Joan Peterson talks about rude gun guys. I’m sympathetic in regards to running into rude assholes on the Internet. I can believe it. We have a lot of bozos in the gun movement on the Internet, same as any movement that generates real passion. But I have to take serious issue with this:
There were a lot of claims about concealed carry permit holders and the inconvenience of not being able to carry their guns into every state in the nation. I’ll tell them about inconvenience. My family was inconvenienced when we had to plan a funeral for my sister, shot to death on an August day. The inconvenience of sneaking to the back of the church in a rented bus to avoid the press shouldn’t have to be, but it was. It was inconvenient to watch my mother deal with the death of her first born child. It was inconvenient to watch my own children deal with the awful death of their favorite aunt. It was inconvenient to watch my sister’s grown kids and step children deal with each other and with their grief. So really, I just don’t feel sorry for these guys who can’t carry their guns everywhere they go.
My mother died an untimely death at 43 when I was 20. I spent most of my adolescent childhood watching her slowly die. I am not unsympathetic to what a family goes through when they lose a loved one in an untimely manner. My aunt (her sister) still has a lot of difficulty with it, and my grandmother did as well until she died too eight years ago. We all had to go through that, and still have to go through that together. You never get over it, you just learn to live with it, as best you can.
But I am absolutely not able to understand the sentiment expressed in Joan’s quote above. None of the people reading this post had anything to do with what happened to Joan’s sister. In fact, none of the many millions of individual who have concealed carry permits from the 41 states that issue them do either. So I quite seriously question Joan on this issue.
Why take your grief out on all these individuals who, quite frankly, have nothing to do with your sister’s death? I’m really not trying to be cold or callous. I really want to understand this. You go on further:
Do they care about victims? Are their gun rights more important than the public’s right to be safe from shootings of family members or friends? Are their rights to carry their guns more important than jobs, health care, housing, and other pressing needs? I believe that most Americans know the answer to this.
This is a horrendous accusation to make against your fellow citizens. If we lived in world where drivers’ licenses weren’t universally recognized by all states, and your sister was killed by a drunk driver, would you suggest that folks who just want to be able to drive freely in other states didn’t care about drunk driving? This is not a rational argument.
People don’t take kindly to being made to own up to the sins of the insane and criminal, and accept collective punishment. We want to be able to freely travel in other states while exercising our Second Amendment rights. Making those of us who feel this way somehow responsible for the death of your sister is insulting. When you insult other people, is it so surprising some of them decide that lashing out is the best course of action?
“But I am absolutely not able to understand the sentiment expressed in Joan’s quote above.”
I understand it. It’s the same bigoted sentiment that’s behind the guy who gets mugged by a black man so he decides to join the KKK and write bigoted screeds about how black people are to blame for every ill in his life.
My heart goes out to anyone who looses a loved one to senseless violence. My own step mother died in her bed when a man shot through a pillow to silence the blast and into her head.
On the flip side, I now live where I do because some years ago we had to leave all we loved and run form a violent gang. One evening I used a gun to drive these people out of my house and away from my family. Make no mistake, my children still have a father because of a gun.
Guns are simply tools, they can be used for good and evil.
Because of my experiences, I now operate DallyPost Tactical where I believe we are doing some good.
You know I could not care less what Peterson thinks of me and my fellow gun owning citizens. Go ahead Peterson and scapegoat responsible people, go ahead and blame the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
What I do care about though, is when Peterson tries to compel the force of the Government to harass and injure me. The victim pose doesn’t fly with me when that victimhood is used as a lever with the goal to victimize me.
The reason you can’t understand the sentiment in Joan’s rant, and I use the technical terms here, is because Joan is batshit insane.
Her identity is wrapped up in being a gun violence “victim” (even though it was her sister who got shot) and anything you say that contradicts her means that you are attacking her. The old leftist “Make the personal, political” has been stood on it’s head. She is taking the political, personally. Everything you say that contradicts her, refutes her, or suggests that she should not, as a “victim” get whatever she wants, is perceived as a personal attack. She isn’t drawing healthy boundaries between herself and the world.
