Conference quark::human_relations-v1

636.0. "Guns and my good friends new baby" by BRADOR::HATASHITA () Mon Dec 12 1988 16:59

    Last weekend I crossed the border into the US to visit friends
    who were celebrating the birth of their first born, a beautiful
    girl named Olivia.  While I was down there (Pontiac, Michigan) the
    new father took me into his basement and, with as much pride as
    he had in presenting me with his daughter, he presented me with
    his latest addition to a rather extensive hand-gun collection.
    
    He ran through the stats on the gun, hefting it with confidence,
    clicking and cocking it around like a kid playing with a Transformer,
    as pieces came out of it while other pieces slid back and forth. I
    wasn't listening to a word he was saying as I was busy being totally
    dumbstruck.
    
    In Canada hand-guns are a major contraband.  To buy one, you need
    special licenses which means you have to be a police officer or a sport
    shooter.  If you are of the latter category, you must inform the local
    police if you move the gun, this includes moving it from your house to
    the shooting club, and you must transport it unloaded and in the trunk
    of your car.  Illegal posession of firearms almost always means prison.
    
    I had never seen a hand-gun before in real life and I wasn't sure that
    they didn't only exist on cop shows and in police holsters. And my
    immediate thought was that my friend, whom I have known for the
    majority of my life, had flipped and become a neurotic paranoid. This
    was until I started to talk to him and found out that both his
    brothers, their wives, his sister, her husband, his father and mother
    and almost all our mutual friends on the US side of the border owned
    hand-guns.  Judging by his reaction to my reaction this is an emotional
    issue in the US. 
    
    I drove back over the border thinking that under the same roof where
    people were joyfully celebrating the arrival of new life, there
    was enough firepower to kill at least one hundred people.  I don't
    know if I can ever think of my friend the same way after watching
    him carress his handgun as if it were a faithful dog.
    
    Can anyone enlighten a naive Canuck on the attitudes towards hand-guns
    in the US?  Why does there appear to be a love affair with these
    rather dangerous pieces of hardware?
    
    Kris 

    Re: .0
    
    Oh, no, you *had* to ask that question.
    
    Be prepared for a 500+ Note string. :-)
    
      Alan

As much as it pains me, I would suggest that this discussion be taken elsewhere.
There has been MUCH discussion of handguns and the arguments between the
different factions in other conferences.  SOAPBOX is one, and there is an
ongoing argument (mostly among men) in WOMANNOTES-V2.  I think that's enough.

I'm open to persuasion by MAIL, so if you have comments on this, please
write me, but for now, I'm disabling further replies on this topic.

				Steve - co-moderator

    If I've touched a nerve I appologize.  Consider this a note from
    a dumb Canuck, eh?
    
    I'm just interested in the attitudes of our friends below the 49th
    parallel (should I wear a kevlar suit during my next trip to The
    Mill?)
    
    K