'Ello, Mike O!

Greetings from (currently unbearably hot) Florida, Mike. I've been following with great interest your adventures out West, and felt the need to comment briefly on something you wrote in one of your most recent postings:

To be honest, I’m shocked – personally I was armed with a plastic comb and an extensive vocabulary. Over the course of the next few hours, I think long and hard about this. I’ve been reminded very forcibly that I’m a foreigner here and that some parts of American culture and its mores are totally alien to me. I don’t sleep well that night – I’m not saying that ‘carrying’ is wrong, I’d just let myself forget that I’m visiting a country where the carriage of firearms is a legitimate and, seen by many as an essential, option.

While the "Right to Bear Arms" is enshrined in our Bill of Rights, excercising that right is one area in which we Americans differ sharply. If you've ever followed one of the ubiquitous pro/anti gun threads on the ADVrider forum, you'll see little support for the practice of carrying concealed weapons, even among those like myself who have been involved in various shooting sports for most of our adult lives. The few who feel the need to carry concealed firearms are generally viewed as kooks, and quite propperly so, in my opinion. As proof of this, some of them have even been known to wear pro-IRA t-shirts.

I mention all this only because what you've expressed above is bound to give a false impression of the US to your British readers, many of whom seem determined to believe the worst about us already.

Well, Andrew, I stand by my post.

First of all, please remember that this is not a ride report - it's my personal thoughts put down at the end of a day - my journal - which I'm happy to post if people find it interesting. The views expressed are mine, not those of UKGSer - everyone can draw their own conclusions.

You are entitled to your views, but I was pointing out that it was my forgetting I was in a foreign country that led to my being shocked.
After being here for 4+ months, I have been lulled into thinking I was pretty familiar in with the place. Something like this graphically and suddenly reminded me that I'm a stranger in a strange land and that the values I've developed whilst growing up in the UK have not all transferred across the Atlantic as usable tools in a different society.

The incident with the Harley riders could've happened anywhere - road rage is not a phenomenon peculiar to the USA - indeed, I think I've seen far more evidence of it in the UK, where roads are more crowded.

The USA has grown up without gun control. Pandora's box has been open so long that I'd bet my pension you'll never get any meaningful gun control introduced - that has a knock on effect on your entire society (not just those that buy or carry guns).

I wouldn't consider whether someone in the UK was armed or not - it simply isn't part of the equation - and I'm glad that I live in that environment. If I lived here - in a very different environment, where I might feel the need to have some personal method of defence, then I might own a gun. That's the point - not whether people own or carry, but rather that a large number perceive the need to...

Mike

Mike O said:

I wouldn't consider whether someone in the UK was armed or not - it simply isn't part of the equation - and I'm glad that I live in that environment. If I lived here - in a very different environment, where I might feel the need to have some personal method of defence, then I might own a gun. That's the point - not whether people own or carry, but rather that a large number perceive the need to...

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Mike, I think for a great many of us over here that is also the way we live our lives. In other words, it wouldn't occur to us that someone is carrying a concealed hand gun. In fact in many States it is almost impossible to get a permit to do so - Oregon obviously is not the case.

My reaction when reading your report was "what a bunch of fruit cakes". But, apart from your initial shock - and this is understandable - I think over the long term you would not feel anymore inclined to arm yourself than if you lived in the UK. Probably less so if my experiences of British pub culture is anything to go by (well, some of them anyway ).

As for the idea that a large number perceive the need, I think you would find that its a minority and for the most part although gun ownership is high, the desire to walk around in public with a pistol is delusional. Now what that says about those individuals is another thing.

Anyway, I really enjoy your insights such as this. For my part I find them much more interesting than the ride report itself. Please keep posting these kinds of observations they are great reading.

Mike O said:

Well, Andrew, I stand by my post.

First of all, please remember that this is not a ride report - it's my personal thoughts put down at the end of a day - my journal - which I'm happy to post if people find it interesting. The views expressed are mine, not those of UKGSer - everyone can draw their own conclusions.

