Still more hand-wringing from those who see hundreds of thousands of first-time gun buyers (and counting) and realize the damage being done to the cause impeding, reducing, controlling, and eliminating civilian gun ownership in this country.
In its length, its scope, and its threat and alterations to the social fabric, this pandemic plays into the distinctly American perception of self-reliance, [Small Arms Analytics’ chief economist Jurgen] Brauer said. “It’s the philosophy that you do look out for yourself, you do not rely on anybody else.” And if need be, you defend your own home. Brauer stresses that the need for such measures is “more of a perception than reality, but it’s perception that drives the marketplace.”
Andrew Flescher, a public health expert in social policy and bioethics at Stony Brook Medicine, suggested that the act of buying a gun “possibly furnishes the buyer with a feeling of control” at a time when social distancing requirements have some people feeling that they have lost agency over their own lives. Kalesan echoed this view, saying that guns confer a sense of power and security. From a psychological standpoint, she added, a gun is similar to a “security blanket for a child.”
– Ariel Ramchandani in Another Worrying Side Effect of Covid-19: More Guns
For first time owners…please read the manual…please be a responsible gun owner.
Plenty of on-line resources regarding safe handling and storage.
With great rights come great responsibilities.
Congratulations and welcome.
Not a single new gun owner is going to read your comment. They don’t even know this site exists.
Not a one.
Maybe not but everyone has heard of the NRA. No matter if you love or hate the organization they are a resource for new gun owners. There’s also YouTube and Google as well as alternative sources of information.
Total BS on the NRA their name is mud has been for years now, a new gun owner looking to them for instructions is like a person that just bought five cases of beer for the week looking for an AA meeting.
If said new gun owner googles “gun name” review, TTAG is usually at the top. I think new gun owners have a very high chance of finding TTAG.
I was not a new gun owner but about 9 years ago I found ttag through a gun review. And I’ve been stuck here ever since. Somebody tell me how to get out of here.
shoot your way out.
Many states now have regulations that require gun stores to give a handling and safety lesson before the customer takes the gun home. Things like loading, unloading, safety features and rules about the target and what is behind it.
Most interesting is that with all these new sales to first time owners, accident rates are not going up. Even in the states that have adopted “Constitutional Carry” new shooters are safety-minded and anti-gunners predictions of chaos has not ensued!
Sorry to be repetitive, but the “edit” feature didn’t function correctly and part of my original post was lost. Here is the complete post.
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Many states now have regulations that require gun stores to give a handling and safety lesson before the customer takes the gun home. Things like loading, unloading, safety features and rules about the target and what is behind it.
Most interesting is that with all these new sales to first time owners, accident rates are not going up. Even in the states that have adopted “Constitutional Carry” new shooters are safety-minded and anti-gunners predictions of chaos has not ensued!
Oh, btw, owning a gun doesn’t just give a f̲e̲e̲l̲i̲n̲g̲ of control. It does provide a lot of control in many situations. I know I am preaching to the choir, but FBI statistics show that two million crimes a year are prevented by legally armed citizens!
Not necessarily true. I found this site when looking for reviews on a first gun purchase. I stayed when I found a few informative articles. 2A topics have become my favorite topic to stay informed on.
Buying a gun in a pandemic gives you exactly what buying a gun under other circumstances gives you. It gives you a tool, which you can use as needed. The idea that it is a security blanket rather than a rational response to a perception of heightened need is pure Bloombergian fantasy.
These knowitalls also discount the practical value of a security blanket: it keeps you warm too. Don’t expect them to acknowledge the utility of a gun either.
The implication is that a gun cannot be used for anything other than a psychological crutch. And yet, can it not be used for hunting? Target shooting? Self defense? Seems like it is…a tool.
Perhaps it CAN and often IS used as a psychological crutch ALSO. That doesn’t invalidate the fact that it is also a useful thing and many hundreds of thousands have suddenly realized maybe its a good thing they have such a tool.
Would there be such articles if we all woke up and realized all landscaping and arborists disappeared or were banned from working, or had months long backlogs before they could possibly get to us and hundreds of thousands of people ran out to buy chainsaws?
I suspect not.
