“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” So sayeth the progressive standard bearer, Barack Obama in the run up to his first presidential election. Words which were brushed aside by the gun control-happy left. So it’s no wonder that rawstory.com saw fit to lampoon GOA jefe Larry Pratt for his religious take on gun control. Condescending gits. Still, now that time has passed, are American gun owners bitter clingers, now more than ever?

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59 COMMENTS

  1. Well, God is still good, and since I have already prept fifty M1 clips for my shooting of more known distance, signed up for two more Appleseed events in 2014 and looking for more, NO, I am not bitter. Sure I would like to have a job, provide for the family and those less fortunate – and I will. I also think we should have elected Ron Paul in 2012 but the media and the professional political class thought that would be too traumatic. I remain thankful for this country, as out of line as ever and still bearing more real promise in Liberty than any nation on earth. Change is constant, time marches on, and things can only get better – for God is good.

  2. I’m bitter. But why shouldn’t I be? Every day my government pursues new ways to deny me my God-given rights, the labor of my own two hands, and punishes every attempt to innovate.

  3. I’m agnostic, generally pro-immigrant (but NO freebies! None of that state money, you gotta work) and very very pro gun. Pro gun is logical. Anti gun is idiotic and irrational.

    • I know a lot of atheist or agnostic pro-gun people…

      …And a lot of anti-gun “Christians”. They claim that loving peace and being a true Christian makes them pro gun control. When I point out verses like “take up your sword” and the fact that Simon Peter carried a sword around Jesus and cut off an ear, they get very uncomfortable.

      This cognitive dissonance where people basically use their religion as a front for anything they happen to believe (good or bad) is basically why droves of my generation are leaving organized religion and never looking back.

      • I grew up in the Evangelical Quaker church. I didn’t agree with their stance on weapons and self defense. I now attend the “Church of my own house”(TM) and I don’t have to listen to other people’s BS.

        • Read the bible once. God is Love but vengence shall be his. You think God isn’t on the side of truth and justice? He is not passive and if you know anything about Exodus you should find your ass in church come Sunday morn…

  4. Clinger? Definitely, yes. I have worked well over half my life and feel I have earned everything I have been blessed to have.
    Bitter? Not so much. Not yet. Try the serenity prayer and ‘listen’ to the words. Not religious? Then don’t say the word God.
    Some stuff, we, as individuals, have zero control over. So, improvise, adapt and overcome.

  6. Oh, damn, is that what he said? I thought he called me a better Klingon. My wife says I need my hearing checked.

    • Not Star Trek, M*A*S*H.
      Clingons were Star Trek.
      Clinger was the cross dressing guy trying to get out of Korea on a Section 8 discharge.

  8. The current president basically said any gun owners that don’t support ‘common sense’ gun control regulations are the same as child murderers in his post Newtown stump speeches and failed gun control in the senate temper tantrum. I’ll say it as politely as I can, F*CK Him and everyone that thinks like him.

  10. I don’t know about bitter, but I’d same some “People of the Gun” treat their guns as a totem.

    Quote from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem

    “A totem is a being, object, or symbol representing an animal or plant that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe, reminding them of their ancestry (or mythic past). In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem. Normally this belief is accompanied by a totemic myth.”

    I’d say that fits pretty accurately.

    In other words, Guns are an object of religious worship for some in this country, and the Right to Bear Arms is the Dogma of religious worship for some in this country. Some, not all Guns Owners.

    • So the f*ck what? Wiccans, Pagans, Muslims, Snake-Handling Evangelicals, Christians, Buddhists, and all other religions are accorded the same protections for freedom of religion. If I choose to worship my M1A as a religious totem, it’s actually protected by two of the Bill of Rights amendments, not just one.

      Even if your somewhat twisted analysis was true, it makes no different. Jimmy Jones and his cultists were still protected from government interference, up until the point where they started inducing people to commit suicide. And when you start letting the government pick out who has an approved way of life and who doesn’t, you end up with Ruby Ridge and Waco.

  11. Most gun owners I know are not bitter.

    They support the RKBA because the have an overflowing amount of faith and trust in their fellow man/woman.

