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‘Guns Are Really Not Problematic’
“I think the best part about my job is just showing people who are normally kind of freaked out by guns how safe they can be and how they’re not really problematic unless put in the wrong hands.” — Hannah Gutierrez Reed, New York Post
Hannah Reed, the armorer on the Rust movie set, grew up around guns. She should have known that guns are never safe. They are always dangerous because of the enormous power within. Keeping guns out of the wrong hands doesn’t make them safe, but proper handling of guns mitigates their danger.
It’s like my table saw. A table saw is never “safe.” There are not right and wrong hands to operate a table saw, but there are right and wrong ways to operate a table saw. Every time I turn on the table saw, I try to respect its power. I try not to get comfortable with it. Guns should be the same way.
One reason this tragedy happened (and it appears there are many reasons) is that everyone who handled that gun was not freaked out enough by it.
Published in Guns
While I would prefer a different phrasing, such as “didn’t respect it enough,” you aren’t wrong.
Alec Baldwin is problematic.
Even the Hollywood actors’ terminology is weird to me. There’s “hot” guns and “cold” guns. They describe four types of things, at least: an unloaded gun, a gun loaded with dummy rounds, a gun loaded with blank rounds, and guns loaded with live rounds.
When Baldwin was told that the gun he was handed was “cold”, what did cold mean? And when Baldwin said that in all his years he had never been handed a “hot” gun, what did hot mean? Is he saying that he had never held a gun with dummies or blanks?
People who own guns or shoot on a regular basis will have a greater respect for the potential danger of the weapon than anti-gun activists . . . and Hollywood is full of anti-gun activists
Agree 100%. Was Hexum’s gun “cold”?
Words have meaning. Processes have definitions. Rules have exceptions (which is to say that if there is no exception, then the rule applies).
And worfress.
While I would prefer Steve’s phrasing, you aren’t wrong.
I think the physical acceptance of a firearm warrants what would be normally be considered neurotic, obsessive/compulsive behavior:
My father was one of the most meticulous and careful men I have ever known. He did everything carefully, including woodworking, electrical wiring, sign painting, and even berry picking and eating corn on the cob. Everything he did was done carefully. But one night his table saw got him, and it cut off his watch (which was good because his watch kept the saw from biting into his wrist).
You cannot take anything with serious power carefully enough. Do not assume anything.
It takes, what, a tenth of a second? A moment of carelessness?
Well, one word change, and I assume it. I also assume it of meatloaf or soup or anything where flour or one of my other allergens might be hiding in it.
I recently neglected to respect a kitchen knife and lost part of a fingertip and nail. I’m typing this while avoiding using my left index finger. . .
I wonder what Baldwin thinks the punishment for manslaughter should be?
Ouch! Sorry to hear it.