But GUNS! *clutches pearls*
roll that blanket up just so and it’ll extract an eyeball at supersonic speed. especially if the corner has been sucked on for a while.
Well THIS child certainly feels more secure with my 9mm blanket.
Half the police are down with kung flu or blu flu. The other half are only responding to the most extreme calls. The mayors and governors have let all the criminals out of jails and prisons. Why on earth would anyone think they would need a gun to actually protect themselves and their property under these circumstances?
Exaggeration serves no purpose. Outside of NYC that isn’t even possible and if you live in NYC you can’t by a pistol anyway.
That’s not true. Many States are releasing criminals all the while threatening law abiding citizens with arrest
I was referring to half the cops being out sick.
That makes more sense half is a bit high outside of NYC but 20-25% is not too unusual and we have had a few calls where multiple departments have to respond to calls leaving a lot of areas understaffed during the hours nothing good happens.
Plenty true around Albany and Troy. Pretty sure Syracuse is having similar issues and may not be able to buy pistols in any kind of hurry but ‘others’ have been selling non-stop.
In NYC about 20% of the police are out with COVID-19. No other agency has as high a number of infections.
Not that it matters. Everyone with the mindset of personal responsibility should consider owning a gun, doing it with care, learning to be safe and accurate and stay within the law and all that.
Plus, it’s fun 🙂
I’ll bet you there are departments in suburban NJ with more than 20% out infected or under self-isolation pending testing due to symptoms.
Why would I bet this? Because many towns’ EMT staff are hitting 50% losses to the same things, and most towns have a policy of having police first on scene for EMT things. Most towns have more EMTs than cops.
I know my town isn’t dispatching police immediately for 911 calls unless it is violent or potentially violent and in progress. Otherwise someone may show up eventually and let you shout at them across your lawn while they fill out a report. They also aren’t enforcing traffic laws. They are rolling only a single unit to EMT and fire calls as far as I can tell.
The county and state let a whole mess of prisoners out to go with it.
Security blanket huh? That’s how we will view it and I think you can carry a security blanket everywhere you go
I don’t mind a million new gun owners, it could be a good thing. But I do have concerns that some people buy a gun without understanding the ‘Right’ comes with a ‘Responsibility’ to learn and understand its proper and legal use, including the laws of self-defense, which is why they bought it. I believe that place some responsibility on us as well, because if we know these people, we should get them to the range and do our part to train them to get them pushed in the right direction..
This seems a case of projection. The ‘experts’ quoted are afraid the heightened national interest in firearms has shaken the left’s control of the nation. They are feeling insecure, fearful. So, they compensate by demeaning new gun owners, implying that firearms only supply an illusion of security, and that firearm owners like living in illusion.
In reality, the ability to defend yourself does increase (not guaranty) your security.
The quoted ‘experts’ are living in illusion; they believe that by demeaning gun owners, they have demonstrated and maintained their own superiority.
Why do they need to feel superior? They are trembling in insecurity.
My firearms are much more capable of dispatching monsters than any security blanket.
Like Dr. Freud attempting to explain Oedipus complex, the rational is confusing, embarrassing and downright nauseating.
“Feeling of control”. Almost sounds like “freedom” or something.
Let’s not have any of that.
As we’ve seen in Canada, when seconds count, the cops are hours away.
“Expert”
A former drip under pressure…
Truth be told Corona is a zombie movie; The zombies are only there to move the plot along. The real plot is the interaction among people. In that case buying a gun is not exactly a bad choice.
Darn right and not just the “feelings of control’ either.
Actual control not to be a potential victim. First time gun buyers realized that the virus could limit social service such as the police. That resulted in an “oh $h!t” thought process and they realized they had better be prepared to help themselves rather than rely on others to protect them.
What happens down the road will be interesting.
The headline is misleading. Expert 1 tells a simple truth. People are buying as much on perception as in reality. Not that deciding to take responsibility for you own safety isn’t wise but we are nowhere near WROL except in placed like inner city Chicago which are always in a near state of WROL
Let’s put this in a bit of Leftist perspective:
1) The loss of individuals in a crisis is acceptable “collateral damage”.
2) Only the “greater good of the larger Society” matters as a Policy-making criteria (and THIS is mostly ‘lip-service’ so the Leftist-controlled News Media has ‘good soundbites’ to broadcast to the thralls).
