I'm afraid I lost a few friends tonight

Nope I feel they aren't even related. You can carry and be gay, I do it all the time.

Frankly I wish more gays were like you and me. We are a huge target for violent crime as a whole community. The L, the G, the B, and the T.

Although, I don't believe in accidental discharges. All are negligent discharges in my mind. How the gun fell out beats me. Almost all CCW holsters I've seen are secure and very tight.

Also, which gun was she carrying? Most revolvers and almost ALL modern semiautos are drop safe.

 

Guns are a very sensitive topic, and although your friend's husband was rude, you have to admit that when someone could have died (and many thousands do) because of the laws, the topic is definitely going to be heated. He was in the wrong in terms of how rude he was, but I don't think that he thought of it that way; tens of thousands of deaths annually versus rude comments aren't exactly equally problematic. As for the "nothing to do with each other", it's easy for homophobes to shoot gay people if guns aren't restricted, just as a lot of gun laws end up with black people being killed within the bounds of the law (Stand Your Ground is not-so-subtle code for "Be Violently Racist and Get Away With it"). They're not mutually exclusive beliefs, but they're certainly linked in a way that usually prevents being supportive of both.

Yes, the disagreement is certainly enough to end a friendship, just as my father lost several friends because of an argument about the Iraq War. Being pro-gun and pro-gay aren't mutually exclusive, but the people who support liberal gun ownership tend to be the ones who are against LGBT rights, and choosing between guns and LGBT people is pretty obvious in terms of the right choice.

As for who won the argument, it's hard to tell without having heard it, but your arguments about what the law says aren't usually seen as relevant by people who don't support those laws. Whether you won or not you might have to consider yourself short of a few friends for a while.

 

I personally support the rights of gun owners. DC v. Heller was probably one of the better SCOTUS decisions in the last 10 years, especially for those living in more "liberal" (in the gun control sense) areas like DC. Then again, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Texan who doesn't support gun rights.

That said, I don't think arguing over gun control issues is enough to break a friendship. In all honesty, it was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for your ex-friends. They probably had other issues with you that were petty (maybe you hunt and they don't believe in it) and it just accumulated in their mind and they blew a gasket. Hope this paragraph isn't too insensitive. This is just what I think may have happened in your ex-friends' minds .

 

May I ask why you support gun ownership?
Yes, your friend shouldn't have been rude, but sometimes people get frustrated when people are arguing over something they believe strongly about...
A lot of nations outside the US are very anti-gun ownership. Personally I am against gun ownership. Pretty much everyone where I live finds it ridiculous how easily guns can be purchased in most parts of the US. There's a reason why we don't have school-yard shootings every second week here...

But having said that, you're entitled to your opinion.

 

As a European, I wouldn't dare to go into US gun laws. We will never really understand them, but I can say this. When a friendship can not survive a heated debat, even to the point of getting rude, AND you cannot make up afterwards, that friendship might be not worth much from the start. Maybe tough to come to that conclusion, but that's where it amounts to.:icon_sad:

 

I support gun ownership...to a point

but I have to ask. As a veteran, do you truly believe you and other minutemen could withsand the full power of the US military? I am not being rude, just asking a straight honest question

As for OP. I hate to be bold but if you friends left you over a single argument then how much of a friend were they? Be who you are and darn the rest

Foxface

 

The US Armed Forces today are a lot stronger than the British Army was in 1776.

 

The British Army didn't have drones, helicopters, jets, smart bombs, dumb bombs, fully automatic and automated weapons and the ability to phone in the war without setting a boot on the ground along with a cointel force that can learn anything they truly desire to.

so you'll pardon me if I don't see it as the same

The British had a massive standing army and a heavy armada but the fact was we were fighting gun for gun and cannon for cannon. The size of your standing army (or minutemen) mean absolutely nothing when the Air Force can place a bomb within ten feet or error at your doorstep. Even the machine guns that some gun owners have won't mean a thing if the US were to deploy a fleet of AC-130's with 105 Howitzer rounds that you won't see coming. And your pistols aren't going to do a ton towards the amazing body armor and raw training of the military force. I'm sorry but I can't compare a gun owner who took a survival class to the US Marines.

