Who knew?

[gejohnston]

Maya Angelou, great poet and gun owner.

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,2257965777001_2139640,00.html

[NYC_SKP]

1. "I do like to have guns around."

"Have you ever fired your weapons?" Answer: "Of course!"

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. DU Rec.

[CokeMachine]

3. What a lady!!

rec

[Eleanors38]

4. Good find. She takes after Z.N. Hurston. And Joe Biden.

[jimmy the one]

5. Under scrutiny, however.....

chicago trib: Angelou, the literary icon and famed poet and "Star Trek" fan, told Time magazine in a recent interview that she likes having guns around. Her comments must have been the last thing that gun controllers wanted to see.

Not even close to being true, drama queens; - one of the more 'last' things would be 'wayne lapierre elected president of the usa'. Or ted nugent, tom cruz, bachmann, palin, ad nauseum.

TIME: Did you inherit your mother's fondness for guns?
ANGELOU: Well, I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But if somebody is going to come into my house, and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them.
TIME: Have you ever fired a weapon?
ANGELOU: Of course!
TIME: At a person?
ANGELOU: I've fired it period, not at a person I hope. I was in my house in North Carolina. It was fall. I heard someone walking on the leaves. And somebody actually turned the knob, so I said, 'Stand four feet back because I'm going to shoot now!' BOOM! BOOM! The police came by and said, 'Ms. Angelou, the shots came from inside the house.' I said, 'Well, I don't know how that happened.'"

Angelou couldn't tell if the lurker was armed with a firearm or perhaps had another weapon, a hammer, say, or just fists. But the poet had what she needed to counter what she thought was coming for her.{COUGH, BARF, GAG}
Shooting blind through a closed door is a terribly dangerous thing to do, potentially deadly, perhaps murderous in the hands of the right prosecutor..{COUGH, BARF, GAG}
I think it's fair to say that she was frightened. Angelou had been the victim of violence as a girl. And former victim or not, who wouldn't be afraid?http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-07/news/ct-met-kass-0407-20130407_1_gun-control-debate-maya-angelou-knob

Wow. She doesn't like to carry guns like concealed or open carry (yahoo!), but she has one or so in her house, comports quite well with most democrat gun owners - hardly the 'last thing dems want to hear'.
But she shot her gun in a hazardous even dangerous manner, SHE OVERREACTED to someone turning her doorknob, like, maybe a lost neighbor child? She shoulda waited till she saw someone enter, agree?????
AND YOU ALL ARE PROUD OF HER FOR THIS?????????

[oneshooter]

6. She was just following Bidens recomendations on home defence.

[DWC]

7. No one can second guess

an individual's response to a perceived threat. I personally feel she over reacted in a very dangerous manner and could have harmed an innocent. However no one was injured so No Harm No Foul

Semper Fi,

[GreenStormCloud]

8. Firing through a closed door is a wrong thing to do.

She didn't know who was on the other side, or why. She was not yet in danger. She should have taken a covered position and waited for the door to open, identify the person, then defend herself if necessary.

[premium]

9. +1000,

unlike what VP Joe Biden said to do.
I wonder if that would be a good defense strategy? But Vice President Joe Biden said that's what we should do, your Honor.

[jimmy the one]

10. walk thru the door doesn't mean break it down

oneshooter She was just following Bidens recomendations on home defence.
'premium': unlike what VP Joe Biden said to do.. But Vice President Joe Biden said that's what we should do,

Can't you people ever stop distorting things? especially by blowing smoke to distract from a progun backfire? is angelou still on the gunny side, or on the negligent gun owner side?
SUDDENLY, all the praise for angelou has subsided, replaced by woe & misery amongst the gunny crowd O whadda we do whadda we do, asset or liability?
.. When someone says to you 'walk through the door', do you two think they mean for you to barge into the door to break it down to get through, rather than open it?

joe biden: I did one of these town-hall meetings on the Internet and one guy said, “Well, what happens when the end days come? What happens when there’s the earthquake? I live in California, and I have to protect myself.”
I said, “Well, you know, my shotgun will do better for you than your AR-15, because you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” Most people can handle a shotgun a hell of a lot better than they can a semiautomatic weapon in terms of both their aim and in terms of their ability to deter people coming. We can argue whether that’s true or not, but it is no argument that, for example, a shotgun could do the same job of protecting you

He said just fire the shotgun through the door - being understood as 'through the open door' , at least by those of us with a fuller complement of brain matter.
.. if bona fide unwanted intruders are outside, yeah open the door & shoot the warning shots into the ground, worst you'd get is a fine if illegal & no one hurt, & if you got proof like video then likely no fine.
.. regarding the alternate scenario, if unknownst people are indeed in the process of breaking down the door, yeah go ahead & shoot the closed door, the shots could scare them off. But either way, biden was not suggesting shooting hazardously at your door at the slightest noise, only when an imminent threat.
Biden was really contrasting the shotgun with an ar assault rifle anyway, so his vernacularity shouldn't be so binding.

Earlier this month, Biden ..had advised his wife, Jill, "if there's ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out and put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house.".. here I do disagree - just one, joe, just one.

[premium]

11. Bullshit.

You have no idea what he meant, if he would've meant that, then he would've said that.
VP Biden is known for his gaffes, so I tend to believe that he meant shoot through the door, he never said anything about an open door.
How do you shoot through and "open" door?
He made a gaffe, as in, he gave bad advice, quit trying to justify what he said.

[CokeMachine]

12. I've avoided replying to you but

[Bazinga]

13. Quite the semantic gymnastics

but even if VP Biden had meant through the (open) door, the advice is still bad! In Utah, where I took my ccw course, you can be charged with attempted murder for firing warning shots.

The reasoning is thus: Any time a weapon is fired in an altercation (ie not at a firing range) it constitutes the use of lethal force. The use of lethal force is only justified in response to a threat of death or severe personal injury, and that threat must meet 3 criteria; opportunity, means, and imminence. If you have time to fire warning shots, you have not met the imminence standard and are in jeopardy of charges.

Moral off the story- DON'T FIRE WARNING SHOTS!

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. In spite of the differences...

...between the laws in some states, I believe that the rules for handling and firing that I learned would be strictly against ever firing a warning shot. IMHO, warning shots are always a bad idea.