frommycolddeadhands
Regular Member
imported post
I've got a buddy at work who is my polar opposite in every way, aside from age group and occupation. He's a young black democrat from NYC, I'm a young white republican from smalltown appalachia. We love working together because we're both talkative, and we get into the best debates over everything (politics particularly). These conversations are always very friendly, and neither of us consider the other to be stupid or brainwashed simply because of the opinions we hold.
Anyway, the conversation we where having almost made me choke on my lunch. I won't post the entire conversation here (as it was rather lenghtly) but I do want to post a few of the things he'd said that almost made blood shoot out my eyes.
1) "In New York, when a dude pulls a gun on you, just give him what he wants. 'Cause, you know, he don't want to shoot nobody. Nobody wants to kill nobody, he just needs some cash, so you know, he pulls a gun for some money."
2) Just because a guy points a gun at you, don't mean nothing. I mean, if you get into a verbal argument and whatnot, sometimes a guy pulls a gun just to make you back down, try and get you to punk out. Then it adds to his street credit, you know? It's just like, a stunt to make himself look 'bad'.
3) I think carrying a gun is a bad idea, cause...I mean, if a guy pulls a gun on you, and then you pull a gun out, now there's two guns in play. And once you pull your gun it's gonna scare the dude, and he'll wind up shooting you, even if he wasn't planning on shooting you before, because now he's scared and gotta get away.
And finally (this one fried my brain as I tried to follow the logic) there was a story on the news (part of what prompted our conversation) about two gang bangers who had basically gotten into a gunfight across the street from one another, each one was armed with a 9mm 15 round pistol, they started shooting at each other until both guns were empty, then retreated. Nobody at all was hit, just the buildings and surrounding cars were riddled with bullet holes. I asked him what he thought of that. Personally I think it was stupid, but on top of that it was some p!$$ poor shooting.
His response: Well, these guys probably weren't actualy trying to kill each other. It was just a 'punk-off'. They had a problem, and neither one of them could back down, 'cause you never back down, you know what I mean? If you back down you're a punk and then you got everybody messin' with you. So a guy pulled a gun, and the other guy pulled his, but they still can't back down, so they got no other choice but to empty the gun at the other guy and hope they don't kill somebody, that way they can keep their street cred.
Wow. Just friggin' wow. My brain almost went into spasms after hearing some of this stuff. My buddy was (once upon a time) a gang banger in the bronx, and yes he lived in the projects for most of his formative years until he turned 18, so as crazy as this stuff sounds, I consider him a viable source into what goes through the minds of gang bangers. I'd never even heard the term 'street credit', aside from on TV a few times. We'd had another conversation about that at a later time.
Anyway, just thought this was some interesting insight into the mind of an anti-gunner. (And yes, this is only his side of the conversation, I did explain the facts of life to him throughout this meeting of the minds) Any thoughts?
-PS, he is slowly coming around to realizing guns arent the root of all evil. I took him and his cousin out to the range to educate them about firearms (at their request), and both are now looking forward to purchasing a pistol for home protection.
I've got a buddy at work who is my polar opposite in every way, aside from age group and occupation. He's a young black democrat from NYC, I'm a young white republican from smalltown appalachia. We love working together because we're both talkative, and we get into the best debates over everything (politics particularly). These conversations are always very friendly, and neither of us consider the other to be stupid or brainwashed simply because of the opinions we hold.
Anyway, the conversation we where having almost made me choke on my lunch. I won't post the entire conversation here (as it was rather lenghtly) but I do want to post a few of the things he'd said that almost made blood shoot out my eyes.
1) "In New York, when a dude pulls a gun on you, just give him what he wants. 'Cause, you know, he don't want to shoot nobody. Nobody wants to kill nobody, he just needs some cash, so you know, he pulls a gun for some money."
2) Just because a guy points a gun at you, don't mean nothing. I mean, if you get into a verbal argument and whatnot, sometimes a guy pulls a gun just to make you back down, try and get you to punk out. Then it adds to his street credit, you know? It's just like, a stunt to make himself look 'bad'.
3) I think carrying a gun is a bad idea, cause...I mean, if a guy pulls a gun on you, and then you pull a gun out, now there's two guns in play. And once you pull your gun it's gonna scare the dude, and he'll wind up shooting you, even if he wasn't planning on shooting you before, because now he's scared and gotta get away.
And finally (this one fried my brain as I tried to follow the logic) there was a story on the news (part of what prompted our conversation) about two gang bangers who had basically gotten into a gunfight across the street from one another, each one was armed with a 9mm 15 round pistol, they started shooting at each other until both guns were empty, then retreated. Nobody at all was hit, just the buildings and surrounding cars were riddled with bullet holes. I asked him what he thought of that. Personally I think it was stupid, but on top of that it was some p!$$ poor shooting.
His response: Well, these guys probably weren't actualy trying to kill each other. It was just a 'punk-off'. They had a problem, and neither one of them could back down, 'cause you never back down, you know what I mean? If you back down you're a punk and then you got everybody messin' with you. So a guy pulled a gun, and the other guy pulled his, but they still can't back down, so they got no other choice but to empty the gun at the other guy and hope they don't kill somebody, that way they can keep their street cred.
Wow. Just friggin' wow. My brain almost went into spasms after hearing some of this stuff. My buddy was (once upon a time) a gang banger in the bronx, and yes he lived in the projects for most of his formative years until he turned 18, so as crazy as this stuff sounds, I consider him a viable source into what goes through the minds of gang bangers. I'd never even heard the term 'street credit', aside from on TV a few times. We'd had another conversation about that at a later time.
Anyway, just thought this was some interesting insight into the mind of an anti-gunner. (And yes, this is only his side of the conversation, I did explain the facts of life to him throughout this meeting of the minds) Any thoughts?
-PS, he is slowly coming around to realizing guns arent the root of all evil. I took him and his cousin out to the range to educate them about firearms (at their request), and both are now looking forward to purchasing a pistol for home protection.