    Guns can be used for good or evil and the positive educated optimist believes that most Americans will use their ar15 shotgun only for good.

  12. Romans 12:9 says to, “abhor what is evil; [b]cling[/b] to what is good.” It’s good advice, regardless of your belief system. As for bitterness, no one can make you bitter but yourself.

  13. I’m not bitter. I just don’t like commies, especially lying punk-assed commies. The sad part is that Barry couldn’t make it in a real commy country though because he lacks intestinal fortitude and the skill set that put guys like Nikita Khrushchev in office. In fact, he is the one that is bitter. Putin would make him his bitch if he were Russian. Castro may let him sweep the floors. Not sure what the Vietnamese would have done with him, but probably would have let the mosquitoes drink him.

      • Before shooting of your mouth, why don’t you go find out who wrote “Dreams of My Father” for Barry and get back to me on that. Furthermore, why don’t you go learns something about history and the Bolsheviks and get back to me after specifically looking at the biography of Nikita Khrushchev.

    • Bob Dylan says “to live outside the law you must be honest”. I know that doesn’t really have anything to do with us Bitter Clingers – it’s just one of my favorite lines.

  16. The only bitterness I harbor is from being continually demonized, stereotyped and viewed as somehow complicit in the horrible actions of sick individuals.

    • +1
      I am tired of the culture war. Somehow somewhere needs to tie gun ownership with homosexuality and we will automatically win.

      It’s for this reason I fully support Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Gun Blog.

  17. Moderately bitter, pro separation of church and state, definitely clinging to my guns because A: they’re potentially useful tools and B: they’re mine.

  18. An interesting point-of-view…however…the question remains…”Clinging to what?…if the question is related to the economy…and waiting to see when the jobs will come back….the answer was in Ross Perot’s speech regarding his Presidential Bid…and NAFTA…remember when he said…”that flushing sound will be all the jobs being outsourced to Mexico, Malaysia, Pakistan, China, etc”….

    ….so if you are “clinging” to the hope that “decent paying, middle-income-type-jobs” are coming back to the USA…you will have to hold on a little longer….at least until we are equal in 3rd-world wages and lifestyle to most of the rest of the world….

    Now…if they are “clinging” to the idea of Constitutional Government…and adherence to those principles…you are going to have to hold on with one hand..and use the other to hold a pen, a microphone, a protest sign …or when necessary…a weapon…to begin to tangibly defend your liberty…

    But I honestly think people are “clinging” to the idea that ethics, integrity, morality and loyalty to the “Concept of America” is going to be returning soon to the shores of this country…(if they were ever actually here in the first place?)…I think those of us who have waited forty or fifty years for “the system” to save the republic have seen enough…..charge all of the leadership class in this country with treason for the last fifty years…give them good lawyers and fair trials…and when we find them guilty…confiscate their wealth…their family wealth..convict their kids and any other family member who benefited from the treason and corruption…and then start hanging the convicted ones…immediately.. no appeals process…just start hanging them…right outside The Court House…so the convicted judges cans see what awaits them as well..

    I think the “clinging” will begin to shift quite remarkably at that point..eh?

    Regards,

    RJ O’Guillory
    Author-
    Webster Groves – The Life of an Insane Family

    • Are you actually in Webster Groves (St. Louis suburb)?
      I’m in Kirkwood. Wanna’ go shootin’ some time?

        • For me, that would be On Target, in Valley Park. New facility, good lighting and ventilation. The folks there are great, but the pickings in the shop side are slim. Top Gun has just as nice, if not nicer, a range – and an exceptionally good selection of guns and gear. If I need to buy something, I might drive out to Top Gun, but On Target has about as good a range and is about half-an-hour closer to home. For that matter, Denny Dennis, also in Valley Park, is an even better shop, and only a mile or two from On Target. No point in driving further unless there’s something I need right away and Denny Dennis doesn’t have it.

        • Forgot to mention – the range at On Target has a separate long gun range, so if you’re a pistol guy you won’t be deafened by somebody patterning their twelve-gauge. Most important: I’ve never had to wait for a lane there, and they’re open Sundays.

