Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
Exodite, you said you don't see the connection with gimmicky things like this and general irresponsibility -- there may not be one. Anony seems pretty "responsible". He also, however, seems like a defensive, trigger-happy individual who, if he had carried a gun on certain occasions in his past, would have been responsible for the deaths of several other people (by his own admission). There may not be a link between gimmicky additions to pistols and irresponsibility, but I can definitely see a link between gimmicky additions to pistols and the really disturbing compensatory motives for gun ownership that sole and I have brought up in this thread.
I'd agree with this to a limited degree; a person who owns guns to compensate for perceived sexual inadequacy (or any number of other personal confidence problems or what-have-you) might also be the same sort of person who would buy a joke bayonet for their handgun. But I don't think conclusions can or should be drawn in the opposite direction--that a person who buys a joke bayo for their handgun is necessarily compensating for anything, or trying to make themselves into a badass, or something like that. All (or many) people who view guns as prosthetic dicks may be attracted to joke bayos, but not all people who buy joke bayos view their guns as prosthetic dicks.... or something. I don't see any evidence that Anonymous D views his guns as weird sexual compensatory devices, so I still don't get sole's initial comment about this sort of thing making it hard to take gun owners seriously.

Also, I really don't understand why people are so uncomfortable when a gun owner "shows off" a gun to other gun owners. Yes, of course guns are deadly serious and need to be handled responsibly, and of course they must not be treated like toys. But they are also a hobby; despite the fact that they are lethal weapons, they are also used for hunting and for various forms of recreation, and I don't see anything wrong with one hobbyist showing a piece of new equipment to his fellow hobbyists (especially if it's expensive or well-made or technically sweet or interesting in some other way). To me, that has absolutely nothing to do with treating it like a toy.