[FRIAM] Cell Press / Patterns

[Steve Smith]

> I haven't followed it. Thanks. Looks like a cool service. 
You were my most likely "suspect" to already know about it, maybe Tom
Johnson, but surely others.  I don't know how I got on their e-mail list
but I get some kind of announcement every few weeks.
>
> I like your idea re: an underlying impetus to continue pouring money into whatever hobby, including guns. Rather than "permission", though, I'd think it's more like some sort of *reminder* ... "Oh yeah, guns are cool. I should buy more." It's difficult to describe to a non-gun owner how cool it actually is. Even the time my slide ripped my ... web (?) between my index and thumb, similar to when you hook your earlobe with a fish hook, there's something viscerally satisfying about dangerous equipment ... welders, band saws, etc. Planers are the only ones that truly scare me, for some reason. Even the table saw is less intimidating. I guess I'd rather get my finger or hand chopped clean off than get a 1 mm layer scraped off. Maybe the lathe freaks me out a bit, I guess.

I do think "danger" plays into the adrenal system which has it's own
rewards.

I know guns are amazing toys <erh... I mean.... uhhh...> tools, and have
my own fascinations.  Great action-at-a-distance...   Great
"equalizers"...  Great "levers"...  but I choose not to own guns because
as I tell my gun-nut friends (with only a thin layer of dissemblage) "I
probably would have used one by now".   When you have a hammer (I mean
loaded gun), everything looks like a nail (I mean target that needs a
hole drilled through it or person that needs Killt!). 

I am taking back up archery after nearly 50 years, mostly because Mary
took an interest when she discovered my antique bow, and because it is a
"mechanism" I can construct myself from raw materials.   A "stick
thrower made from a stick" is pretty compelling and the technology of
selecting and shaping a bow-stave is pretty simple yet requires or
allows for a lot of subtlety...  even moreso for
arrows/fletching/points.   I don't intend to shoot anything live with
it...   the thick wad of Amazon-Box cardboard is enough for me. 

I like your J. Cash quote? of "don't take your guns to town" for just
that reason.   Those of you who own and wield guns without risk of
accidentally killing someone with them command my respect.   I'm
unlikely to kill anything with my bow by accident or even in the heat of
the moment.   Definitely not a good candidate for suicide!

I agree that "reminder" is as powerful/likely as "permission", but last
gun show I was at (helping my mother unload the (nearly unused)
nickel-plated snub .38 my father bought for her 30 years ago) was right
after Obama I, and the whole place was abuzz with how hard it was to buy
this or that ammo (I think a lot were chattering about 9mm) and
alternatively/contradictorally conspiracizing that Obama had already
managed to restrict manufacturers, and that they were *all* hoarding
themselves, and that the manufacturers were producing flat-out to keep
up with their (hoarding) demand.   One typical monologue might have been
"I laaaike to keep at least 1000 rounds on hand 'just in case'  but I'm
thinkin' maybe 2 or 3 thousand is a better idea... iff'n I can find em!"
or "I tole Mabel that even though she thinks I've already got too much,
you just can't have enough when they'z a gonna come takem away from
ya!"     This is obviously caricature, but in a small-town (TorC, NM)
fairgrounds setting, it isn't that far off the mark.  

And this year it was "Guns, Germs, and Toilet Paper" - COVID 19 era
hoarding.

BTW, I was recently reading up on close-quarters disarming of handgun
wielders and the method-of-choice for a revolver apparently is to force
the web of your thumb-finger between the hammer and the shell-casing...
kindof an intentional version of your semi-auto ouch.   The semi-auto
interference of choice is a bit easier... to just grasp the whole thing
firmly so the slide can't operate.   I doubt I'll ever get to practice
either of these, and if I did, I'd flub it badly and get drilled and
powder-burned... at least it will likely be "through and through" and
leave some heat/chemical cauterization of the wound while I wait to
bleed to death.

Why can't we all just be nice to one another?  <damn bleedin' hart libral!>

grumble,

 - Steve

>
> On 9/15/20 10:05 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Is anyone else watching this open publication:  Cell Press/Patterns?
>>
>> https://www.cell.com/patterns/home
>>
>> I found the following paper on correlating firearm purchase/demand with
>> mass shootings.
>>
>> https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(20)30110-0
>>
>> Their two models seem to ignore/exclude *my* model which is that for
>> many gun owners, there is a constant pressure toward acquiring more (or
>> at least new) weapons and the mass shootings trigger some level of
>> "permission" to expand or upgrade a personal arsenal.   The counter
>> pressure could be familial/spousal  or superego which needs to be
>> negotiated with to allow more resource to go into satisfying that
>> background pressure to acquire.   The same thing applies to my relatives
>> who are knitters and quilters who use most any excuse for buying more
>> fabric/yarn.
>