Your greatest AH-HA moment

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

ghost19

"Have I run too far to get home?"
Sep 25, 2011
8,926
56,578
51
Arkansas
When I grew up, I was taught a deep respect for weapons. My dad was ex-marine who came from a family deep rooted in hunting. All of us kids took hunter safety class's and each received our first gun from our dad at a young age. We were led by good example and in turn have done the same for our kids, each of mine has had hunter safety class's each has their own guns, and they have a deep respect for their guns and rights to hunt wild game. You're right, it's a different world of people out there.
And that is exactly how weapons safety should be taught. Education combined with seeing an adult respect the firearm.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
I had kind of thing like this. We invited one of my son's friends over for a play date a few years ago. I called the dad, introduced myself, blah blah, anyway, the mom showed up with the kid and as the boys went hooping and hollering outside to play basketball, she asked me if I minded if she asked a personal question. I replied "Ask away". She asked me if I had any weapons in the house.....................I actually didn't know what to say for a moment because I had never been asked this question before in this context. I started running thru my mind of how many handguns, rifles, and shotguns I actually had at that time, I think it was around 25-30, all secured in my walk in gun vault in my bedroom. I told her honestly how many firearms I owned, my experience with these firearms, etc. She looked completely terrified, as if my next move was going to be to take out a weapon and start popping off rounds in the front yard or something. There was visible fear in her eyes about the concept of someone owning that many firearms. I offered to show her my gun vault and prove that no one other than myself has access to it, not my wife or son, but she had already written me off. I just never could understand that. I guess if her son was some kind of lock disarming or lock picking ninja type and was able to bypass my lock on my gun vault then there would have been something to worry about but I just didn't get it. She agreed to let her son stay that day and play but I noticed he never came over again. It's such a different era nowadays. When I grew up there was a shotgun in everyone's pickup, several guns in just about everyone's house......most of us kids knew how to use a gun by the time we could ride bicycles. I understand that is not how it is everywhere but watching someone react so visibly to just knowing they are in the same house with firearms? I don't get it. The AH-HA! moment of this situation? Her husband was ex-Army.....WTF?
...maybe the postal uniform you were playing in that day, combined with the naturally crazed look had something to do with it...
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
You got that right. Respect is a good word. We respected firearms as kids. We knew what they were capable of and so we respected them. My son has no interest at all in shooting, but he still respects the weapons. That's all I ask of him. I have no qualms about tinkering with them or cleaning my firearms around him because he can see that I'm comfortable handling them. I've shown him how to use a few of them in the unlikely event he might need to someday, but there is just not much interest there one way or the other. It was different when I was growing up, as soon as I was allowed to, I learned everything I could about marksmanship, gun safety, muzzle control, etc. Luckily, I had a very good source in my grandfather, who was very skilled in all aspects of firearms usage and safety. I have the same fears you do. I don't worry about my son doing something stupid with someone else's firearm but I don't know how well the people in the house he is visiting understand or treat firearms. It is a bit scary.
...my brother, we share much of the same "gun rearing heritage"...my Gpa and my Dad, plus the Boy Scouts and a local rifle club shaped me into the respectful gun owner that I am...my two sons are different as night and day....the youngest respects them, and knows they are instruments of service-my oldest grew up loving them as I do...and is now, as you know, a crack shot in the US Army....irrational fear of firearms is just something completely alien to me...
 

Grandpa

Well-Known Member
Mar 2, 2014
9,724
53,642
Colorado
my oldest grew up loving them as I do...and is now, as you know, a crack shot in the US Army....irrational fear of firearms is just something completely alien to me...
Well, I don't want to turn this political. I was a "crack shot" (no, really, I was) in the Marines, and I wouldn't say I have an irrational fear of firearms. I would say I have a rational distaste for them.

It's a numbers thing, part of a debate that is never-ending and never resolved, or resolvable.
 

blunthead

Well-Known Member
Aug 2, 2006
80,755
195,461
Atlanta GA
Mine was a little different. I even remember the street I was on. I saw in the mirror where the car was darting through traffic, cutting people off, and as he pulled aside of me, then went forward, I resisted the urge to hit the accelerator and cut him off.

I thought, "This guy doesn't know me, I don't know him, and I'm letting him have an effect on how I drive, on how upset or mad I am. Who's got the power over how I feel here, him or me?"

And I backed off and just watched him keep being a jerk, and I was serene. I haven't driven the same since.
I finally decided not to let tailgaters and other rude drivers cause my blood pressure to go up, not to mention play their game and end up dead. Now I get out of people's way. Besides, who knows what the individual is going through which is making him/her so rude? For all I know there's a wife in the car having a baby, or some other emergency is happening.
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
11,749
34,805
I finally decided not to let tailgaters and other rude drivers cause my blood pressure to go up, not to mention play their game and end up dead. Now I get out of people's way. Besides, who knows what the individual is going through which is making him/her so rude? For all I know there's a wife in the car having a baby, or some other emergency is happening.

That's not as easy to do, winter, as it is summer. Simply pulling over and or applying brakes as one does so can lead to disaster. There was this once, guy ahead of me driving a...hog maybe...or a rice-burner...or wait now...this was another time. Guy in a...old truck...SUV...yanks it over to the side, completely fed up with my continued existence...I'm going past and he comes out the window at me...Google-eyed, raspberry...I think he had something against Fords. That or he was having a bad day. I try not to tailgate, try to maintain the proper distance...he thought otherwise I suspect. Saw him again...last year I think it was...riding a hog/rice-burner...making the same stupid faces. Truly frightening.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
Well, I don't want to turn this political. I was a "crack shot" (no, really, I was) in the Marines, and I wouldn't say I have an irrational fear of firearms. I would say I have a rational distaste for them.

It's a numbers thing, part of a debate that is never-ending and never resolved, or resolvable.
...that is a beautifully apt way to describe it..."rational distaste"...when they're used for something other than punching paper or killing game for food...