Your best weapons aren't going to take down an A-10

Now this is all of course leads to a question that nobody (veteran, active or civillian alike) can answer. Would the US go that far?

But if they did, I'm sorry but your private arsenal is not going to match the raw technology and secrecy that the US war machine has

I've been on both sides of this argument and I do not see near the correlation to 1776 as some like to propose.

Foxface

 

The Soviet Union went bankrupt sending fighter planes to shoot down Afghan soldiers with rifles who were in a tent next to a mountain. The U.S. has basically now done the same thing sending F-16's and multi-million dollar drones to blow up mud huts.

The U.S. military would never win a street to street fight with it's own population. It would basically be attrition warfare. This of course does not count using nukes, but then who will be left to tax if you nuke everyone?

 

Why would they wage a street to street fight? Just because this statement is somewhat true doesn't mean that is how the military would approach such a situation. And I purposefully left nukes out despite my past with them because that idea is ludicrous. My point still stands though. Machine guns mean nothing in comparison to the technological advances of the military. What we see now is amazing advances and the worst part about it is this is only what we have been allowed to see. There is more technology that we (including myself with a CNWDI/TS clearance) know nothing about.

Look at the NSA. Look at out intelligence world. That alone could cripple the plans of a rag-tag group of men with guns.

Anything is possible, I am just saying that this military we behold today always finds a way to pay for it.

The real problem for the military would be if the UN decided that the supporting countries should sanction the US military and attack. But that still wouldn't stop the military from slaughtering it's own people wholesale

We're gonna need to disagree on this one but that's quite fine

Foxface

 

This is why i would be a bit skeptical about going to the states because everyone over there is carrying a gun. i would be worried if i made some angry and them pulling out a pistol on me.. not trying to say that all people would do that. but we are completely gun free in Australia and most people do self defense classes or some form of exercise in amongst a martial art. so we are not so dependent on weaponry

 

This. LGBT folk are a high risk group, constantly targeted by unsavory individuals. You'd think we'd be more into the whole self-defense thing, all things considered.

 

Mace put it best: as Europeans, we will never understand Americans who are pro guns or the laws that give them the right to carry them. Honestly, I'm glad I live on a continent where a person who walks into a store with a (concealed) gun would probably be taken to a psychologist as well as to court.

On the question of people's ability to fight off the military... unfortunately, mine is the people who had to do that only fifteen years ago. Military facilities were captured and weapon taken, new equipment produced or imported. Even so, it was a close shot and, being honest, the only reason the defense succeeded was political, not military. Had the organized army of the then country assaulted in full strength, my country would have been obliterated. No amount of personal weaponry would have changed a thing. And that's an army incomparably weaker than the USA's.

However, on topic: as already said, a friendship must survive differences in opinion. OP didn't provide any details; I doubt the topic itself was the problem. I would assume that the arguments and the way they were given were the problem, not the issue at hand. I mean, I have friends who are all kinds of people and with who I definitely don't share all (or even most) opinions. So what.. as long as they respect me and value our friendship, it's fine to discuss those differences; actually, sometimes it's so much fun

 

Most handguns have something called a safety. While I support Second Amendment rights it is irresponsible to carry a gun with the safety off. A few of my gay friends have gun collections. They enjoy target shooting and hunting.

 

You also have to factor in Americans shooting at their own people. I'm not saying it could not, or would not happen, but it is a very different type of situation than the usual "go kill the evil brown people" that the military gets convinced is right. I think the military turning against the population would be a hard pill for most of them to swallow and they would defect and bring their expertise to the other side.

This is all hypothetical of course, but I do think that this plays in to the gun debate and why people feel like the government wants to take their guns away.

 

Not a European here, but as a Canadian I share their bafflement at American's attitudes toward guns. It shows most clearly when I go there from time to time and I see their policemen walking on their "beat"; armed to the teeth and with body armour surrounding them.

Robocop has nothing on them...