Interesting, and actually well written, CNN article on NRA convention

[actaeon277]

It's very hard reconsider what you hold to be true.
She is at least open to learn about a differing view.
I think that is amazing.

 

[2A_Tom]

There have been some detractors as to the accuracy of some of her statements, please consider that for someone who admitted she knew very little of the subject she did a very good job.

To say that she didn't know the tenets of her own philosophy is rather arrogant. Same for those detractors of Christianity here.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

To say that she didn't know the tenets of her own philosophy is rather arrogant. Same for those detractors of Christianity here.

No, it is not arrogant, it is true.

She has no idea about ahimsa or Gandhi or anything that she purports to derive from India.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Ahimsa: there are 8 limbs of yoga. The first limb is called the "yama", the 5 social conventions. The first social convention is non-violence to another or one's self.

Just because one owns guns does not mean that one harms others. Ahimsa also includes non-harm sexually. It does not mean that men remove their penises, it simply means no forced sex/rape.

The notion that one desires to harm others because one has a gun is something from cartoons, not Hinduism or yoga. She is a liar.

Gandhi: was a London-trained lawyer whose studies included English common law and American history. Gandhi knew good and well about political theory of an armed citizenry from Harrington, the Italian republicans, the English Bill of Rights and English Common Law.

Gandhi knew that the British could only rule India when the British controlled all the weapons. To that he spoke of the Indian Arms Act of 1878 (and Indian service in the Great War) which allowed British citizens to own and carry guns but prohibited Indians from touching firearms:

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

 

[Kirk Freeman]

The Indians may have succeeded in ousting the British, but we won with Gandhian-style civil disobedience, not a revolutionary war.

No, you did it with war. World War II. A war that left the British Empire drained. Other people carried your pack for your people, but Indian owns its independence to war.

Perhaps if you are against violence so much you can make amends by profiting from World War II, you can re-submit to the Crown? One group of tyrants is just the same as another group of corrupt tyrants in New Delhi. But, if India is so special, why are you HERE, in the midst of all these guns?

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I grew up not knowing a single gun owner, and even today India has one of the strictest gun laws on the planet.

Because you still have the laws in place from your colonial masters. Your social status may not be high enough to be allowed guns, but it does nothing to stop suicide and criminality in India.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It's no wonder then that every time I visit India, my friends and family want to know more about America's "love affair" with guns.

Americans and their love of guns? Really, I thought the author was going to cluck her tongue and tell us all how Indians don't love guns.

India has a holiday devoted to worshiping weapons. She is lying in the typical foreign manner. Hoping that we do not know her culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayudha_Puja

 

[Bennettjh]

It's not a "love affair" with guns, it's called a Free Country.

The way I see it, since they (Indians) can't have guns easily or at all, they make us look crazy. That's fine. I wouldn't trade them.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Maybe she's a nominal or cultural Hindu, much like many of us who claim to be Christian but only really celebrate at Christmas and Easter by buying gifts and having Easter egg hunts. Our nominal/cultural Christians misunderstand much of the Bible and halfway understand certain concepts like judging others which, assuming Kirk's information is accurate, would put her understanding of her religion on par with those of us here.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Maybe she's a nominal or cultural Hindu, much like many of us who claim to be Christian but only really celebrate at Christmas and Easter by buying gifts and having Easter egg hunts. Our nominal/cultural Christians misunderstand much of the Bible and halfway understand certain concepts like judging others.

Kind of. It's the same cultural holier than thou that foreigners use when they don't know that we understand their cultural.

Stemming from my Hindu/yoga background is a background in Chinese martial arts. I have had some real bong water drinkers tell me all kinds of incredible stuff (staring at the sun gives me power, Shaolin monks could fly as the air was so pure, inter alia), but I have had a celebrated teacher and author, a man with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, tell me that even though we have paintings and textbooks of Chinese using gunpowder in cannons (rocks, spears, arrows shot from cannon) against Mongols and other Chinese that gunpowder was spiritual only and never used as a weapon.

It is a lie that you tell the White Devil in the hope of making yourself more of a victim or special snowflake and obtaining moral superiority.

It is all nonsense and should be treated as such.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Maybe she's a nominal or cultural Hindu, much like many of us who claim to be Christian but only really celebrate at Christmas and Easter by buying gifts and having Easter egg hunts. Our nominal/cultural Christians misunderstand much of the Bible and halfway understand certain concepts like judging others which, assuming Kirk's information is accurate, would put her understanding of her religion on par with those of us here.

Add in religion and culture intertwine quite a bit, and sometimes become difficult to separate.

Regardless, she comes across as very open minded. Needling someone because they don't completely abandon their prior notions over the course of one stroll through the NRA convention seems needlessly harsh and counter-productive. (Not accusing GFGT of this, to be clear)

My ex-wife was from New Jersey. Her experience with guns was that they were tools of criminals. People in the projects didn't own guns for recreation, hunting was not part of the culture, and NJ didn't allow the citizenry to carry handguns to defends themselves. Hence, her entire outlook on guns was from a negative place. Over the course of our marriage she went from openly hostile to guns and making fun of me for carrying to neutral to getting her own LTCH and handgun. The 'purity test' isn't winning us converts. Baby steps are.