  20. Bitter clingers, no.

    Tired of our rights being messed with due to emotions, FUD, for the children? Yes! The chronic assault and white washing the attack buy changing the name of the groups or meme definitely takes a toll. Just reminds me to keep convincing others and fighting back.

    Less government and more personal responsibility.

  21. Bitter, no, enthusiastic, yes.
    Cling, no, embrace, yes.
    Might kinda look the same, but the connotation is much different. I can see how someone bent on painting us in a bad light might not notice the contrast….

  23. This was one of the first points where I realized I made a mistake when I voted for this man in 2008. Unfortunately I didn’t hear it until after the fact. Add it to the long list of things he has done and said since then that has made me hate him and his administration with a burning passion.

    Other than being an atheist and gainfully employed for many years, I do “cling to my guns” and I don’t appreciate this president treating me like I’m some backwoods criminal for it.

    • I have to think one of my friends posted this…

      I’m not bitter, just tired. I want to wake up one morning and not turn on the tv and hear somebody telling me I owe them something, or that things I have owned for decades that never hurt anybody are a menace to society, or that I’m the reason that hoodlums roam the streets and vandalize my car, for some oppression I never even got to enjoy doing..

      • “I’m the reason that hoodlums roam the streets and vandalize my car, for some oppression I never even got to enjoy doing.”

        BINGO! Absolutely! I’ve never been confronted by anybody senseless enough to accuse my ancestors of oppression. If anyone ever did, I would point out to them that when that was happening here, my ancestors were being oppressed by an entirely different government somewhere in Europe. And the accuser’s ancestors were probably on a different continent, because most of the descendants of slaves where I live have sold the land that their ancestors were awarded or bought, and are living quite comfortably on their 401Ks in a warmer climate.

  25. I cling to both. Not out of bitterness, but out of love for God and the freedom he gave me ,and to protect the the freedoms He has lovingy vested in all man kind.

  26. Funny thing about that…

    I’m not religious or even conservative except in the sense that I’m a Constitutionalist who believes in fiscal responsibility. Nor am I bitter…except about what Obama and the progressive Democrat legion have tried to do to the Constitution over the past few years. And about the gun thing. Especially the gun thing.

    If I am a bitter clinger, it’s because Obama turned me into one.

  27. If you want to hold on to your beliefs, lack of beliefs, or religion, you better damn well cling to your guns.

  28. Never agree to the despicable assertions of idiots. That goes double for commie idiots like Obama. The only person with a bitter chip on his shoulder about America, is Obama. The only person clinging to old, failed, collectivist ideas, is Obama. The only person who still can’t sufficiently prove he’s a natural born American, is Obama.

  29. When is Obummer going to tell his brothers in the middle east to quit clinging to their guns and religion eh?

  30. The Good Book has a poem, about a time for every thing under the sun. Tend to believe that instead of “it will never happen here” line we hear from sand breathing types out there.

  31. ‘Clinging’ to me sounds like a word that describes something that will soon be lost by external forces or lack of grip. I FIRMLY hold my rights with both hands. Wanna test my grip? Me and 100 million gun owners would be there waiting. Oh and FYI during the Allied invasion in France during WWII there were 3 million soldiers in England used as a decoy to take hitler’s focus off the invasion. Imagine (thanks John Lennon) what we could do with the other 97 million gun owners. I like our odds.

  32. Here’s a crazy idea – every company in a red state that produces food and grain cannot sell said products to a blue state unless their 2A laws coincide. Seriously – let them go hungry. I’m talking about sanctions against our own to get a very serious point across.

    Fly over states my a$$. This is America.

  34. If anyone is ‘bitterly clinging’ to anything, it’s OBAMA — bitterly clinging to the wreckage of his disastrous, socialist, bureaucratic Frankenstein called Obamacare — as the rest of the country watches in horror as the hideous, stitched-together monster of his struggles to come to life and consume us all in it’s wretched embrace.

    “We just need more lightning Igor, more lightning! HaHaHaHaHaHaaaaa”

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