Whoa - pro-gun nerd community?

[herohog]

Sr. Programmer / Analyst here. Most of the other geeks at my office are pro 2a a few are neutral and one is an anti but he's East Indian so I cut him a LITTLE slack (but not much).

 

[Rachen]

Reddit/Slashdot/Digg crowd is overwhelmingly pro-RKBA.

So is the World of Warcraft crowd!

I had a coworker who is a HUGE W.O.W. fan. And I brought up the subject of gun rights while talking to her, hoping to convince someone to be on the RKBA side, HOWEVER...........I found out that she is as just as pro-gun and pro-liberty as I am!

 

[Jim March]

Being picked on by bullies all their lives tends to have that effect.

There's some truth to this. A defining characteristic of Asperger's cases (and I'm a mild one) is that we get bullied a lot - poor understanding of social hierarchies and a tendency to be uncoordinated as kids.

And computers attract Aspies like turds and flies...

 

[sacp81170a]

IT nerd here, but with a lot of telecom background. Yup, we don't wanna just know that something works, we wanna know how it works and what it's good for. Guns are good because ballistics is part of Physics 101.

 

[Igloodude]

I'd always figured that it was because geeks tend libertarian, and it requires some pretty substantial psychic gymnastics to be libertarian and anti-gun at the same time. But that aside - geeks also tend to be pro-explosions.

 

[Rachen]

and it requires some pretty substantial psychic gymnastics to be libertarian and anti-gun at the same time.

Saying "anti-gun Libertarian" is like saying "non-flying aircraft".

Doesn't exist, and does not sound correct either.

 

[Hardware]

Computer consultant and lifestyle nerd here. I find that IT workers tend to be pretty conservative, but of course there are always the exceptions.

Logical thought and knowing the history of our profession; e.g. how computers took a giant step forward, decoding the German Enigma encryption scheme, the progression of computers from analog to digital led by the needs of cold war missile guidance packages. This naturally leads you to discover what the Nazis and the Soviet communists were all about, a bunch of serious jerks. Leads you to want to own firearms.

Not surprised at all.

Plus, guns are just cool.

 

[Asherdan]

I got the double whammy - a history degree and a job wrangling SW Engineers schedules.

Great place, I put out my collection of bullets from penetration testing a few years back and have gotten all kinds of discussion, all positive.

I put a lot of stock in the logical/independent/mechanical/explosions reasons others have posted.

 

[jkingrph]

I'm a nerd and like guns, Most, not all of my other pharmacist, physician friends like guns. The urologist at our hospital actually went to gunsmithing school while he was in his residency. His special interest is Colt Peacemakers, but was delighted when I gave him a handful of uncommon cartridges like the 405 Win, 41 Swiss, which he displays on his desk.

 

[stephpd]

nerds

I recently got back to guns after a long time. I've also met up with a group of people from the open carry forum.

We have monthly meet and greet dinners and when I took my wife to one her reply when we got home was, "geeks with guns".

I'm more a geek then a nerd and I guess that everyone there looked kind of nerdy. Not hard to understand that nerds would like guns. Kind of evens the playing field.

 

[teknoid]

Technician, SW Engineer, CS Major, History minor.

Yep, I guess I'm a nerd. Never gave it much thought. The stereotypical nerd is the product of Hollywood fantasy, for the most part. Some of us you'd never suspect, unless you start talking Unix to us...

 

[TallPine]

Some of us you'd never suspect

Yeah, I'm sort of a cowboy/logger/nerd.

Oh give me a home where the booleans roam,
Where the bytes and the integers play,
Where I watch o'er a herd
Of sixteen* bit words,
And the bugs have all gone away.

* I do work on a lot of stuff that is still 16 bit

 

[3KillerBs]

I was a nerd long before geek became cool.

It wasn't the popular, party crowd who were having gunfights in the dorm halls with their Crossman Soft Air pistols.

The affinity that the nerds, geeks, and techies have for weapons is no surprise. We read comics and adventure novels, we watch action movies (even the girls), and we don't care what anyone else thinks about our interests. :lol:

 

[Wopasaurus]

I think its more a reflection of political ideology. Digg seems to have a more democratic reader base and is somewhat friendlier to gun control. Slashdot seems to draw the more open source libertarian crowd, at least to a degree I don't see on digg. They of course are less friendly to gun control.

I disagree with the first part of that. For over 6 months... on the front page of Digg was pretty much nothing but articles on Ron Paul.

It seems to be a lot of Obama stuff now, but I think that's only because Ron Paul is done running. But that's how I learned about Paul, was through Digg. Then I did my own research, etc....

