[NYDAILYNEWS] The gun debate is also a gender war.Gertie Kuntzman doesn't know when to stop.
In all my years in journalism — coming up on 30 (thanks) — I have never received so much angry mail as I did after yesterday's story, "What is it like to fire an AR-15? It's horrifying, menacing and very very loud."
Maybe you did something egregious?
I don't mind spirited debate, but many correspondents told me that even expressing an opinion about today's high-powered weaponry is off-limits to those of us who don't own such guns.
It isn't off limits, because you managed to get your opinion published in a nationwide forum.I don't have an opinion about ladies' feminine hygiene products, either. I know approximately as much about them as Gertie knows about guns.
To reiterate, the goal of the story was simply to share with readers my experience of firing an AR-15, which very few of them have done.
The ones who did know something about firing an AR-15 or any other gun were laughing, sneering, cursing, or whacking their foreheads, assuming they read further than the first paragraph or so,
I found the sheer power of the weapon horrifying.
It's a gun. Not even a particularly powerful gun, though powerful enough if you know how to use it.
I found the noise deafening and anxiety provoking. I was frightened by its potential for rapid, catastrophic, Orlando-like carnage with similar weaponry. Using an AR-15 made me irritable and jittery for hours afterwards.
You're saying you worked yourself into a hissy fit at the very thought of it? You went and rented a gun and expected to be scared pissless so you were?
To me, it felt like a bazooka.
A bazooka was a big old tube thingy you held over your shoulder and used to shoot a rocket at a tank. An AR-15 is a rifle, referred to generically as a "gun," which is properly an artillery piece or that big long thing sticking out of the front of a tank. The rifle weighs about 6.5 pounds, which is about the same as my little Marlin .22. Or it's a brand of bubblegum.My guess is that Gershman has never been within 10 miles of a recoilless rifle or rocket launcher. He has no experience to speak of in that regard, so why make the simile? And more importantly, why stick to it?
"Kuntzman is an outright liar," wrote one emailer. "Nice try with an extremely stupid article which only appealed to girly boys and women of NYC and like the sheeple they are probably believed the lies." (Other writers informed me that the "lie" is that guns are bad. For the record: I never said they were.)
A lot you didn't say was implicit in your opinion.
But Gertie did imply that the AR-15 has an autogettem mode. It looks like an M-16, and in fact it's the immediate ancestor to the M-16, but it lacks a full auto capability. You'd have to rebuild the thing to put it in.
You're expecting Gertie to know something (anything) about what he is writing. Any good member of the MSM ([cough] Krugman [cough]) can demonstrate that isn't so. But the owner of the gun store (if in fact Gertie went to the gun store) could have shown and told him in about three seconds that the AR-15 is a single-shot, semi-automatic rifle that can't do full-auto or 3-round bursts. That would assume Gertie was told before the gun sounds deafened him and the blast blinded him...
| We had the response of the owner of the gun store yesterday. He felt strongly that the original Gertie piece did not accurately depict his words or the events of that day. |
Maybe he should reread what he wrote? It was pretty bad. He did everything but stick the tip of his finger in his mouth and utter "tee-hee!""Hey there Cupcake!" wrote Gary Haney. "I have never subscribed to the idea of 'gender confusion,' but after reading your article on the AR-15, I'm a believer because there is no way you and I are the same gender. You should surrender your testicles to the Department of Girlymen. I'm not sure where it's located, but your girlfriend Barack does!"
I don't know if I'd go so far as to call Gertie a girl. I know girls who probably had to change their underwear from laughing too hard at this sniveler.
Others sent me videos of 7-, 10- and 12-year old girls firing the same weapon I fired — except these kids were smiling.
They didn't show up expecting it to mow down a roomful of people without anyone pressing the trigger. So when you lack the steely fortitude and self-control of a seven year old girl, the word "girlyman" is more polite than coming right out and calling you a pencildick.
And I wear it as a point of personal pride that conservative darling Erick Erickson posted a story on The Resurgent with the headline, "My 10 Year Old Daughter Is Tougher Than Gersh Kuntzman, Author of the Stupidest Thing on the Internet Today."
I've got a seven year old granddaughter that could probably have handled the gun and the situation better than Gertie.
"You f--king pussy," wrote Sam Markota. "If you have a man card turn it in immediately. You might be better served writing about feminine hygiene products!!!"Gertie may know more about them than us men with whiskers do.
"Your father must have left you to be raised by your mother or he was a sissy like you," added SargentMike77.
Sargent Mike misspelled sergeant. I ain't impressed with him, either.
And one of my favorites, thanks to its pithy manner of linking my affliction to another right wing obsession: "Maybe you can get some balls through Obamacare!" wrote Adam Prolo.
Probably you couldn't. If you could, it'd cost you an arm and a leg, so then where would you be? Lop-sided and scrotum heavy, that's where. Easier to eat Wheaties for breakfast and beefsteak for dinner, retire from journalism after thirty years, and go to O-o-o-oklahoma,
where the wind comes sweeping down the plainDunno. He'd prolly have a coronary seeing all the NRA and USMC stickers on all the pickup trucks and SUVs. He'd be unhappy here, I would think.
