Speaking as a die-hard yogi…yeah, I do manage to have a firearm within reach during yoga, actually. And no one in my classes knows or needs to know.

“Should the women at that Tallahassee yoga studio have been strapped while they assumed the Downward Dog? Should the college kids at the Thousand Oaks’ Borderline Bar & Grill have all brought their own weapons, pawing at the safety while they danced to Jason Aldean, waiting for the would-be mass murderer to enter so…everyone could shoot through the packed crowd back at him? After the Texas shooting, gun fanatics held up the case of two men who confronted the shooter outside with AR-15s of their own as evidence that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. This was held up as a positive scenario, of America’s Gun Culture Working: that a man with a history of violence shot 26 people to death in the pews of a church, but that two other guys with guns stopped him killing even more.”

“This is a world where the only true currency is fear. The National Rifle Association represents the interests of gun manufacturers, and those interests are to sell more guns. Nothing else is relevant.” – Esquire: American Gun Culture is Not Freedom. It is Tyranny.

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

126 COMMENTS

  1. Freedom is slavery, not tyranny.

    Ironic that they un-ironically paraphrase 1984.

    Sounds like it’s time for “reasonable restrictions” on the 1st amendment rights of communists and their media propagandists.

  2. THE MASS SHOOTING LAST NIGHT OUT IN CALIFORNIA WAS THE 307TH OF THE YEAR IN THIS COUNTRY. IT WAS THE SIXTH IN THE LAST SEVEN DAYS.

    I didn’t see in the article where this statement was backed up with a facts sheet. I may have missed it. Or is this another anti-gun overblown statement.

    • They are using anti-gun propaganda as a “source”… Said “source” counts “mass shootings” with BB guns and “mass shootings” where nobody actually died.

    • When you look at “mass shootings” it’s the definition that’s used, that determines the number.

      “No definition is better than the other.
      “All mass shooting definitions are arbitrary in that there is no natural way to quantify such an event,” Standford Mass Shootings of America writes. “In setting up our threshold we wanted to focus on the shootings over the outcomes.”
      Without a standardized definition for “mass shooting,” different organizations have different accounts, depending on the number of victims, the outcome of the victim and the type of incident (gun violence, gang related, domestic, terrorist, etc.)
      “The government has never defined mass shooting as a separate category, and there is not yet a universally accepted definition of the term,” the RAND Corporation writes. “Thus, media outlets, academic researchers, and law enforcement agencies frequently use different definitions when discussing mass shootings, which can complicate our understanding of mass shooting trends and their relationship to gun policy.”

      • It’s a legitimate issue to try to corral a phenomena with a definition so that we can count it. And, it’s useful to count incidents to try to get a handle on what to do about the phenomena. Here, when we try to define “mass shootings” or “mass killings” we run head-long into the REAL issue.

        What we OUGHT to be doing here is to recognize that we are being sucked-into the vortex of management-by-numbers. Just about nothing we do here – in trying to formulate a definition or count incidents – gets us any closer to a resolution.

        Does it matter whether we count the number killed or the number wounded? What about those who were in jeopardy but were neither killed nor wounded; should they count? Does it matter whether the instrument was a gun, cutlery or club? How about a motor vehicle? A bomb? A biological, chemical or nuclear weapon?

        What about motivation? Relationship between the attacker and the targets? Religion, race, color, national origin? Citizen or alien?

        The character of the owner/operator of the venue? A public place, stadium, school, church, mall, business, home?

        Should we count the number of incidents that actually occurred historically? Or, those that might reasonably happen in the future? To illustrate, consider the problem of shooters from a “high-ground” position. Dallas 1963 Kennedy assassination; U-TX 1966 clock-tower shooting. Just two incidents of this type during my lifetime . . . and then nothing until the Mandalay Bay 2017 shooting a half-century later. Is there any reason to be concerned about exceedingly rare events? How about an event – such as crashing an airliner into a building – that never occurred before (but had been contemplated in a published speculation)?

        Clearly, there are hundreds of logical ways to slice and dice the incidents in order to count them. All in the worthwhile goal of management-by-numbers. Are we getting any closer to resolving the problem of our vulnerability?

