Saturday, November 23, 2013

"Portraits of Americans and their guns"

I was essentially looking for normal people, people like you and me,” Ommanney said of the project. “The only difference being that they live in a community or in an environment where shooting and owning guns is a way of life. I wanted to speak to people who weren’t going to start predictably talking about the far-right and FOX news and how their Second Amendment rights were being violated by Obama, which is what we hear every day of the week from every stereotypical gun owner.”
The Baker family - Ashburn, Ga.
More pictures at this MSNBC link

33 comments:

ricpic said...

They look normal to me.

Is it abnormal to be aware of the ferocious assault on the 2nd Amendment by our betters?

Finally, Ann Asenbauer (11th picture) has a nice asenbauer.

edutcher said...

If they're ordinary, America needs to drop some weight.

bagoh20 said...

I like the fourth picture of the guy with the baby as body armor. That's being thrifty, but I'd like to see some stats on the effectiveness of that. It might be effective in stopping you from being shot by a woman.

A woman who has a gun and knows how to use it is a damned sexy look. It even makes an unattractive woman look good. It does much more for me than getting their hair done. Now if you have a hot looking lady with her hair a little messed up, and a quality handgun, well then we need to mate ASAP for the good of the nation.

Titus said...

That is not a pretty family.

tits.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

If this was meant to be reassuring - FAIL.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That is not a pretty family.

You have a weight phobia.

bagoh20 said...

The authors are from MSNBC, and not too fond of Americans with guns, so it was not intended as something positive. That's why they show so many unattractive and very young gun owners. It's intended to scare liberals who read MSNBC.com or reinforce their delusions of superiority Still a fail, since it will not move a single person one way or the other. As a proponent of guns, I like seeing regular people armed. It makes me feel safe and like I'm surrounded by responsible people.

When trouble comes, you liberals can all go pile in the closet and light candles. That is if you aren't banging at one of these people's doors begging for help.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

There is a picture of a young woman in the middle of the street with her back turned to the camera.

In fear for her safety, she called the cops, they were late, so she turned her back on 'acceptability'? she purchased a gun.

JAL said...

Funny he missed how many over 50s own guns. As well as Millenials.

Years ago I had an office with a realtor down the hall who was stereotypical macho man gun owner (he also thought Y2K was going to trigger something akin to Armageddon). An armed to the teeth guy.

His secretary was a short very pleasant slightly plump 40s something married gal. No kids. She had CCW. That was my introduction to the world of "you would never guess who ..."

Now granted, I live in the South, but I have gone from "you'd never guess who ..." to being able to guess quite pretty well. Our whole little neighborhood --- oh, say about 9 houses, probably has enough guns to scare the average New Yorker to death. No one dead or injured so far.

We are 2 young thirties couples with little kids who worked at an alternative retreat center, who now are web designer, Apple trech support, preschool teacher, and stay at home mom. We are a semi retired business couple (old South), a divorcee who works two jobs, a 50s divorced guy who used to own a restaurant and now works at a big box store, a gung ho entrepreneurial couple who have real jobs and run a grading business in their spare time. We are a retired nurse, an engineer, and a couple more couples who work or garden in their early retirement. Some of us are Southerners by birth, some by choice.

At least eight out of nine solid middle class families with more than an high school education.

And that's not to mention a bunch of my friends. But when you start muttering about Wal-Mart always being sold out of your ammo you discover another kinship.

The guy should have come by and visited our neighborhood.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I wanted to used the woman by herself, but the picture of a family warmed the cockles of my heart.

chickelit said...

The media and the Obama administration are relentless in their quest to disarm ordinary Americans. It's on their back burner right now, but they remain ready to crank up the heat.

JAL said...

As for the incredulity of the pretty girl with the flowered wall paper?

Do these guys always think in stereotypes? He needs to catch some of the chickees on the women's gun websites. I am an older woman but I can still see there are real babes out there. Big surprise!!

Someone needs to break the surface tension of this guy's bubble.

(And Bago-- you will find your true love, or she you. Be patient.)

Unknown said...

In co, some portion of dems and lefty progs are gun owners. I'm glad MSNBC avoided mentioning fox news and rightwingers. MSNBC could interview dems w guns, but I'm sure MSNBC are certain dems w guns do not exist.
the left

bagoh20 said...

"In fear for her safety, she called the cops, they were late,..."

The cops are the ones who will probably shoot her. What's unhinged is the gun phobia people have today. A lot of people see a gun as a rusty hand grenade with the pin pulled, that might go off at any second, and which somehow makes people crazy when they hold it.