 

[Brian Dale]

'nother one here. Math & science geek growing up; guns just seemed to go along with that.

I like Slashdot's classification for the story:
humor, math, getoffmylawn, earth, geohashing (tagging beta)

I suppose that Dad taught me math early, and that he had been a combat artillery computer in Korea (back when "a computer" was still sometimes used to refer to a human being), reinforced the connection for me before I ever thought about it.

I'm like 3KillerBs (only older)--by the time it was cool, I was too old to be part of the in crowd.

Waaaaaah...cry me a river (river? OK, we take depth and stream velocity measurements every 2 meters across the stream, use the following equations to calculate the flow rate in cubic meters per second and) Hey! I forgot to re-sharpen my Rapala fishing knife. Where's that thread over in NFW?

{wanders off...}

 

[protolith]

I was surprised that I got modded insightful after posting so deep into a long thread.

http://slashdot.org/comments

Re:Culture --weird (Score:5, Insightful)
by protolith (619345) on Sun 15 Jun 08:17PM (#23805755)

"I dunno why people always think a fear of firearms is irrational"

Because it is irrational to fear guns. If your fear is based on ignorance then it is a rational fear, and can be corrected.
Your post attempts to rationalize your fear with the injection of a form of understanding. If you Fear an inanimate object simply based on its designed or perceived designed purpose then it is an irrational fear.

Hoplophobia along with Agoraphobia, Arachnophobia, and any of the other host of phobias are all defined as irrational fears.

If in fact your fear is based to a degree on ignorance (unfamiliarity with the workings of firearms), I suggest you spend some time taking lessons at a local shooting range.

As for the guns are designed to kill thing.... Well yes, most guns are deigned to, or are based off of guns designed to kill. But the truth about that is, some things need killing. Animals don't sacrifice themselves to be food on a table. If its made of meat it was killed to be put on your plate. If its made of red meat, then it was killed with a gun (firearm or captive bolt) to become food. As for killing people, "couple that with the general fact that people are idiots" you summed up why some people need killing, because some idiots will take your life for their personal or political gain.

It was good to see so many posts on the RKBA side.

 

[Blind Bat]

IT / Gun / Science geek here as well. There is usually a big shoot / gun nerd gathering at Defcon every year. Unfortunately for me Nevada doesn't have reciprocity with New Hampshire (my home home state). You have to apply in person for an NV out-of-state permit. If I go to Defcon this year I might stop by the local sheriff's office to see how much work is involved for next year.

 

[catfish101]

Redneck here.

I don't have a problem with either one. Guns or nerds.

 

[Blind Bat]

Tallpine:
* I do work on a lot of stuff that is still 16 bit

I hope they give you more than four registers to play with.

 

[JShirley]

'Pends on how you define nerds. I love knowledge and facts, but the all-out, stay in and play RPGs 20 hrs straight-types I've met all LOVED firearms. Maybe too much.

 

[Diamondback6]

Considering that the phrase "Assault Poindexter" was coined specifically referring to me... (think equal parts "geeky intellectual" and "heavy-weapons superfreak". )

Geeks With Guns, all the way! Who needs jock-style brute force of muscle when you got better living through the combo of chemistry, metallurgy, engineering and ballistics? lol

 

[Orthonym]

I'm with you, Mr. March, being a bit strange, m'self. I have had the experience at age eight of being jumped for no reason at all, while walking home from school, by guys I thought were my friends. Stephen, and Tommy, I have a looonnng memory, when it comes to holding grudges.

We'll all be 60 soon, but why should that matter?

 

[Brian Dale]

Age is just a number, Ortho. We nerds don't forget.

 

[Hardy]

Us poor, trodden-on (RKBA-wise at least..) Australians don't have as much of the exposure to guns to develop a true love for them, I think. I went through the whole rigmarole of getting my handgun licence (10 sessions of training, 6+1 month waiting period after getting your licence, $400/year club membership, 6 range attendances per year, more for each class of handgun etc, etc) a year ago. As a fellow nerd, I do share some form of pleasant attraction to the gadget-ish nature (among other thing) of guns and am particularly pleased that I'm not the only one.

Coming from studying the first part of a B. Science to B. Medicine, I was surprised to discover more people in medicine that are pro-gun than were in Science. Perhaps it's that whole, 'desire to be in control' thing that most med-student possess, or perhaps, as you say, less of a desire to accept the views of the 'cool/green/u.left etc' zeitgeist as one's own without reasonable analysis... It's refreshing to have some sense in one's everyday companions

 

[Quiet]

Nerds are the new generation of gunners?

FYI...
A fairly large percentage of information security specialist aka hackers are pro-gun.

www.defcon.org