        Or, should we be studying where we are vulnerable? Are we vulnerable to a gang of strong young men hijacking an airliner? Are we vulnerable to a shooter from a high-ground position? Are we vulnerable to a bomb planted in a crowed public venue? Aren’t these the sorts of things we ought to be asking? Not, how to define incidents so we can count them?

        Management-by-numbers quickly devolves into a political struggle (whether in the politics of government, private or voluntary associations). We aren’t particularly invested in political science; as such, we are in a better position to evaluate how to investigate such phenomena in an illuminating manner.

    • This is the 6,847,936 th. time this year that there was a complaint against our constitutional rights. This number that I quoted is taken from the same source as the gun control groups use. Made up.

    • The statement “Nothing else is relevant.” is all you really need to know.

      Read between the lines: “Nothing else [including facts] is relevant.”

  3. Yes, we’re so tyrannical, what with our endless offers to come enjoy the outdoors, exercise your freedoms, learn a new skill/hobby. And pretty much always we’re offering these new experiences on our own dime without any stipulations that you agree with us politically – just that you’re open to trying something new.
    Such monsters we are…

  4. We must accept some basic principles. There are people who don’t like pizza or steaks. There are people who get off on having their testicles crushed or being asphyxiated or having hot was poured on them. Just so, some people prefer poverty and slavery. What else can possibly explain neocon and democrat wins throughout the country? The midwest is blue and getting bluer by the minute. There is no escape.

  5. No comments of course on the actual article allowed. Governments have killed way more than populations owning guns all this is a rant about giving of freedoms for feeling safe by having more rules and laws because bad people can do bad things with guns

    • And because millions of idiotic Americans still believe criminals care about rules and laws. They also keep ignoring the black market which allows thugs to buy guns, what’s the plan to ban black market transactions? Mandatory background checks on that parking lot in the hood at 3am?

      • The answer to illegal purchases is NO MONEY…. Once you HAVE TO use a credit card they can trace EVERY transaction AND also put flags on your card to prevent ANY credit transfers that they don’t like. After that they can surreptitiously invalidate one account after another while taking YEARS to process any complaints, which in actuality amounts to “Red Flagging” everyone in America. Criminals will STILL buy guns, but only via barter so there’s no records. ONLY HONEST PEOPLE will be affected, as usual.

  6. If the NRA sells guns, they should be giving Democrats an A+++ rating. I only owned a shotgun and a pistol before Obama was elected and I’m not an NRA member.

    • Strange; the NRA doesn’t sell guns.

      But the CMP sells guns. Battle rifles; property of the United States Government. Sold by a Government Sponsored Enterprise (chartered by Congress). The only gun dealer in the country, without a license, still authorized to sell guns mail-order.

      Funny how hard it is for the Progressives to get their facts straight.

  7. “A world where you cannot leave your house unarmed for constant fear of being shot is not a free world.”
    Are the oppressors in this world the ones telling the public how they can have a chance to fight back, or those promoting the fear of being shot by inflating the “mass shooting” statistics and coverage to feed the public’s fear?

      • Then you will still be afraid of leaving your house. Except they can also break down your doors.

        I work with some people from the fUSSR. They remember.

      • Spent any time in the rest of the world? A disarmed population is the world norm (and the objective of the antis).
        Tell a Scandinavian any form of pro-gun facts and they’ll tell you that you are making things up and they’ll call you a liar.

  8. I read the entire article….why I don’t know.

    Too much to unpack here…but the following talking point always irks me.

    ….”No, like all the great American marketing tactics, it’s rooted in breathless deception. The gun is no antidote to the fear. The gun is the fear. Its proponents hold it up as the last line of defense against a tyrannical government. Never mind that even an AR-15 won’t be much use against a dedicated military force equipped with tanks and Predator drones…..”

    Critical thinking does not exist for many who write such nonsense , or at least the ability to think a few steps ahead of any situation.

    All the military hardware and weapons in the world rely on one simple fact. It takes humans to operate them and humans can be engaged with the MSR. As the founders envisioned.

    Drones have human operators and sometimes families. Tanks have the same. I have some small experience with Tankers, having been once assigned to an Armor Bn.. No, I’m not a tanker, rather I was a 11C Mortar guy.