I've mentioned it before that as a kid many of us brought guns to school during hunting season, and it was a complete nonevent to everyone else. Cops used to be able to walk around relaxed with hunter holding guns and have normal conversations. Today, they piss their pants and empty the clips of every cop on the scene at even the suggestion of a gun, garden hose, wallet, or assault dildo.

All this after the biggest decline in violent crime in history, where our streets are safer today even with millions more guns in people's hands.

The reaction is counterfactual, paranoid, and a slow burning panic that leads to tragedy for innocent people and their pets everyday.

First we turned our men into pussies, and so we often have cowards now for cops.

Phil 314 said...

Not a gun guy but I have to agree with ARM and JAL. This may say more about who was willing to be photographed than the "normalcy" of gun owners.

Yes, there are gun nuts, but there a lot of hunters, folks who want to protect themselves, folks who shoot as a hobby etc.

Should we do a photo story on "normal folks" who like and buy modern art?

bagoh20 said...

"(And Bago-- you will find your true love, or she you. Be patient.)"

Be patient? At this rate, it looks like she's gonna need to pry my love from my cold dead hands. Is there a match.com for hot gun owners? I need a hot gal that has a CCW and is also blind, or at least likes her men to be antiques.

bagoh20 said...

Gotta admit the family in that first photo needs guns. Running away or dodging are not reasonable options.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's the incongruity, stupid.

Or is it juxtaposition? I'm always getting those two mixed up.

Anyway, I was sort of hoping for a photo or two of some of those guys who buy their clothing from Filson or Orvis or, hell, even L.L.Bean but no dice.

This is a poor substitute but it'll have to do.

The Dude said...

I delivered a piece of furniture to a skinny leftist woman recently and despite her Obama love, her bleeding heart sympathy for minorities, her lifelong career of teaching in public schools and her fervent vegetarianism, bitch owns a 20 gauge shotgun and loves to shoot skeet.

Sometimes stereotypes are wrong. But mostly they are correct.

Chip Ahoy said...

When you saw the first gansta image of a black yute menacingly aiming a pistol held sideways wasn't your first thought, "Oh dear. He hasn't had firearms training."

I cast back to my own firearms training and wondered how I managed that with no interest in guns whatsoever. Why did I have training handling rifles and pistols? Where did that come from? I recollected a few places where I came into contact with guns. Three of them were in public schools But no guns at all on any of the Air Bases, none of it had to do with military. That was the part that seemed odd.

My father doesn't care for guns so they are not around and that attitude pervaded. None of us have them.

I mentioned that to a liberal gun owner here a few weeks ago and he was shocked to hear it. He asked incredulously, "Where?" The last few were right here in Colorado. I described the place we were taken by bus. Our school arranged that. Showed up for school boom on a bus taken to a distant range. Now there are houses there. For some reason they insisted we had firearms training. All outside. Never an indoor range, although I've been to those too, just not fired guns there. I recall three of those. And all that happened while basically hoping to avoid guns.

On the other hand gunpowder is a different story. I used to make that to blow marbles out of tubes on a sandbar. Got the ingredients at a 7-11 type convenience store. Let's see, what did I need? Salt Peter, I don't even know what that is. I was told it was added to meals in boys schools to suppress their sexual urges, but this was before the internet so I honestly didn't know anything, and we also needed sulphur which is a yellow powder. So two powders that come in similar boxes.

The third element is from home, charcoal. A briquette sanded down to powder. So three powders. The trick was learning the ratio. I forget what the ultimate ratio turned out to be. I also learned charcoal chunks will not do.

Please don't tell my dad. He would be quite cross to learn of this. Both parents would be upset to learn about the sandbar.

The writer put me off with "who weren’t going to start predictably talking about the far-right and FOX news and how their Second Amendment rights were being violated by Obama, which is what we hear every day of the week from every stereotypical gun owner."

Bullshit. Liberals talk about FOX. It's all they have to say in the commnents. Fuck him right there. I don't hear the opposite. I hear conservatives disregard MSNBC but I don't hear them disregard the whole class of people that watch MSNBC, that is "those MSNBC-wathcers" who get their opinions from their network. It is a very weird and telling obsession, it is a shibboleth that signals the writer harbors a serious chip on their shoulder. I dismiss them right there at the mention of the network.

Except when I do it.

Because they're pissing me off royally. I swear to God, and He's listening right now, FOX is getting on my nerves so bad I cannot stand it. Their stuttering is driving me mad. Now the whole goddamn network is doing it like that is their corporate culture, a hesitant vocalized stutter that signals their thoughts are incomplete, formulating audibly in front of our ears. And it actually hurts. I cannot believe they don't do a technical check to put a stop to that halting. "EYE EYE EYE I think they can to better 'EH 'EH 'EH 'IF they would just try.

Third Coast said...