You are entitled to your views, but I was pointing out that it was my forgetting I was in a foreign country that led to my being shocked.
After being here for 4+ months, I have been lulled into thinking I was pretty familiar in with the place. Something like this graphically and suddenly reminded me that I'm a stranger in a strange land and that the values I've developed whilst growing up in the UK have not all transferred across the Atlantic as usable tools in a different society.

The incident with the Harley riders could've happened anywhere - road rage is not a phenomenon peculiar to the USA - indeed, I think I've seen far more evidence of it in the UK, where roads are more crowded.

The USA has grown up without gun control. Pandora's box has been open so long that I'd bet my pension you'll never get any meaningful gun control introduced - that has a knock on effect on your entire society (not just those that buy or carry guns).

I wouldn't consider whether someone in the UK was armed or not - it simply isn't part of the equation - and I'm glad that I live in that environment. If I lived here - in a very different environment, where I might feel the need to have some personal method of defence, then I might own a gun. That's the point - not whether people own or carry, but rather that a large number perceive the need to...

Mike

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Mike,

I wasn't implying that your views represeted those of The Management here on the UKGser forum, nor was I implying that incidents of road rage were unknown in the US. My concern was only that if I still lived in Europe and read your post, I might conclude from it that its commonplace for Americans to carry concealed firearms, and at the slightest provocation, use them. If I thought for a moment that were the case, I'd waste no time moving back to Europe. Happily, its not the case.

jnrobert said:

As for the idea that a large number perceive the need, I think you would find that its a minority and for the most part although gun ownership is high, the desire to walk around in public with a pistol is delusional. Now what that says about those individuals is another thing.

Click to expand...

I think the reasons people cite to justify owning and/or carrying a firearm are often not the true reasons. For instance, ask deer hunters why they hunt, and the most popular reply you'll get is that they're doing it to curtal the overpopulation and resulting disease and starvation of deer. The truth of course is that they simply enjoy hunting, but they're afraid to say so because deriving satisfaction from killing animals isn't looked on favorably in our culture. Similarly, I have a good friend who insists that he owns a handgun "for home defense". Now, I've known him a good many years, and he's never been the victim of violent crime, nor has his home ever been burglarized. The reason he owns a handgun is just because its an object of fascination for him. He won't say so of course, because he's afraid of being branded a "gun nut", so he's found it necessary to concoct another more socially acceptible reason to own one. I strongly suspect a great number of gun owners have come up with similar rationalizations.

For many years I've been travelling extensivelly in the States, literally almost all over the place. In March this year I went from Denver Colorado to Frisco across Utah, Arizona, Nevada and california.Mid nineties I was given one of those dream assignements wich consisted on taking a physical stock check of equipment spread wide and large in that enormous country. For almost a year I was covering the south from Florida to S. California so I had the oportunity to see and experience local comunities as well as big cities. I did around 20K miles, mostly on a truck but also on a R80GS
Although I saw plenty of people carrying guns, prticulary in Louisiana, N/S Carolina, Maryland, Teenesee where it was not unusual to see the truck with a gun carrier attached to the back window, I never saw or was in the vicinity of a single incident involving guns.
It is my impresion that many American will buy a gun because is possible to do it fairly easy (at least it was then...) and also because of the inherent fascination of actually handling a firearm.
But the overwhelming mayority of the population do not and probably never will own a firearm.
Nevertheless, with a population of over 250 million, even ten percent owning a gun is a lot of gun totting around...

I worked in Louisiana for some time and the amount of blue collar guys with hand guns was amazing. The company operated a tally system to hand in weapons at the beginning of a shift and recover at the end! I was asked if I wanted to carry a 'little something' but declined the offer.I did spend an afternoon on a range because I wanted to have a go and because it is also a social event, fired a .45 ruger blackhawk, copy of the old peacemaker, .44 smith and wesson magnum, .357 magnum and an AR15 colt commander, better known to us as the M16,although not fully automatic, also had a go with a Beretta with an 18 round double stacked magazine, I list the above because they were the weapons of the guys on my shift!! The culture is based around a broadly unfounded fear of meeting the bad guy with the gun. I never witnessed an incident but all kinds of tensions were apparent if you stepped away from the 'right' neighbourhood. I loved the people and the place but a dick head here is a nuisance in Baker he's seriously dangerous.