    Point being is that Tankers hate to get off their tank. Just hate it. That being said there are tactics to use that will cause a tank crew to unbutton and get out of their tank. Tanks can take ground..true, but they can’t hold it against an Infantry force that knows what it’s doing.

    Once that occurs the rifle can do it’s job.

    The founding fathers took on the world’s only Superpower of the time……and won!

    I think the writer of the article needs a world history lesson on small forces with rifles prevailing against huge odds.

    just sayin..

    • Thanks for your service, and you nailed it. I believe history as you mention it, has proven that we have suffered a lot (and the French before us) in S.E Asia against peasants who did not have half of our technology at the time. The red army also suffered in Aghanistan. Finally, I believe most Americans don’t own AR15 (or any other firearm) for when the Russians or Chinese will be coming, or for the possibility of our own government becoming our worst en enemy, but rather for hordes of anti American antifa, BLM, and other thugs. A civil war is very well possible in a near future. The nation is very divided, it is very corrosive. People are way too stressed, materialistic, impatient, intolerant, unintelligent, uneducated…We have millions of zombies hating life, and it gives you the ingredients for a massive civil unrest.

    • Exactly.

      I always laugh when the anti’s pull the “You can’t stand up to our military” nonsense.

      They seem to have forgotten Afghanistan (and Vietnam but that’s another story) where we’ve been fighting for 17 goddamn years and still haven’t subdued our foes. A bunch of rag-tag assholes with RPK’s, RPG’s, AK’s, some old landmines, IED’s and a few radios have given the greatest power on Earth a serious, and nearly two decade long, run for it’s money. Oh, and that force that has us in this unending war usually numbers more than about 50,000 and never has exceeded 89,500. Yet…

      I’m supposed to believe that a few million pissed-as-fuck Americans with access to better weapons, who are often trained to a much higher degree and who can actually attack behind the lines are going to do a worse job than a bunch of Taliban and Haqqani network conscripts from middle-of-nowhere farms in Afghanistan?

      I mean these people in Afghanistan figured out that our vehicles were running IR headlights to work with nightvision, so they made “tripwires” for their IED’s out of garage door openers. Let’s the civilian vehicles pass while targeting our guys exclusively.

      The weapon is between your ears, not in your hands.

    • We could have won all those wars, had we decided not to be somewhat moral about our rules of engagement.

      Which, in a domestic conflict, would hobble the government, even if they decided to go full-retard and use tanks and drones on domestic soil.

      The PR fallout would be terrible. I don’t care how anti-gun you are, if the government decided to roll tanks on people who are ostensibly your fellow citizens, I’d begin to wonder about the sanity of the people I supposedly elected into office.

      That goes for me too. I don’t care for Antifa, the hordes of pink-hat wearers, and your other garden-variety communists, but I would really wonder about the sanity of our government if they decided to roll tanks on them. This isn’t China.

      Deploying heavy war-fighting equipment on your own people is a big sign of desperation.

      Even so, if it got to that point, it can be dealt with.

      • Somehow I doubt the folks willing to roll tanks on their own people give much of a fuck about PR.

        Once that occurs and regardless of who gets rolled on it’s a civil war. And we all know civil wars are the least civil type of wars.

        • The aspect of this problem that bothers me is the sanctity of the ballot-box.

          That which has held us together (sort of), to this point, is a recognition that the election process “works” honestly enough to convince us that the party in power got there by consent of those who bothered to vote.

          Sure, there are always allegations of vote fraud; some of it consistent and convincing. (Did anyone mention Chicago?) Yet, to this point, we are still convinced that it is rare that a President was elected by fraud (last case was Kennedy) or that a chamber of Congress was controlled by one party or the other by sufficient fraud in several states or districts. (E.g., when the party controlling the Senate has a 1-seat majority achieved by fraud in a half-dozen races.)

          We are inching ever closer to the point when that confidence reaches the breaking point. The problem is, we don’t know enough for sure to recognize that we have already/not-yet crossed that brink. Confidence that the party-in-power was fairly elected may fail before or after the fraud becomes decisive.

          Then what?

          Will those holding the reins of government CARE whether they retain the confidence of the majority of those they govern? If the residents of a city decide to burn-down their own homes and businesses will government step-in to stop them? If the residents refuse to submit to the impending exertion of overwhelming power, will those in authority refrain? Or, will they “destroy the village in order to save it”?

