everything else amounts to peeing in the wind.
MarkPA,
“The individual will be torn between Left-Think vs Survival. When the Survival instinct is provoked acutely enough, it will prevail.”
Ha ha. It sounds like you have not spent enough time around people who embrace Left-Think. In my estimation the overwhelming majority–like 90%–of people who embrace Left-Think are “true believers” and absolutely will go down with the ship.
And the explanation is very simple: they abhor the idea of being “on the outside”. They abhor being on the outside so intensely that they would quite literally rather die than be on the outside.
almost sounds as if you are describing the “mss formation syndrome” thaat surfaed over the covidiocy back a while Far too many simply folded like a cheap wet suit when it came to closing their businesses, slapping those worse than useless nappies across their mugs, then rolling their sleeves up to get poked by an untested new fangled not-a-vaccine injection because “everyone else was doing it” and “da gummit” sed so.
Now that self-same gummit are trying to convince us (many of the same spokescritters) that owning your own defensive handgun is more dangerouus than taking yuor chances on the streets of the crime infested cities these same critters have carefully created.
The present age is rapidly changing to resemble the fantasy universe of George Orwell. And some of us are waking up to it, or have seen it all along.
I say fool me once, shame on you (WooFlew)
Fool me twice, shame on ME for not waking up the first time
Maybe the Slimes ARE seeing a sea change and trying to respond to it. Whether their driving force is to be on the winning side, or they, for a radical change, simply desire to be RIGHT this time. Folks DO wake up every once in a while.
apparently people buying guns is something new for them….
tell them to go fly a kite.
Tell them to go to NJ.
when liberals start buying guns, albeit covertly…it evokes their interest….
Anybody stupid enough to fall for this and talk to the NYT deserves what will befall them. Your info will be in the NYT files forever, and if history is any guide they won’t hesitate to leak it (or share it with the government) when it serves the narrative.
In the future, the Times will publish a city map of where all the privately owned guns are located. Using the information the new gun owners foolishly, voluntarily, gave to them.
There will be enough Fudds to answer the call.
Truth to power.
Unless we don’t like your particular truth of course.
Then we don’t mention your #1 selling book, bury stories that may harm our ideology and allies and we ask our Silicon Valley buddies over cocktails to ban you from their platforms.
Otherwise, truth to power.
The Russia Hoax and the ensuing cover up is a fine example. The media was and is a willing partner in that crime. There has to be a reckoning. As you can see, they just move on to version 2, 3, etc. It will never end. As a matter of fact, it will continue to get worse all because of our dishonest media.
apparently it’s ok for the government to fly immigrants into your state in the middle of the night…but Martha’s Vineyard is a real no-no…funny to see all the fuss they’ve put up over that…suddenly it’s “political”….
If you have any sense you won’t reply to them, they don’t mean you well. At best endless harassment, constant emails telling you that you are evil, at worst keeping tabs on you for criminals and the government. NYT is not your friend, they represent the good people that know best for you. You know the egg heads that can’t change a tire.
I lay awake at night wondering if my gun safe is enough. Will my pistol break out of there? Did I truly lock the door? Are we safe? Is it a when or is it an if my pistol breaks out of the safe and robs the local gas station or shoots somebody? Sometimes I hear scratching sound from inside my gun safe at night.
No doubt they are increasing in number inside as well. I find guns have a strange ability to fill up a safe, so you either have to purge them back to lower levels or get more safes.
Your guns don’t like being held in captivity, they are seeking ways to return to the Street which is their native environment, where they can prey on unsuspecting humans.
“……Your guns don’t like being held in captivity, they are seeking ways to return to the Street which is their native environment, where they can prey on unsuspecting humans.”
🤔
Add a ‘hairless apes’ and a ‘capitalvania’ to that and it becomes a legit lil’dtard comment. 😄
It’s always a good idea to shop the Black Friday deals for gun safes. Makes a great Christmas gift for yourself. 👍
Between my two sons and I, we’ve purchased no less then five gun safes in the last four years, the smallest being around 5’x3’x2′. All were Black Friday deals.
