A friend on Facebook is a responsible gun owner.

[Orrex]

I know because he endlessly posts pictures of himself with his guns, and his daughter with her guns, and the guns they bought at a recent show, and the guns that they owned already, and the guns that they plan to buy, and more pictures of their guns with different lighting to show off the guns and did I mention that they own guns?

When he's not posting pictures of his guns, he's posting trite meme-screeds against Obama, who plans to fly his F-35 into every Responsible Gun Owner's castle and confiscate all of their responsibly-owned guns.

Seriously.

I stopped following his posts shortly before the election, because he'd gone totally apeshit. But we have mutual friends, and it would have been awkward to defriend him entirely, yada yada yada.

I checked his page again tonight, and I am not exaggerating when I say that 58 of his last 60 updates have been about guns or pictures of guns.

I have known people who display an atypical enthusiasm for this or that hobby, such as one guy who's spent about a billion dollars on Magic: The Gathering. He trades and plays constantly, and he goes to every convention he can get to, but even he only actually posts about Magic maybe once per week.


What is it about certain gun owners, the ones whose gun lust makes an estrus-crazed baboon seem like a model of self-control by comparison?

[pkdu]

1. You can unfriend without them knowing ......

[Orrex]

2. Without alerting him, perhaps

But if I suddenly disappear from his list of pals, he'll notice.

Not that I care what he thinks per se, but he'll whine about it to our mutual friends, and it'll turn into a big pain in the ass, etc.


Not worth the trouble. Better simply to ignore him for the most part.

[Sherman A1]

6. You can hide his posts

without him knowing and I have done so to several folks. I don't get anything from them on my newsfeed and it's just wonderful.

[Orrex]

7. I've done that, as I mentioned in my OP

As I stated, I went to his page on a whim and found it every bit as chock full of zany gun lust as it was the last time I checked.

[dorkulon]

3. This is the part we normal people are missing: Guns are cool.

It's like we're trying to ban motorcycles or electric guitars. Owning guns, holding them, shooting them, makes people feel cool. It's tough, macho, and says you're not someone to fuck with. Most of these guys, that's their real motivation, not some BS about the constitution. Their guns are part of their identity. That kind of emotional bond is not something that can be broken easily with logic.

[Hoyt]

5. I agree, and they need help to break them for living a life steeped in guns.

[lunatica]

10. I agree with you. It's the image that's important

They can't go everywhere posing with their guns because it's awkward and because when they do it in public it looks stupid. So they live their fantasy of looking like a bad ass through their photographs. They're the hero in their own movie.

[bluestateguy]

4. We have had the accountability moment, and Obama won

and that should end the debate right there.

[Brigid]

8. I don't do Facebook.

Some in my family make fun of me for it, but it means I don't have to deal with this kind of crap. It makes life so much simpler.

[Orrex]

11. That explains why you haven't responded to my Friend request

I figured that you were simply dissing me.

[Brigid]

12. And this explains the e-mails I've been getting from Facebook.

I tried to set up a Facebook account once, but got impatient and gave it up. I guess that is how my e-mail address got out.

[Orrex]

13. I keep trying to find you on FB. Your real name is Talulah Pinkthistle, right?

Should be a cinch.

[Brigid]

14. Yep, that's me.

[cecilfirefox]

9. I don't know the answer- but you made a pretty keen observation. They all seem like that, or moreso.