Pretty sure it's stupid

There were no rioters near the lawyers house, just demonstrators passing by on the sidewalk on there way to somewhere else. Going out to provoke a confrontation is stupid, especially the wife waving the hand gun.:facepalm:

And a confrontation was precisely the thing they did not provoke: exposed arms are confrontation suppressers. It's definitely under the heading of "confrontation" if there are shots fired, which there were not. I do not recall any shouting being done.

No, I'm more with them -- pieces of work that they are, and not exactly at one with their weapons either -- than against. This time.

First thing they teach in hostage negotiations - always deescalate the situation by carrying a big gun

Tell that to the armed protester in Austin who was reflexively shot (and killed) in a panic by another armed person who was harassing the protesters. It's ironic, but most Second Amendment nuts always envision themselves as the only armed person. They lionize the "good guy with a gun" and completely forget the inevitable "stupid guy with a gun." And FAR more average people are stupid, as opposed to bad.

Take up the discussion with -- i.e., tell that to -- a policeman. He wears a pistol most of each day and durn near all the week. You gonna tell me people start fights with the officer because he shows up wearing a holster?

Honestly, Fobble: you don't know a damned thing about guns, and less than zero about gun culture both inside and outside of law enforcement -- and you presume to lecture me? There's no shame in being guided by people who know more about something than you do. I'd know you *do* know a damned thing about guns once you start sounding like me.

It is highly non-intelligent to cultivate defenselessness. Never do the non-intelligent thing.

I've met a few people whose emotional makeup -- well, doesn't suit keeping arms, and they can honestly say so, and specify why. Speaking for themselves. I carefully avoid speaking for them. The anti-gun set can hardly be described as careful about that, so hurried are they in describing keepers of killing-tools as stupid or bitter -- as a universal thing.

My concern is less with long-time gun enthusiasts than with newly armed folks who've self radicalized right or left showing up armed and incompetent with a belly full of anger. In terms of local threats, here in hillbilly country, I'm concerned about folks who think it's bugaloo time hoarding ammo. I'm sure urbanites have their own concerns. We have a country which seems on the brink of something if each of us doesn't look for ways to de-escalate tensions. I know a lot of gun folks think open carry calms people down, but I don't buy it. I think that it actually causes less competent people to feel forced by circumstances to carry, like Pakistan having a nuke, nobody is really cool with it but Pakistan.

Hmm... you seem to believe the yahoos you decry somehow aren't going to get themselves settled by the rest of the citizenry. This is typical of the antigun and hence anti-rights and anti-republic superstition. If you're not used enough to guns, I can see where you'd be, well, nervous.

Not something I'd do, though. I got past that decades ago; it wasn't always so for me. But then I started reading material more knowledgeable about arms and private arms than Time magazine. Didn't take long to realign my thinking.

Except, I was raised in and live in the gun culture. This was a culture of hunting and home protection not a culture of intimidation.

*Psst*... I was, too. Don't tell UG. Guns were a fixture in not just one but both parents' houses; I was taken to the shooting range multiple times as a pre-teen. My problem's not with responsible gun owners, just with the fact that there is absolutely zero accountability right now in determining who is "responsible" and not an idiot. It's not a hypothetical for me--I have close family with severe, hospitalizable mental illness who should be prevented from purchasing a firearm at all costs. They aren't. It's fucked up.

*shhh* let him have his simple narrative.

That narrative is how we got Trump. It simply excites and rallies the adults who are still children.

And so one went to a pizza shop liberated children from the basement of pedophiles. When asked why that pizza shop did not have a basement, he said, "Bad intelligence." He never learned where bad intelligence exists. In the brain of an adult who is still thinking like a child.

...aaaand here's your sign.[/Engvall]

Nailed it

Back, back, like the pages in a book...