3) Independent thinking and self-reliant action by the individual are dangerous to the State.
4) Any pretense of individual freedom, rights and/or liberty is wrong because the State bestows and dictates “freedoms”, which it can abrogate at any time based on #2 and #3, above.
Now for a bit of American perspective (as held by the Founders):
1) All freedoms and liberty originate with the Individual as “certain unalienable Rights” with which people are naturally endowed at their creation.
2) Those “unalienable Rights” flow FROM the Individual INTO the greater whole of Society, which is an association of naturally free Individuals gathered and united for the purpose of establishing a peaceful, productive Society in which to exercise and pursue their natural Liberty.
3) As a greater whole, Individuals CONSENT to a mutually agreed upon structure of Governance and Social Organization that is primarily designed to protect and preserve the natural freedom of the Individual within the matrix of the extended number of Individuals comprising the whole of the People.
4) The State is the Servant of the People and, thereby, the Servant of the Individual. Any other condition is Tyranny and the People have the Right to correct or abolish it.
In this time of unprecedented abrogation of Individual natural, civil and Constitutionally protected Rights the People are arming themselves because, even if unconsciously, they recognize the “State” is no longer their Servant, but their oppressor. People recognize the State is arbitrarily taking “agency over their own lives” and are conferring upon themselves “a sense of power and security” by buying firearms and ammunition in vast quantity should such tools become “necessary” to re-establish “the security of a free State”, as specified in the Constitution. So, once again, these Leftists, cited above, are twisting the truth to create a perverted conclusion that serves their tyrannical agenda, but, finally, perhaps the American People are seeing clearly what is true and recognizing self-reliance is the only way to insure “the security of a free State.”
Point #1: Faux Libertarians like sci-fi author Sarah Hoyt agrees with this proposition. In fact, the so called openers also agree.
All openers believe this to be true but only a subset of closers do.
Since most openers are conservatives or faux Libertarians your assumption is incomplete.
I was only focusing on Leftist thought, however, that does not exclude “faux Libertarians” and “conservative openers” from accepting and using the “collateral damage” meme. It is so commonly in use that you might be hard-pressed to cite an instance where injury and death are not to some extent “collateral damage”. If you can, I would greatly appreciate your citing it, as it would be useful in future considerations. Thanks!
What this pandemic has taught me is that people are the same regardless of political views. The internet has laid bare something that a Bronze Age book called the Bible teaches us. People are basically self centered $h!ts
Well, that’s an interesting learning…it kind of sheds light on a lot of things.
It’s specks and planks. Wr see what’s wrong with other guy but are blind to our own faults.
Why buy insurance(which I sold years ago)? Or a fire extinguisher? Or a motor club membership? Because it’s a PRUDENT decision. In my southern Cook County,ILL hood we’ve had a wave of gunfire. And it’s happening where it’s rarely ever happened before! Obviously the po-leece can’t or won’t be everywhere. Get that gat…
My other security blankets include: fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, air bags, seat belts, alarms, first aid kits, and insurance. I pay for them in case I need them. My pew-pews, er… defensive tools… are in the same category. I’ll admit I don’t practice with my vehicle safety restraints, but I do with first aid, fire control, and firearms. Bad guy? Call 911. Yes! Fire? Call 911. Yes! However, I may be able to reasonably take control of the situation before the professionals eventually arrive… if I have the right tools. The government recommends keeping food and water stocked… another secuwity bwankie, I suppose? In the words if Red Forman, “Dumb@$$.”
If all your new gun does during times of uncertainty is give you a sense of well being and control then it has done a lot for you, the individual.
BZ! My thoughts exactly.
To new gun owners and old ones. Take a class. I couldn’t afford going to a shooting School that cost $800 or more. So take a local class. Most of your local Ranges are charging one $150 or less for an afternoon of training. It’s worth it to have a second set of eyes observing what you’re doing right and wrong and given you positive feedback.
Meh, I’ve spent a good portion of my life training for force on force of various stripes. I have no idea where they get these fantasy statements they make about power/control. If anything, all of my prior experience has demonstrated very much the lack thereof in reality, and more specifically exactly how vulnerable you yourself, & your daily routine is.