James Campbell
“Add a ‘hairless apes’ and a ‘capitalvania’ to that and it becomes a legit lil’dtard comment.”
Where is your sense of humor? TheUnspoken’s comment was pure sarcasm.
I was laughing when I made that comment, I placed a 😄 after it.
I knew the Unspoken comment was sarcasm. 👍
“…get more safes.”
That’s the correct solution. I have never sold a firearm, and I ain’t gonna start now. We’ve spread them around among family, and we have a few that probably aren’t worth keeping, but keep them we will.
keeping all your guns in one place is like keeping all your eggs in one basket
And CC wins the Intertubez for best comment of the day!
I tip my hat to you fine sir or ma’am.
“I bought a gun because the Democrats won’t protect me, and want to let all the criminals out of prison.”
Think they’d print that?
“I bought a gun because of Democrat COVID tyranny.”
Think they’d print that??
You see there is the truth and then there is the “truth™” I will let you guess what they print. With that said 2/3 of the first time owners I know fall under your reason and used to be Democrats.
I’d love to share my experience as a first-time gun owner. Granted, that experience is 15 years old now, having been conditioned and burnished over the intervening timespan…but it’s an evergreen memory with baggage they need not hear.
I’ve seen multiple media explanations for the explosion of gun sales since 2020. They mostly blame it on Covid and/or the fear of white supremacists.
Answer the NY Slimes & join the gun registry. That’s what you’ll get. I’m sure they’ll get a few naive newbies…
So the rich white people at the NYT, who live in supper rich neighborhoods, want to know why people of the lower economic class want to own guns???
Why don’t they go ask the other supper rich folks, in Beverly Hills California, WHY THEY are suddenly buying guns???
“In Beverly Hills, The city’s only gun store, Beverly Hills Guns, is a “concierge service” by appointment only, for a largely affluent clientele. And business is booming.”
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/l-a-s-arms-race-of-the-affluent/
A significant number of those “first time gun buyers” are probably members of AntiFa, BLM and such groups gearing up for their long dreamed about “final solution” to deal with the dreaded “MAGA Republicans”.
They will fit the narrative with their lies and NYT will print the BS.
I firmly believe that the good people are finally buying guns because it is more important to them to be able to defend themselves and family, even if their wanna be GB son might get hold of it.
Most people that do not have a firearm in the home either think it is too expensive(I know), or are scared they or some member of their family will misuse it. Just because a person lives on the “bad” side of town, does not make them bad, it makes them low income(or not willing to spend more for better digs). Many do not really care who is in power, because things really don’t change much either way for them or their families.
All of the divisiveness the Left is preaching is designed to get power and keep us apart.
The NYT has a long and storied history of keeping the truth from their pages……
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/blog/silence-in-the-storm-the-new-york-times-coverage-of-the-holocaust-during-wwii/
Funny how scum like whiner49er call me a ‘Holocaust denier’ when I speak truth/facts about the European Theater Air Campaign in the latter stages of WWII, yet he and his ilk will suckle at the teet of the NYT.
Hypocrisy, they name is TTAG troll farm.
well…at least they exposed the truth about UFO’s…and made the government admit they exist..
Moderation, really???
Hey NYT management, how many of you have armed protection?
I wouldn’t wipe my rear end with the NY Slimes.
Wise, as most people wipe to remove $#!+ not add it.
Well said!
they don’t make it easy to get into their comment section…and WaPo makes it damn near impossible to stay there…these days contrary views are not welcome…
“…these days contrary views are not welcome…”
Could it be that contrary views are actually attempts at misinformation? And words from the wrong people represent violence?
I think it stems from truth: you have a right to your opinion, but you don’t have a right to make me read/hear it.
I cannot see the problem in any kind of opinion seeking. After all it’s not bloody compulsory and you are free to give ’em the finger at any time. What are the gun owners afeared of here? Free speech?
Or perhaps the idiot replies the newspaper will get which may turn them into a bit of a laughing stock ? Nothing combat’s extremist views so much as laughter.
Does your country have free speech?
🤔
Tommy Robinson may want to post a comment right about here.