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain
And that's just the printable stuff.
I wasn't done singing yet!
To summarize, this line of argument suggests that I'm not a real man because I am frightened by the awesome power of an AR-15, which, despite however you willfully misread my story, can discharge dozens of rounds in mere seconds.
... assuming you pull the trigger many times in mere seconds. If you're actually aiming you shouldn't be squeezing (not pulling, dammit!) the trigger that fast. But, yeah, that does kinda sum it up.
It can't. You didn't bother learning about the AR and as it turns out, you lied about the gun shop owner and what he said.
Yes, this weapon scared the crap out of me. Which is why people make fun of you, dumbass.
And it should scare the crap out of all of you, too.
It is a tool. A relatively good one, though if you want to buy me a present I'd rather have a Kimber.
My next build is going to be an AR-10 pattern semiautomatic, the recoil of which will make this guy break down in tears. You know, so rule .308 can be applied when the time comes.
An AR-15 is a weapon of mass destruction, a tool that should only be in the hands of our soldiers and cops, as Rep. Seth Moulton wrote in the Daily News on Tuesday.
"Weapons of mass destruction" are chemical, nuclear, and bacteriological. Equating a rifle than can kill four dozen with an atomic bomb that can snuff 100,000 is simply hysteria. It does not imply thought.
I don't think there's anything unmanly about pointing out this fact.
But the majority of the rest of us non-Manhattan dwellers do.
That's not a fact. It is an invitation to tyrants, big and small, to steal and murder, so that they can gain a monopoly of violence.
Besides, if masculinity is defined by the power to commit violence on a wide scale, I proudly choose femininity. We noticed. I think that's one of the key points of departure for most of us...
At one time, “being a man” meant standing up for what you believe in — and against injustice. By that definition, we need more real men in power taking on bullies like the NRA, which seeks to bolster the Second Amendment by shutting down opponents’ right to the First. We can’t even debate guns in this country, thanks to the gun lobby.
You can't stand against real injustice if you are not armed, and you can't claim to be against injustice if your opinion means you favor arming those who would commit injustices.
"Global warming is real! Burn the heretics!"
"The word 'Trump' is written on the sidewalk in chalk! I need my safe space!"
Being a man means taking it when things are tough, overcoming the bad and sharing the good, kinda like those guys do in the movies, but consistently. Actual men grew up hearing the words "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me" and believing them. Actual men do what they've got to do. Often they drink beer or whiskey, know how to use guns, swear, and all that sort of thing, though it's not a requirement.
My email and Internet trolls won't believe me, but I support the Second Amendment. You're right. I don't. Believe you, that is.
I sincerely do believe that the Bill of Rights protects Americans' right to bear arms, albeit under very strict regulations — the "well-regulated militia" part of the sacred text.
So that merely implies the government's right to draft you?
Then you do not support the 2nd Amendment. You prefer the state have a monopoly of violence, which it will maintain in place of your rights. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is first and foremost an individual right, but you would rather the state regulate guns to the point where it and only it can deliver violence for its own purposes The idea that an individual has the Gawd given right to keep his own weapon for use against tyrants big and small, doesn't even enter into the calculation with the state regulating the possession of firearms.
And I even agree with one letter writer who pointed out that hammers can kill people, too, but we don't ban them.
Hammers and guns are both tools, of different trades, but both are beloved by hobbyists and skilled amateurs.But what if a weapons manufacturer could fashion a handgun that would fire a nuclear blast — an atomic version of an AR-15, if you will. It would look like a gun, but it could kill thousands instead of dozens. Like a rifle, it's one of many arms that we are allowed to keep and bear. But would we really stand idly by as people buy a nuclear gun in the name of the Second Amendment?
It's a really stoopid example because it wouldn't be available to the citizenry, any more than fully automatic weapons are. Less, in fact, but that's a real scary frowny face on the strawman.
"It's just a gun," you might say. "It's my right. Trade in your man-card, you wimp."He's down to drooling and spitting now.
Yes, I'm a wimp.
Good of you to admit what everybody else noticed right off.
I simpered because my experience with the AR-15 bruised me, body and spirit.
Go to your safe space. You may need grief counseling. Don't look down because there might be something written on the sidewalk.
But there's nothing unmanly about reminding my readers that mass murder is much easier to commit with a semi-automatic killing machine than it is with a hammer.
It's also easier to commit with a scythe.
If that makes me a girl, well, maybe we should have a girl running the country.
Victoria Woodhull, all is forgiven!
It should be noted that Gershman failed to mention in either of his screeds the fact that New York has some of the most draconian gun laws in the nation, and that the registration requirement in New York for the AR style of rifle was mainly ignored, to the tune of five percent registered total. That's in the area of statistical noise. Gershman also fails to note that universal background checks, which are the law in New York are the most likely reason why he and his crew were forced to go out of state to talk about ARs.
Gertie also knows that if we get to the point in this country where we have universal registration and "may issue" just for basic ownership, you and I will never be able to convince the local law enforcement officer that we need a gun, whereas he, his bosses, and their bodyguards will have guns any time they wish. Oh, and the government too, of course.