Here's where I hang out every summer. Great people and great sport.
Short story about the type of people that attend the National Matches (Camp Perry, Ohio). One dark, early morning I was organizing my gear in the trunk so I could get out to the firing line. While retrieving something from the bottom of the trunk, I laid an M1 carbine (worth $700-$800) on the ground next to the car where it stayed the rest of the day, in plain sight. Lots of people passed by in the 5-6 hours I was gone but never touched it.

William said...

I wouldn't reject the concept of using a baby as body armor out hand. While it's true that the baby all by itself couldn't stop much more than a pellet gun, the baby would doubtless inhibit the interaction between store owner and robber. Many of these store owners are gun nuts, quite willing to pull a shotgun from under the counter and pepper your ass if you attempt to rob them. I'm quite certain that with the exception of Yemeni 7/11 clerks, such a response would not happen if you were strapping a child. I suppose one would have to cut the mother in for a percentage of the proceeds, but isn't that extra measure of safety worth it.

Mumpsimus said...

Ah, the selfless anthropologists, doggedly gathering data in the very midst of the primitives, heedless of the danger, miles from the nearest Whole Foods.

deborah said...

MSNBC is vile.

rcocean said...

Most people in Rural/small town America have a guns. Usually a shotgun and Rifle.

Only in Big city/blue state America is owing a gun considered "weird".

deborah said...

rc, you remind me of that guy that talks about men giving up on women and adhering to internet/virtual porn. He says rural/red state marriage is superior to urban/blue state marriage, etc.

bagoh20 said...

"Puppycide" is a Kickstarter project who's goal is to produce a documentary on the epidemic of police shooting family pets. They hope to make the problem better known so there might be changes to policy, tactics ,training and whatever it takes to reduce the occurrence of these heartbreaking and usually unnecessary tragedies happening to American families in their homes.

They tried to raise $100K for a 1 hour film, but fell short at $60K. The are trying again with a goal of $40k to fund a 30 minute film.

This problem just tears at me when I read the stories of the family pet being shot right in front of their families in their homes, often for no good reason, with some of the pets cowering or even tied up at the time. I can't imagine having that happen to my family right in front of the kids. How would kids ever trust the police after seeing that? This can be greatly improved with a little exposure producing enough demand by the public.

Please contribute to this cause if you can.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1850434439/puppycide-a-documentary

The Dude said...

They don't have to shoot anything for me not to trust the bastards.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

rcocean said...
Most people in Rural/small town America have a guns. Usually a shotgun and Rifle.

Only in Big city/blue state America is owing a gun considered "weird".



This is true to a point. Rifles are a legitimate tool of farmers, however it is a long time since a significant fraction of the population worked a farm. The fetishizement of guns by a predominantly suburban and exurban population seems a little strange to many of us.

Unknown said...

Plenty of people quietly own guns.
I would not shed a tear if someone got fed up and shot and killed the cop puppy killer. Bastards.

Michael Haz said...

As I type this, it is the opening day of deer hunting season in Wisconsin. There are some 500,000 hunters in the northern half of the state with the appropriate tags, gear and guns hunting deer.

Many are in family groups, generations of men, women boys and girls. Good people, having a lot of fun and making lifelong memories.

My Congressman and his family are among them. He'll send out a photo if anyone gets a deer. Last year his daughter shot her first one.

I don't expect that anyone form a liberal publication understands deer hunting. And I'm glad that they don't. Just stay away.

By the way, among those half-million armed citizens, there well be no knockout games, no drive-by shootings and no gang-related homicides. Bitter clingers got they shit together.

Aridog said...

ARM said ...

The fetishizement of guns by a predominantly suburban and exurban population seems a little strange to many of us.

No snark or criticism intended, just explanation of sorts: some of us have had to serve in the military in combat, as our fathers and neighbors did before us, and find nothing strange about guns at all...regardless whether we live in rural areas or the city, as I do now.

I began shooting at age 7, first NRA badge at 8, as part of the Junior NRA / CMP at the time (1950). I assure you that the early experiences made a beneficial difference later on when the Army became my home.

I still shoot American Trap clay targets and paper targets with pistols today some 63 years later. Yet, I am no longer a hunter (not since 1972) and don't drool or snort when I speak, nor do I fondle my guns. They are tools, for a sport and potentially defense. Last gun purchase was 21 November 2013....my first striker fired Tuperware pistol. We'll if this old codger can adapt....or reverts to his familiar Model 1911 .45's.

JAL said...

Ahh Bags - a family member found his love at age 72.

We know you're running on someone else's liver, but there will be time for you. And she'll pass the dog and gun test.

(Ha -- Have you tried match.com? And praying ;-) ...)