In UK, use the wrong gender pronouns and you can be jailed.
The inmates are truly running the asylum over there.
they’re still all wrapped-up in the fact some 96 yr old broad has kicked the bucket…although why that seems so important to some over here escapes me…
“Nothing combat’s [sic] extremist views so much as laughter.”
😊😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought in England you gave them two fingers held together?
Maybe times have changed your your not from the UK at all.
The Far Right Republican Fanatics have even passed laws preventing the Government from studying the gun problem in the U.S. As usual the stupidity of the Far Right is infinite. Banning the study of the gun problem is a stupid as shutting down Family Planning Clinics whose main job has been to provide birth control. Again the Far Rights stupidity is infinite.
The reasons “why” people buy guns should be studied to show “how” our government has failed the people and what can be done to stop the madness of everyone buying guns and thinking its the solution to a perceived or imagined problem.
The U.S. madness of gun ownership now shows 42% of all the small arms in the world are owned by people in Capitalvania, yet we remain the most “unsafe” country in the Industrialized World proving beyond all doubt that guns do not make the people safer, quite the opposite, its turned the U.S. into a road rage shooting gallery.
Give the naked ape a gun and he will use it on his fellow man. People get gunned down over parking spots, cutting people off in traffic, belonging to the opposite political party, and nutcases mass murder people on a daily basis. It has become unsafe to go to the store, go to a movie or to a 4th of July celebration. The madness has reached epidemic and historical proportions never seen before. Yet the total madness and paranoia of the Fanatical Far Right call for still more people carrying guns and shooting it out in the street. Even the ancient inhabitants of Dodge City or Tombstone Arizona would have been horrified.
Civilized nations regulate “all” gun sales, require safe storage, outlaw concealed or open carry, outlaw carrying guns loaded in automobiles and heavily regulate magazine capacity and semi-auto weapons. The result is much lower violence, homicide with guns and mass murders. The statistics prove it beyond all doubt.
A gun in the home raises the possibility of accidental death or homicide or suicide by 800%. It is not the denizen coming out of the fog and night that is to be feared but rather the people living within your own home who are always the bigger threat and danger. Put a gun in the hand of a viscous naked ape and he will use it on his own kin.
We are no different than the wild beasts of the jungle because we are the apex predator.
“The Far Right Republican…… ”
AKA: Everyone to the right of Stalin in lil’dtardspeak.
Yada, yada, yada. Same tired lies.
So says “The New Soviet Man”.
So you don’t believe Ukrainians should bear arms to fight the Russian invasion???
How many West supplied weapons have killed civilians in Ukraine???
After all there is two sides in war..
Civilians are being killed by both sides weapons!!!!
yeah,…one is right…and one is wrong…and when you can look over your shoulder and see your house behind you it’s pretty easy to see which side that is…
Ukraine and Russia sport corrupt governments.
And just where is the US interest in a conflict between two nations with which the US has no defense treaty. At absolute “best”, one UN member attacking another is a UN, not US problem (not even a NATO problem).
Who died, and appointed the US world cop? Who, in their right mind, appoints a nation “world cop” that hasn’t won a war since 1945?
Are you one of Putin’s 10 kopech army? Or do you work for free beer?
guns are just a symptom of what is the real “problem”…will the delve into that?
you can keep selling that spiel…I doubt many are buying it these days…that external threat has suddenly become very, very real to many….
Personal information from stored databases controlled by Dims/Leftists have a bad habit of escaping into the wild.
I disagree with the people who say tell the NYT to go away; Do a step better, imitate the VCDL record the interview yourself. It’s worth noting that NY is a one party state so you can record without telling them as well.
Maybe James Okeefe can have someone reach out?
Even 20 years ago, many of the people taking concealed carry classes were minority women. They know better than most how crazy things are getting.
….especially in their neighborhoods….
Uhhhhh, I bought how many ever the AFT or Elf Bee Eyes can prove I bought.
Go ask them, I’m sure they’ve got it in the not registry registry.
there are all sorts of ways to acquire a gun…but considering even their MG registry lacks accuracy..I wouldn’t overrate their capabilities
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