I am sure that professional head shrinkers could come up with some sort of diagnosis like Narccissitic Rage, or something like that, but “Batshit Insane” works for our purposes.
How cool would it be to get her in front of a camera for a debate. We’re talking world class screaming, ranting, lunatic meltdown, maybe with bonus physical assault.
I agree 100%; she is hysterical and reality-impaired.
A friend is a psychologist at a nationally famous clinic. His take is that Peterson’s grief reaction is common enough. While she needs professional care, few who need such care will seek it.
And yes, every group has those whose first reaction is a violent one. It may be fists, it may be language, but in her way Peterson is the obverse of the coin she detests.
Stranger
Like Sebastian’s sad tail of losing his mother, my father passed away way to early. I was saddened by his being taken, and his inability to now see me a semi successful husband and father. But that sentiment does not stop me from doing my normal morning routine. I shower, shave and scrub my teeth, I then dress, I then move onto adding my pocket knife in my right front pocket, my Iphone on my left side belt loop, and my gun on my right side belt loop at 3:30 location. All of this has been my routine for over 30+ years.
I once again agree with the car analogy. When a drunk driver kills a pedestrian, Joan never wants to go after the car, right? She might choose to go after the other legal, need to be over 21, freedom we have.
The good news is “most”, and I mean a serious majority, have seen through her lies and do not support her arguments.
I feel sad she lost a love one, as you get older it happens far to often!
But in a purely liberal world they like to share the pain and take away others freedoms.
Sebastian? Would she agree to debate if we could gather a public forum?
Any sympathy for her loss was lost when she first started to blame anybody but the people involved in the murder for what happened.
She’s trotted out her sister’s corpse for “Assault Weapons”
for Magazine bans
for Background checks
Now for conceal carry reciprocity.
None of these things had anything to do with her sister’s death, including if none of these items or rights existed her sister would STILL be dead.
There’s a time for mourning, and then there’s just rampant disrespect.
Joan’s constant use of Barbara Lund’s murder for the sake of pressing her sick agenda is the latter.
It would be no different than Sebastian mentioning his Mother’s untimely death in context for conceal carry, or for ending Pennsylvania’s monopoly on alcohol sales.
It has nothing to do with the issue, and is grossly disrespectful.
The comments made by Joan cited in this article reflect her fear and desperation over the changing perception of the social utility of firearms in the United States. More people are seeing that guns for self-defense are a positive force for society, which contradicts Joan’s world view. Passage of HR 822 in the House, and the mere possibility of it becoming law, frightens the Hell out of her, and the daily confirmation that her views on guns are ever more “fringe” angers her.
One can see both the anger and fear in everything that she writes. I read her blog, but I no longer comment on her articles. That is a pointless exercise.
“None of the people reading this post had anything to do with what happened to Joan’s sister. In fact, none of the many millions of individual who have concealed carry permits from the 41 states that issue them do either.”
Not only didn’t we have anything to do with it, but she knew her sister and brother-in-law, and I’d say there’s a good chance she knew or should have known what he was capable of. Does she bear any responsibility? I couldn’t say, but she probably feels guilty about it.
Joan doesn’t give a damn about her sister, or any other actual victim of violence, either. What Joan cares about is her precious Victimhood Status, which defines her self-identity. That’s why she reacts so badly to to being challenged: as far as she is concerned, you are not challenging her ideas, you are challenging her personhood.
I have come to the conclusion that’s there’s no point in debating her or even addressing her existence other than the delight some folks take in tormenting a person who is seriously askew from reality. –It might be fun but it’s pointless and mean. She’s not gonna change. Her dysfunction is shamelessly fed and exploited by cynical antis; she’s not ever going to get over her grief: it’s become who she is and it’s too useful to them.
I mostly agree that engagement with her is a bit of a fool’s errand. But I do think it’s occasionally useful to show people the thought process, or lack thereof, that drive people to gun control.
Roberta is 100% correct, she’s not a mentally healthy or normal person, and she won’t change. That being said she holds some very lofty positions within the Brady Campaign and the Joyce Foundation, and she serves at their pleasure…and she continues to serve because he irrational behavior is both normal and acceptable within the ranks of the anti-rights regime.