          This nation (quite unlike Afghanistan) runs on a finely-tuned infrastructure; one vulnerable to disruption by disaster natural or otherwise. We have seen what happens in the face of a hurricane or wildfire when all of society’s resources are mustered in common cause. What would the results be if society’s resources are at loggerheads with one another?

          Our political divisiveness is held in check only by confidence in the electoral process. That confidence is evaporating.

        • You are quite correct in everything you say. Our elections and political process, like a fiat currency, run on trust and confidence.

          If those things disappear then all hell breaks loose. Will we recognize that in time to apply the brakes? Unfortunately history suggests that we will not. OTOH, if enough people are made aware of the problem early enough perhaps we can avoid going down the “road more traveled” by realizing that in some regards we are our own worst enemy in this situation.

          Time will tell. I certain hope it doesn’t turn ugly.

      • This concerns the reasons I resist any kind of requirements which would allow gubt to determine which was which in such a conflict. Like CC licenses, UBC registrations, etc. If they are going to massively attack large swaths of Americans, let’s make sure they are attacking the liberals and conservatives together, because there is no list of which is which.

    • In any scenario I wouldn’t expect to be fighting the military. If 100,000 armed men marched on Washington what are they going to do? Gunning us down is bad press. It’s not hard to get 100,000 democrats moving. When do we move? That’s the question I’m interested in. I don’t think people like us care to protest that much.

    • I think that the author is right. It is hard to fight tyranny with nothing more than personal firearms. We, the people, need at least some RPGs and anti-aircraft guided missiles.

      • Tanks, a few direct energy weapons, lasers, the 1000 per minute automatics … we’re way undermanned, for sure. Have the manpower (I think; we’ll see when it all comes down). Heavier weaponry is called for.

  9. “……pawing at the safety while they danced to Jason Aldean….”

    How many people actually carry pistols that have a manual safety these days?

    • I was thinking the same thing. The only pistols with safeties I’ve got are my Luger, 1911, a couple .22s, and a PPK/S; none that I carry very often, or almost ever in the case of the Luger. Everything else that is not striker fired or a revolver is DA/SA with a decocker.

      Also who would fumble at a safety? They are designed to be easy to switch. The only pistol that’s had a safety give me trouble was a Phoenix .22. That whole two safety thing really is pretty dumb.

    • I carry my cz P07 with the safety. I chose to do that instead of installing the decocker. Guess old military habits die hard.

    • My daily carry is a P938. I’d prefer something striker fired since I grew up on Glocks, but I’m avoiding the P365 for at least another year so other people can beta test it and it’s the only pocketable 9mm I’ve come across.

  10. American gun culture is common sense preparedness. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

    • Very true. And if you live in a decent town, cops not only have no issues with gun owners they usually recommend people to be armed and prepared. I know a small group of people on TTAG works hard every week in the comment section to convince the mass that most if not all cops want to take your guns, your dog and throw you in a FEMA camp, but the reality is very different where I live in Florida.

  11. Should the Eagles of Death Metal fans been heeled when they went to the Bataclan Theater?

  13. Should we have fire extinguishers? Smoke detectors? This fear of fire is paranoia, driven by Kidde and other companies in the fire industry and supported by fire department propaganda. It is no different than fear mongering police forcing us to use seatbelts because we MIGHT be in a crash. Wow. Someone needs to look at the data.

    • Many cops don’t give a **** whether your eae your seat belt or not. When a minor is involved it is a different story.

  14. Haven’t been to a country bar in 35years but I do carry sometimes in my church. I’ve never pawed at my easily switched off safety either. BTW the Thousand Oaks bar had a security guard. Do they have securiry dudes(with guns!) at Esquire? Do guy’s still buy that drivel?!?

    • Most security guards are unarmed, they are just there to observe and report. It gives the average clueless person a false impression of safety. Not sure about that bar whether the guard was armed or not, but I very very rarely see armed guards anywhere.

      • According to the reports I’ve read the security guard was not armed. He was however shot to death.

        Hey, the bright side is the perp had less ammo to go after the people in the bar after he ventilated the guard.