Now, to be completely honest if she told me she was from CNN I would have silently turned and walked away. I would not have trusted her enough to think it wasn't a 'gotcha' piece and she would twist it to make me (and us) look like slack jawed yokels crossed with The Punisher. Kudos to those who did engage her. They were better representatives than I would have been.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Kind of. It's the same cultural holier than thou that foreigners use when they don't know that we understand their cultural.

Stemming from my Hindu/yoga background is a background in Chinese martial arts. I have had some real bong water drinkers tell me all kinds of incredible stuff (staring at the sun gives me power, Shaolin monks could fly as the air was so pure, inter alia), but I have had a celebrated teacher and author, a man with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, tell me that even though we have paintings and textbooks of Chinese using gunpowder in cannons (rocks, spears, arrows shot from cannon) against Mongols and other Chinese that gunpowder was spiritual only and never used as a weapon.

It is a lie that you tell the White Devil in the hope of making yourself more of a victim or special snowflake and obtaining moral superiority.

It is all nonsense and should be treated as such.

Maybe it was their way of praying for the Mongols?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Add in religion and culture intertwine quite a bit, and sometimes become difficult to separate.

Regardless, she comes across as very open minded. Needling someone because they don't completely abandon their prior notions over the course of one stroll through the NRA convention seems needlessly harsh and counter-productive. (Not accusing GFGT of this, to be clear)

My ex-wife was from New Jersey. Her experience with guns was that they were tools of criminals. People in the projects didn't own guns for recreation, hunting was not part of the culture, and NJ didn't allow the citizenry to carry handguns to defends themselves. Hence, her entire outlook on guns was from a negative place. Over the course of our marriage she went from openly hostile to guns and making fun of me for carrying to neutral to getting her own LTCH and handgun. The 'purity test' isn't winning us converts. Baby steps are.

Now, to be completely honest if she told me she was from CNN I would have silently turned and walked away. I would not have trusted her enough to think it wasn't a 'gotcha' piece and she would twist it to make me (and us) look like slack jawed yokels crossed with The Punisher. Kudos to those who did engage her. They were better representatives than I would have been.

Oh yeah...A life changing, paradigm shifting, epiphany hardly ever happens. Just judging by the tone of that article, even if Kirk is right about her misunderstanding the underpinnings of her culture/religion, she dig take more than a few baby steps during her visit.

As to how I'd react if she stepped up to me and asked those questions, I've really tried to adopt the practice of it's about winning the person, instead of winning the argument. If she appeared to be trying to learn/understand rather than trying to ensnare and trip up, I'd like to think I could be civil. If she came off as just trying to pick a fight, then yeah, walking away would be the course./

 

[BehindBlueI's]

As to how I'd react if she stepped up to me and asked those questions, I've really tried to adopt the practice of it's about winning the person, instead of winning the argument. If she appeared to be trying to learn/understand rather than trying to ensnare and trip up, I'd like to think I could be civil. If she came off as just trying to pick a fight, then yeah, walking away would be the course./

If she approached me as a person, yes. If she approached me as a CNN reporter, or really ANY reporter, no. I don't talk to the media, because when I've broken that rule I've never seen anything good result from it.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

If she approached me as a person, yes. If she approached me as a CNN reporter, or really ANY reporter, no. I don't talk to the media, because when I've broken that rule I've never seen anything good result from it.

If I were you, with your experience, I wouldn't blame you. The only time I've had that opportunity, was one time we went to the Sugar Bowl, down in New Orleans. I turned a round and the camera was in my face--she (the reporter) didn't have to do much of anything to make me look like a fool--I did it all by myself.

 

[OakRiver]

A surprisingly balanced and fair article on firearms and it's associated culture from CNN. Makes me think that this is either the editorial team adjusting their style guide (unlikely), or a broken clock being right twice a day as they publish an occasional article outside of their core values in an attempt to claim that they are being balanced.

 

[OakRiver]

If she approached me as a person, yes. If she approached me as a CNN reporter, or really ANY reporter, no. I don't talk to the media, because when I've broken that rule I've never seen anything good result from it.

Things to remember with the media;
- no matter how well you articulate your point, and no matter that you can speak about the subject at great length, your words will be a 5 second soundbite
- in most cases the story (or at least the bones of it) has already been written. The journalist is just looking for quotes that support their conclusion. This is not science where the hypothesis is tested against facts and adjusted accordingly.

[video=youtube;3WhcElp_JuE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WhcElp_JuE[/video]

[video=youtube;GcLTqdfXQIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcLTqdfXQIM[/video]

 

[2A_Tom]

Wow, Who comes off looking like a D*** in this argument? Try some RID and a very fine comb.

She done good considerin her background.

 

[sheepdog697]

Hm. Did anyone check to see if hell froze over? Very good article indeed, by the way.