I have lived in NYC my entire life until recently, and as I'm sure most of you know, a handgun in NYC is looked at (by the officals who run NY) as a WMD. Its disgusting. As a business owner, I don't understand how a city that has business owners of all ages, races, business types (especially those with cash) can't have a handgun. Its unacceptable. I moved to South Florida not so long ago and did my homework, did some more research, read/watched personal reviews, testimonials, etc. and finally bought a handgun yesterday(P220 elite stainless). Actually, I'm going to buy my second (p226) in a few hours. Everyone on forums, youtube, literature, gun store salesman, gun enthusiasts, etc. have made me feel so comfortable during this entire process, that its not even funny. So many people associate gun owners with gangsters, or cowboy killing westerners, and I believe that is a despicable perception. In fact, most gun owners/enthusiasts, especially you guys on the forums, speak very intelligently, are very meticulous and detailed (I can tell this by your appreciation for engineering in sigs) and really know what your talking about. It's sad that in this world those who know absolutely nothing about guns, label owners. Also, I very much dislike how people see a gun and their faces basically looks like this . When you were a kid, did you not wish you had a gun? I did. Did you not play cops and robbers? Im sure we all did. Also, if you look at American History, guns were/are immensely prevalent in our society. So where am I going with this ? Well, I think people should not have false perceptions on gun owners, as we are basically the same as real, educated car enthusiasts (as I am one of them I see similar traits in the sense of how/where parts are made, quality, engineering, etc.), and I feel that had everyone had the RIGHT, which is very quickly being taken away from us, to be more familiarized with guns, they wont feel the same Its truly sad that we live in a world with rapists, pedophiles, murderers who kill for game etc., but thats the cards we were dealt, and we have to be prepared. I'm sorry, there is not defense tactic that is as effective as having a firearm. It allows you to protect not only yourself but others as well, while maintaining a safe distance from the perpetrator. Over the past 10 years, we have had so many rights taken away from us, however I feel none is as serious as the right to bare arms in the sense that it was the second right on which our country was based! If they are banned, the government will only be putting good, law abiding citizens in harm, as gangs, drug cartels, etc. will continue to import firearms from other countries, allowing them to have the upper hand. I don't understand why, but in this country, the majority of our population is afraid to stand up for what they want, demand, require. Letting the government take away our 2nd amendment just shows them anything is possible. Second amendment now, first later. Unacceptable. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject, so please reply! May everyone and their families and friends be safe and never have to use our firearms on another person. God bless.

Ouch! My eyes, my eyes. Paragraphs please. Please.

Welcome. I am glad that you were able to use the resources you did and achieved a good level of compfort. Even better that you are picking up your second gun.

The 220 and 226 are two of the necessary Sigs for anyones collection.

lol sorry typed it on iphone... format comes out wierd... strike 1 for me

quote:

Originally posted by JSig29:
... strike 1 for me

Not your fault. It is Bill Gate's fault.

Welcome, I am glad you've joined the SIG owners' club and even happier to hear that a person from that pestiliential hellhole that is NYC realizes that guns are not the root cuase of NYC's problems.

And yes, I know that Steve Jobs is the brains at Apple and the driver behind the iPhone. I just like blaming Billl Gates for everything.

When I was a kid we ran around town with BB guns.

JSig29,

I hate to tell you this but.....

Sooner or later, you will go back to the Dark and Frozen North, without our pistol and you will feel weird, defenseless, helpless, at a disadvantage and downright naked.

People will stare at you and know that you are unarmed (as is most of the law abiding population of the city).

I am a reformed Yankee (born in the People's Republic of Massachusetts) and every time I go back there it just leaves me with a creepy feeling.

All my siblings live there and I have to tell you that they have not yet seen the light. They will never see the light.

I hope you can deal with it, I had problems doing so.

Anyway, let me quote H. L. Mencken: "People do not want to be free, they want to be safe." (I think I quote correctly, if not, I am close.)

Of course the trouble is that they come to expect government to guarantee safety rather than being responsible for their own safety. Why not be responsible, after all, as Y. Berra might say, "No matter where you go, you are there!" The police may not be there.

The frightening part is that, although legislators have guards, us peasants have to do it ourselves and the legislators are content with that arrangement.

I do NOT advocate the overthrow of the government by force or violence, I use the tried and true method of voting.

Think about it!

Stay safe!

KLW

JSig29,

Welcome to the club! Your journey reminds me much of my own, except my home state's laws aren't as restrictive, but the culture where I grew up was anti-gun. But yeah, I played with toy guns all the time as a kid, and once I came back to that interest as an adult it just felt natural.

We have to get rights restored to places like NYC!