        So, in a way, he did increase the safety of patrons by acting as a bullet sponge before the perp got inside….

      • It’s like that commercial for some credit service thing. A bank is being robbed and the guard guy just stands there because he’s a “Security Monitor” and only alerts people if there’s a problem. Then he just kind of half heartedly yells “ There’s a problem” while everyone is already laying on the ground.

    • There once was a time when Esquire was a men’s magazine, with articles written by men. Now just metrosexual drivel.

  15. Only in America can someone insist that preventing a vocal minority from convincing the government to take away more rights is tyranny.

    • Nope. In parts of Europe their alt left buddies, the mainstream medias, public school teachers, and politicians have been doing it with great success for decades. Our antifa, BLM, etc have not invented anything. Everything they are doing without exception has been common practice for a long time in France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc.

    • What’s worrisome is gun owners will be the minority soon enough. Illegal immigration and aging demographics do not favor the preservation of our rights.

      • You have stated the heart of our problem, demographics. The left’s control of education has produced the millions of snowflakes indoctrinated in socialism. When they all get old enough to vote that will be the end of the American experiment…..and will probably result in a shooting war not too many years in the future.

        Be Prepared !

  16. “man with a history of violence shot 26 people to death in the pews of a church, but that two other guys with guns stopped him killing even more.”

    If you are going to criticize at least get the story strait. It was one good guy with a gun and one good guy with a truck. Not two good guys with ‘gunz’.

    • Boy this thing is full of little nuggets.

      “But what many fixated on was his use of a “bump stock,” an add-on that, in effect, makes a semiautomatic weapon fully automatic. That means the shooter does not even need to press the trigger each time they fire a bullet that could extinguish another human being’s life.”

      I didn’t know a bump stock made a gun fire without pulling the trigger…

      “by February 2018—four months and change after Las Vegas— NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch was on This Week with George Stephanopoulos suggesting the group was against a legislative ban on bump stocks, saying it was up to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to regulate them. Except the ATF said it lacked the authority to ban them, meaning an act of Congress was necessary. —In any practical sense, the NRA was blocking a ban on bump stocks a few months after one was used to rain death on the Las Vegas strip.”

      Hahahahaha… You gotta love some good hypocrisy.

      “Is the only way we can protect ourselves from mass shooters really for everyone to be armed themselves, at all times, with the hope they will get in a shootout with a domestic terrorist and win? And does that really count as fewer shootings—or is it just as many shootings, but with the Right People dying?.”

      You got a problem with that?…

      “Perhaps you, like the president, think the solution is arming people outside these venues, which the gun crowd calls “soft targets.” Does not just every school, but every business, need to have armed guards outside to stop a deranged man killing customers? Who is going to pay for that? Surely the NRA’s Republican allies wouldn’t impose such a draconian Big Government mandate on small-business owners. So will taxpayers front the bill, locally or nationwide?

      Your projection is showing.

      And what happens when the guard is overpowered by the shooter’s military-grade rifle?”

      Use your pistol and/or help people –or not, your choice– run.

      What if the shooter is holed up in a location high above the killing field, as in Las Vegas? “

      You use a rifle stupid.

      Damn, if you want to fix a problem you have to understand it first.

      • “. . . for everyone to be armed themselves . . .” I have yet to see where we PotG have debunked this straw-man.

        What is contemplated by this straw-man is that gun people advocate for a state of the nation where 100.0% of the law-abiding go armed. Is this true? Is it the case that someone has advocated for 100.0%; i.e., that 99.9% would NOT be enough? Let’s think this through, shall we?

        What if 95% were armed. Would that level be sufficient to deter nearly every shooter and stop the few that would not be deterred? How about 90%? Or 80%? As the proposed figures drop there will surely be a drop in the deterrence factor; and, the few who would not be deterred wouldn’t be stopped promptly. Even so, our nation would be far safer than we are at present when only 7% carry with any regularity at all.

        We can anticipate seeing the day when 17% carry; perhaps 27%; conceivably, 37%. At some point society will reach an equilibrium of sorts. Enough people will carry to deter those who can work-out the probabilities. Enough to stop most of those who can’t handle the statistical probabilities. At that point, whether it’s at 27% or 70%, the practice of carry will stabilize.