One of the admonishment proverbs we use privately is, “On your worst day, a seemingly frail old lady may be the end of you”. A tip of the hat to Ng Moi, & if you know who she was, you’ll understand. It is a double entrende however, and the literal meaning is always of finite possibility.
Firearms are tools, no different in principle than a hammer. “It’s a hard heart that kills”. – R. Lee Ermy
No, owning a gun gives you REAL control over the other things you need to survive.
If you don’t have the means to retain possession of (by force, if necessary) the necessities of life, you’re just collecting them for somebody else to take at their convenience.
Supreme court sidesteps 2A case against New York. As I predicted here. Relying on courts to preserve Your Rights is a Fools Follie.
Court tosses NY case that could have expanded gun rights | KTVO
https://ktvo.com/news/nation-world/court-tosses-ny-case-that-could-have-expanded-gun-rights
I had no faith from the onset, so I cannot be disappointed. Though I cannot lightly cast aside the betrayal.
they might be making the calculation that Old Joe will be appointing Ruthie’s replacement and Chuck and Nancy might be adding more robes to the court.
Darn it, now I feel the need to test this theory by buying a gun during the pandemic. I missed my chance to test if “Buying a Gun in a Pandemic Gives People a Feeling of Control” because the last two guns I bought was immediately before the news broke.
So I missed out … I feel so cheated …
‘From a psychological standpoint, she added, a gun is similar to a “security blanket for a child.” ‘
I’m sure she didn’t mean to be so condescending, comparing grown men and women going out of their way to take responsibility for themselves to scared children. No doubt she talks down like that to her own family and friends who are hoarding toilet paper so they can feel more secure, or when they make sure their dead bolt is locked before they go to bed, so they can feel more secure. No one should tell them that any grown man halfway trying could kick it in if they wanted to. I’m sure she talks that way to her fellow doctors who tried to hoard up certain meds during the outbreak by preemptively prescribing it to themselves and their family. It has nothing to do with the fact that she’s anti-gun (for you), right?
Those pompous anti gun zealots are above it all looking down on who they perceive to be gun loving knuckle draggers. The fact of the matter is Gun Control is indeed a racist and nazi based agenda. The genuine real knuckle draggers need to come down from their sleazy perch.
People buy guns in pandemics when the authorities release criminals from jail and promise not to arrest criminals. It’s pretty simple and doesn’t require much research.
If a gun can’t protect you, what will? False hope in the crooks masquerading as political leaders, dems are the worse! Just look at the cities and states they run, into the ground! If you remove all the dem city crimes, the US would be one of the safest countries in the world! Just facts !
So does buying socks. Shopping generally gives people a feeling of control when they feel they have little to none.
It’s emotional, not logical and it’s been known for a long time. If it’s good, bad or just is depends on your point of view.
Either way, it’s not going away and it’s a facet of reality that’s been used against us for a long time. Continuing to ignore or deride it isn’t going to help us.
More of a perception than reality?
Lot’s of rare, but likely things involve per perception than reality. The need for national pandemic preparedness was more of a perception than a reality. Until a pandemic broke out.
The need for life insurance is more a perception than a reality – until a breadwinner passes prematurely.
The need for seatbelts are more a perception than a reality. Most people never need them.
The “more of a perception than a reality” claim ignores the vast majority of rare events that are virtually inevitable in the grander scheme of time.
So does buying a dozen: tubes of sanitizing wipes, multi packs of TP and paper towels, cartons of eggs and # packs of bacon…and on and on and on. Damn people are insecure.
Well… a gun, or spend that money on a vaccine that will be promoted by some guys who have said they want to reduce earth’s population by two billion…. it seems like the gun is a better choice.
Now this is funny, – a gun is a security blanket – It seems to me that social distancing, stay at home orders and the intentional shut down of the country are the real “security blanket”. All of that was meant to “flatten the curve” and prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed, something that has not happened anywhere in the US apart from certain small areas of New York and even that seems to be over now. The fact remains that sooner or later you will be exposed to the dreaded COVID19. There is of course a 99.4% chance that if you do get it you will survive it. But, never mind all of that, lets shut down the world – “Security Blanket” anyone?
My everyday security blanket is .40 caliber…
Hello
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