Absolutes Are Absolutely Wrong!
For many people, guns are like a religion. To question someone’s choice of firearm is often viewed with the same offense as impugning a person’s faith. We enter a world of absolutes. As in, the M1911A1 is absolutely the finest handgun ever designed. To speak otherwise is heresy.
Similarly, we find that type of thinking carrying over into the use of firearms and firearms training. Humans tend to tightly embrace that to which they were first exposed. Whichever way they were taught first to handle a firearm becomes their absolute. Any suggestion that comes along afterward is suspect or just plain wrong.
It is human nature to cling to the psychological comfort of our first exposure, regardless of what the subject matter might be. There is also a positive trait that humans should embrace; the ability to learn.
Just because “we have always done it that way” does not mean it is the most correct or efficient way. The way we have always done it may have been sound and logical when first introduced, but decades later is not so.
Performing a task mindlessly just because “that is always the way it has been” is a prime symptom of intellectual laziness and institutionalized apathy. Deciding that a technique or task is absolutely the only way is the fast track to being absolutely wrong.
There are indeed some absolutes; “Thumb Clip, Pull Pin, Throw Grenade” is the absolutely correct procedure for employing a fragmentation grenade. Any alteration in the sequence of those three steps is an invitation to disaster. Also, “Remove Magazine, Rack the Slide” are two steps that absolutely must be performed in that order to properly unload a pistol.
That being said, far too often firearms instructors institute absolutes in their programs that are truly more personal opinion or preference than they are necessary absolutes. Muzzle up or muzzle down is one of the most common “absolutes” we encounter. And, if you wish to be honest with yourself, whether you are an absolute muzzle down or and absolute muzzle up person, you are absolutely wrong.
Professor Paul Markel
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Sorry, buddy, gotta break ranks with you here. I do not support background checks and never have.
When they were instituted, they were technically imposed upon licensed dealers, appropriate subjects of regulations. But the government simply cannot be trusted, and the trust extended to them vis-a-vis background checks is now redounding to our dismay. “Reasonable” firearms regulations now include impositions on the private citizen, someone whose rights are supposed to be beyond government authority.
Our rights are being legislated out of existence an iota at a time. Every restriction you agree with sets the stage for further restrictions, for which there will always be supporters, and their support will lead to yet more restrictions. The “slippery slope” is not only real, we’ve been sliding on it for some time.
Funny, you mention the parable of the frog, but you haven’t applied the lesson to your own thinking. We are the frog, and as long as we have government, we’re in the pot. We can’t let them turn on the fire at all, because someone is always ready to turn up the heat.
You are correct, with a qualification. At about 2:45, he states that people who are “reasonable” (I presume he means people who consider themselves reasonable, and not necessarily judged reasonable by himself) support background checks. The “reasonable person” asks (about FFL transaction checks), “What’s wrong with that?” Paul then grants a pass to the hypotheticaly “reasonable person’s” opinion by saying “OK” and does not object to premise that background checks run by FFLs are “reasonable.” From this, I infer that he supports background checks when making purchases from an FFL. I may be wrong, but that’s what I got from his theoretical discussion with the hypothetical “reasonable person.”
Can you point me to a specific podcast or video in which he makes a objection to the current background check system?
Welcome to the Party!
OK, I watched the recommended “period.” The only mention of background checks was in relation to those conducted by FFLs at gun shows to put the lie to the “gun show loophole” myth. He made no comments about his personal thoughts about background checks as they are currently required. No indication otherwise whether or not he supports them or not. Any “sarcasm” in the period was not in reference to the constitutionality or propriety of background checks. Yes, he directs sarcasm at those who support “reasonable gun laws,” but that’s because the laws those people are supporting now are unreasonable and far beyond what is already established; he is mocking their claim to “reasonableness.”
Whats your opinion on reloading your own ammo
I was caught and now it’s live.
I don’t do homework on the weekends … it’s also why I graduated from college, to stop having to do anymore homework =P
So, if absolutes are absolutely wrong … then are the few ‘real absolutes’ are also wrong?? I’m confused, maybe I should’ve actually paid attention when I was in college. 😉
There are few real absolutes, In My Opinion. You must be younger than me and the prof?