        People will not carry who: do not want to bother lugging a pound-or-two of extra weight around; don’t want the responsibility of making a shoot/DON’T-shoot decision; are too young; too old; too dis-abled; or forbidden to carry.

        No, it will not be the case that only “supermen” or “superwomen” with blue suits and badges will carry. Not just the finest marksmen, or New York City’s finest will carry. Mostly a lot of ordinary folks of ordinary ability and responsibility. These will suffice to bring us to an equilibrium. About like ordinary drivers of motor vehicles. Far short of 100.0%

        Until we start thinking through this evolution – and where it reaches a voluntary equilibrium – we leave this “. . . for everyone to be armed themselves . . .” straw man unchallenged.

        • If it wasn’t for the fact I was rolling my eyes at the hole thing when I posted I probably would have gotten in to that.

          I can only speak for myself… I would like it if everyone had the option to carry — if they wish to (and are safe). Would I push a law that would force people to carry a gun? Hell No! But that is what people who tout the gun control line think people like me are saying.

  17. Yoga is for oriental wannabes, narcissistic persons, and those chicks who feel obliged to wear their yoga pants everywhere all the time. You see them aisle 5 at the grocery store you better not check them out, although they are dressed like narcissistic little ***** “oh my gosh I cannot believe it, guys are such perverts hihihi”. Go take a shower and get dressed, I don’t want to smell your yeast infection when I am buying my cream cheese and yogurt!

  19. Should people have to be armed everywhere they go? No. The world should be all puppy dogs and pixie dust, but it isn’t. There shouldn’t be bad people, and they shouldn’t do bad things, but there are and they do. Nor will bad people cease to do bad things because you render yourself unable to stop them.

  20. Fear as a social and political currency has been used by Humans since prehistory. The referenced “axioms” are merely being used to focus fear in a particular direction.

    “I fear being victimized by some criminal thug who has been repeatedly let back on the street by a dysfunctional Justice System dominated by Leftist Progressive Ideology, hence I must have a firearm, or several, to defend myself.” is as legitimate an argument as that posited by whoever wrote this propaganda piece for Esquire. Fear mongering is a sword that can cut in any direction the wielder chooses cloaked in the pretense of being a legitimate argument.

  21. Remember, you don’t need a gun.

    The Broward County Sheriff’s Department will pretend to protect you.

    Memorize:
    * Police have no legal duty to protect individuals.
    * Police have no legal liability when they fail to protect individuals.
    * Police not specifically assigned as bodyguards have virtually no ability to protect individuals.

    The police don’t protect individuals.  They draw chalk outlines around individuals unable or unwilling to protect themselves.

    If you’re not able and willing to protect YOURSELF, you’re just not going to get protected AT ALL.
    Anybody who tells you different is a LIAR.

  22. The fact they said “Assumed the downward dog” without explaining what that is goes to show they’re writing for a very specific person who I think we can all agree already has their mind made up about guns.

    That sounds like a sex position to me.

  23. Shall we add Esquire to the pedestal of lying a$$ “news” publications. NRA does not represent gun manufacturers, they represent their members. That is fact, and with only 2 minutes of research, they would know that.

  24. I always prefer to.comment on the source materials page, however comment are always magically turned off on the antifungal rants.

    • NPR shut down their comment section a few years back, the comments were increasingly exposing them as a 3rd rate propaganda outlet.

      • And I don’t mind that, 1A and all. What I *DO* mind is having my money stolen to pay for propaganda I do not have approval over.

  25. When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. Don’t believe that, check out some 2nd and 3rd world countries where guns are illegal and they just make their own. 12 ga slam fire isn’t that hard to make as long as you have access to pipe. And don’t forget the rich and government will always have guns surrounding them to protect them. As the saying goes, “From my COLD DEAD HANDS”!!!

    • Noit true! That caravan of refugees that were in the news so much until the election are fleeing from coutries with violence caused by weak gun laws!

      Unless there are possibly some other factors in how violent or peaceful a country is….

  26. This is a contrived world where the only true currencies are debt-slavery and fear of that debt-slavery. Getting shot to death sounds like a preferable alternative sometimes.

  27. These people have no idea what real tyranny is. A little time spent in Kim Jong-un’s North Korea might give them an education. Let’s see if we can arrange a “political prisoner exchange” system between the Norks and Esquire.