I see nothing wrong with pointing them all out for what they are through the actions of their group and members.
The Joyce foundation is doing all they can to pull up obscure and questionably controversial statements said by NRA board members and backed politicians. Why not go tit-for-tat pointing out the constant insanity with their membership?
Absolutely correct; trying to reason with her is a complete waste of time and effort.
The murder of which she speaks happened August of 1992. There is no way that the murdered, her estranged husband, could have legally carried a weapon at the time in Minnesota.
The shootings of Mrs. Lund and Mr. Kelley (allegedly her boyfriend) happened in Mr. Lund’s home, so carry permits are not even an issue based on the facts of the case.
I agree that, after nearly twenty years, she ought to have learned to accept that a bad thing happened to someone she loved. I agree also that she probably can use professional help. I hope she gets it.
The weapons were also ones that have yet to be refereed to as “High Capacity” or “Assault Weapons”. Furthermore Mr. Lund was the subject of a restraining order, and had been in-and-out of Jail for various illegal or insane criminal acts.
Also I would be VERY surprised if Joan had been looking the other way on physical domestic abuse of her sister during the course of her marriage to a man who had a well documented violent temper and unpredictable demeanor.
Essentially the gun laws Joan uses her sister’s death to push wouldn’t have saved her sister, but there were many simple acts Joan herself could have done to keep her sister safe from harm that she didn’t do.
As I have pointed out before, the laws that japete advocates will make guns more expensive and harder to aquire. This means that the poorer citizens, who are disproportionately people of color, will have a harder time getting firearms. That means that Joan Peterson is trying to disarm poor people of color for the actions of a rich white man.
Racist.
I agree 100% with Roberta. She isn’t going to change. Though I have to confess, I stopped reading and commenting on her blog for my mental health, not for hers. For my own health I decided that it would be best to limit the amount of crazy I dealt with.
japete has been trying to beat up others with her sister’s corpse for so long that its offensive. I’ve no sympathy for such a vile person as she.
If Joan’s sister or her friend had been carrying that day, perhaps they would be alive today. Why do Susanna Hupp, Nikki Gosier and Paxton Quigly get it but Joan doesn’t?
The funeral of your murdered sister isn’t an “inconvenience” it’s a freaking nightmare.
Having me flip from carry mode to transport mode at state lines is an inconvenience, and a pointless one at that. But I’ll do it because I’m going to carry a gun any time I’m with my family to avoid the freaking nightmare that she went through.
Why even waste the time getting hysterical? This whole thing is just a ruse to get an election issue front and center. It has a snowball’s chance in hell of making it through the Senate, and zero chance of being signed by the president. We are getting excited over nothing, and Joan is shitting her pants for no good reason.
Her sister is adaptable to any and all anti-gun rhetoric — I’m sure we’ll hear from her during this year’s legislative session in MN as well. ;)
My father died nearly a year ago. (Yikes! It already seems a long time ago! Yet it still seems too close!) He died falling down the stairs…and at one moment in grief, I thought, “If only we didn’t have those stairs! Then my father would be alive today! We should ban stairs!”
Yes, grief can lead us to stupid conclusions.
Never mind that those stairs served us for at least twenty years, allowing us to have twice the floor space in our house than we otherwise could have had, and still have a good-sized yard. And that those stairs continue to serve that purpose, even after my Dad has passed on.
Never mind that my Dad had suffered a stroke four or five years before, and may have even had a “mini-stroke” a couple of weeks before he fell down the stairs, which more than likely contributed to his loss of balance.
Never mind that he was carrying laundry up the stairs, which also probably contributed to his loss of balance. On the one hand, I wondered “Why were my family allowing my Dad to carry laundry up the stairs?” and yet I also realized that having at least the ability to do little things like laundry probably meant a lot to someone who could no longer work.
Never mind, even, that the blood thinners that likely killed my Dad, by keeping his wounds from clotting, have also kept my Dad alive for four or so years.
Losing a loved one, no matter how young or old that person is–and no matter what the caus is–is hard. Banning things isn’t going to change that! Especially when those things have positive uses as well as negative.