  28. Esquire is a men’s magazine, correct? Now I know things have changed in the past few years, but isn’t it traditionally the duty of the man to be versed in defensive tactics, including firearms handling? Shouldn’t the goal of a man be to do things for himself and his family?

    Wouldn’t it be against the whole idea of Esquire (a men’s magazine) to farm out the work of defense to someone else?

    • Most young men today are pussified metrosexuals who will never procreate and have families. Sperm counts are plummeting and reproduction rates are approaching non sustainable numbers. All by design. Perfect excuse to allow mass 3rd world immigration…..

  29. I don’t expect to take on the world’s largest military power and live to tell about it. The MSR gives me a chance, it does not guarantee my success.

      • As a whole, I guess you could say that. But US forces saw to it a whole lot did not live to tell about it, and then communist tyrants executed hundreds of thousands more. The US was as close to being “victors” as anyone, it was “lose-lose-lose” result. Brought to us by Democrats creating reasons to vote for them and then lying about their responsibility.

  30. Self righteous BS artist at it again, no proof, no Valid talking points just conjecture and my rights are better than yours so you got to lose your rights to make me feel good. Democrats that have orchestrated these shootings in the first place, Remember Waco.

      • speaking of Religion…Did anyone catch this?

        …”In Las Vegas, the shooter compiled an unholy arsenal of 47 guns because there are no laws about how many military-grade firearms one civilian can—or should, or fucking needs—to own….”

        ‘Unholy’?

        Sooo if I get my preacher to bless my guns it’s all good right? I guess, scratching my chin, does it matter if the blessing is Catholic or maybe Baptist? If I do this can the guns stay in the same safe and be mixed? What if my preacher has more guns than I do? Is 47 a sinister number that causes a critical mass? (pun ha) What does Satan carry? A Glock?

        ..waitamin..I own two Glocks! …anybody know a Holy priest to make my guns Holy? What if the devil is a 1911 fan?

        seriously….the writer of the Esquire article is the associate editor too!

  32. The fey urban-dwelling cosmopolites at Esquire are relevant only to other people who aren’t very good at anything other than living in coastal mega-cities and writing twaddle for other urban-dwelling cosmopolites. I actually used to like the magazine back in the day when it represented a substantially more visceral idea of men’s culture. Without further comment, for instance, it once published a perfect photo of Catherine Deneuve. It also published the script for “Two Lane Blacktop” and, a little later—this was the early 70’s mind—a clear statement on the values of gun-ownership by a guy who used his weapon to defend himself against a mugging in LA. The guys who made Esquire a great magazine are long gone. What’s left behind are people who call their super to change a light bulb and who couldn’t change a tire—-assuming they have a car or even a driver’s license—if their lives depended it.

    • Well said. While I’m not the hardiest of men, I do at least know how to change a tire and do basic-bitch car stuff. And defend myself. Also, I’m always willing to learn how to do things myself.

      These people? No. They don’t want to learn about how a car works because they don’t own one, and they figure that if they did, the “help” would take care of it. Their only concern is getting on the list at a nightclub and maybe bragging about their vinyl collection.

    • On a semi-related subject, I’ve been told yoga is actually something beneficial to those of us who own firearms? Something to do with control of movement, etc…

      • Lots of serious competitive shooters do yoga. Myself included. I’ve noticed dramatically how much it changes getting into or running to a shooting position, quick!

        The typical FWG bags on yoga, but having Master or Grandmaster after your USPSA classification shuts them up quickly.

  34. Yes, dumbass; they should have been allowed the means to defend themselves…which is the same as allowing them the means to hurt people. Bad people, who need hurting.

  35. The “307” reminded me of Everytown’s claim in December 2016, that “There have been 203 school shootings (in the 4 years) since Sandy Hook.”
    When the claimed 203 were deconstructed, “only 44 meet the common perception of a school shooting, where someone came to a school campus to shoot faculty, staff, or students.”
    A number of claimed shootings didn’t exist. Others were only vaguely related to “school.”
    With the “307” claim a map of the shootings shows over 20 of them were clustered in Chicago. Washington DC, Detroit, and San Francisco each has their own clusters. Maybe gang fights?
    https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/12/16/audit-everytowns-200-school-shootings-since-sandy-hook/
    https://www.ajc.com/news/national/when-and-where-america-mass-shootings-have-occurred-2018/BCXYUK60DraDWF2AWIenIP/

  36. If they think that is tyranny they must be very young and missed history classes. Let’s see, there was Adolph, Joseph, Vladimir(1917), Idi, Benito, the wonderful author of the “Little Red Book’, chairman Mao, three or four lunatics in North Korea, a horde of people in South America, and all those great humanitarians in Eastern Europe just to mention a few. All of them together may be responsible for the deaths of 100,000,000 people. They’re like the dinks who compare Trump to Hitler which means they have no FRIGGING idea of what the hell they speak!!! Gotta’ throw in Genghis and Attila.

  38. This article is why I say the white socialist progressive Liberal is a racist pig. Nothing has changed in the past 100 years. They have not changed.

    They will always prefer the police having Guns Over civilians. It doesn’t matter if they call the police racist. It doesn’t matter if they say the police racially profile. They will always prefer the police having guns and the civilians having no guns.

  40. “This is a world where the only true currency is fear.”

    Indeed. The United States has one of the lowest murder rates in its hemisphere. Yet control freaks go on and on about gun control. They ponder whether “women at that Tallahassee yoga studio have been strapped.” These people are from the same vein who want to tell you what size soda to buy or how much salt is allowed on your french fries. In older towns, they sit on historic societies and dictate what color residents may paint their houses. All of this while partisans claim that the Democrats are the party of freedoms. Sure, want dope or an abortion and they’re in your corner. Other choices? Not so much.

  41. Esquire is still a thing? I would assume long ago went the way of the Sat Evening Post. Useless irrelevant BS.

  42. The effort to ban guns in this country is concerted, well-funded, and pervasive. Virtually every mass media is communist propaganda. They spin any tale, skew any statistics, fund any ‘research’ that advances their agenda to disarm this country. So maybe it takes a few more years, or 10 or 15. The guns are the last protection against the tyranny, obviously.

    While I’m likely not alone in this, I might also evoke some strong negative reactions to this: all of these shootings aren’t necessarily ‘real.’ They are false flags. Crisis actors abound in these. It may cause some here to be outraged that I suggest that in at least some of these shootings, they are staged. Maybe a few are killed, but I’m not sure even of that. You’d have to do your own research into it, as I have done and continue to do.

    The communists have every weapon at their disposal to advance their agenda. If we think they are ‘above’ staging such events, we are the fools. Hollywood makes things seem VERY real … and these people have those Hollywood technologies and whatever else they want to create a movie that looks very real.

    The heat is ratcheting up, bottom line. We will see more and more shootings — that we can count on. Real, not real, the end result is creating this hysteria in the masses of sheep. Every article, every TV show, every interview — all geared toward disarming America. We have very evil, very powerful forces working to disarm us and destroy freedom — by whatever means they deem necessary. Cheat, steal, murder, lie, manipulate, bribe — nothing is off the table for this enemy.

  45. Notice how the liberal’s solution to problems is always to force people to do something. Why not respond with freedoms instead? Allow those who choose to carry, to do so in gun free killing zones? It would remove the big invitation sign attracting mass shooters in the first place, without restricting freedoms or forcing anyone to do anything.

    • That’s the way leftists think. To solve any problem they want the govenment to step in and make something illegal or compulsory. Government regulation is their answer to everything.
      They project the same way of thinking on our side with arguments like the one against ‘arming teachers’ and ‘NRA wants to sell more guns, so they want guns everywhere’.

  47. Keep whack-jobs from shooting up churches, and keep responsible people armed to stop the ones that do.

    How about both?

  48. “..pawing at the safety while they danced to Jason Aldean, waiting for the would-be mass murderer to enter so…everyone could shoot through the packed crowd back at him?”

    Another anti-gunner who has turned firearms into some sort of fetish who then projects his fetish onto others.

    Can we Baker-Act the author of this article? They strike me as someone who is certainly dangerous to themselves and might be dangerous to others.

    That isn’t a rhetorical question…. Can someone drop a dime and call someone in authority to check in on the author?

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