Welcome to the forum! I was a newbie to the forum about 4 years ago now. Whoa...4 years? Well anyway, I've been carrying that long and you'll find that there are also many law enforcement folks that frequent the forum and we are an intelligent pro-gun bunch, which is completely contrary to NY and NYC's idiot liberal anti's that run the state. I am also from upstate NY and have been to NYC a few times, back before I knew that it wasn't criminal to want to carry a gun or even own a handgun.

You're going to want to add a Sig 229 in the .40/.357sig setup because you can also put a 9mm barrel in it made by Barsto. Trust me, it will happen, and the majority of this board will support that. But hey, it's your money, I'll just tell it like it is! The 226 is an excellent choice though. That 229 fits my hand like a glove, especially with the Hogue rubber finger-grooved grips. I have a Streamlight TLR-2 on it full-time and bought a custom holster from Phantom/The Malabar Front in order to accomodate carrying the whole rig.

You'll like it around here, we're a great bunch of folks. I'm always glad to see someone from NY get wisened to the ways of the liberal freaks running that state and realize the importance of defending your own life. I'd like to see a few laws there replaced by some that reflect those of VT, NH, CO, TX, etc. but I don't see that happening with the current administration there.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Sig Forums, and welcome to firearms ownership. The more we have, the better we are.

I also liked you comments on people wanting to be safe. Kind of reminded me of that old saying:

"He who trades liberty for security shall have neither."

Some guy named Jefferson or something like that.

Like reading a book.

Anyway...

Gun training should be mandatory in schools and the basic course in handguns, rifles and shotguns to be completed by age 12 or maybe by age 10 (age to hunt in Pennsylvania is 12, but in Wisconsin it is age 10)

My wife and I both have concealed carry permits. WE are responsible for our own safety and the safety of our kids. When seconds count...the Police are just minutes away. We don't expect help from dial-a-prayer or roving patrols.

I grew up in NYC, too, and can relate to the process you're going through. I haven't lived in the City in 20 odd years, but I remember well slowly shaking off the biased NYC viewpoint that surrounded the gun issue and then seeing the matter from a fresh and more diverse perspective.

I think the problem with hyper urban environments is that a culture of interdependency becomes so deely ingrained in the psyche of the City.

New Yorkers, of necessity, are accustomed to relying on others. Plumbing problem? Call the Super. Need to get across town? Hop on a bus, a subway. Need protection? Call 911. It's an insidious aspect of city living, this interdependence. Generations are raised who couldn't fix a faucet, drive a car or fire a weapon. And those generations pass on their lack of such independence. After all, if your Dad didn't know how to do those kind of things, who was there to teach you?

In more rural areas, there is a greater emphasis on self sufficiency, and that, historically, also flows from necessity.

New Yorkers (cityfolk I mean) are a hardy bunch. They handle disasters well. But they've been saddled with more or less absolute gun control since the early 20th Century. The Sullivan law. The outrage at being deprived of a Constitutional Right isn't there...because they have been deprived of the 2nd Amendment Right (for all intents and purposes) for so long that 2nd Amendment liberty is just not in their collective memory. The same problem exists in London.

And it doesn't help, of course, when (as a New Yorker) no one you know owns a gun. That's what makes any predjudice possible: ignorance. Your only sources of information are the media. On the subject of guns and self defense, ignorance of the issues is one of the biggest problems.

For example, a politican will say, "a handgun has one purpose: to kill." Lord knows, the NY Times won't challenge that statement. So, New Yorkers, with no contrary personal knowledge with which to assess such a statement, accept such statements. I recall President Bill Clinton saying that "assault rifles" belonged only on the Battlefield. That kind of statement carries of lot of weight, if you've never known anyone who used an AR type rifle for Varmint hunting.

New Yorkers (I'm using them as group representing a certain uninformed, Yuppie/urban mindset) have no idea how diverse the sport of shooting really is. The "gun culture" is stereotyped as a bunch of racist rednecks in camoflage getting drunk and shooting deer in the woods. So predjudice to often prevails.

The NY media universally condemns gun ownership and the concept of self defense, which is wrongly labeled as "vigilantism".

Move away from the City, though, and the attitude changes. Guns are not exotic--lots of folks own them, whether for sport, recreation, collecting, hunting or self defense.

Move to Virgina, say, and it's another cultural all together. Guns are just, well, things...like cars or power tools.

In other words, New Yorkers (generally) have a cultural hang-up about guns. The higher the level of education (college and beyond), the worse it gets.

I live in California now. Yes, gun control hell. Yet guns are still commmonplace. Despite legislative efforts, CA is the biggest single firearms market in the US. Not so long ago, CA was the West. Think about that. Wyatt Earp died in LA.

Sadly, though, in cities like LA, that history is fast eroding. Try to find a gunshop in the City of Los Angeles. Even the Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club gun shop, located on the grounds of the old LAPD Academy, which only sells firearms to LE, is hounded by CAL DOJ inspectors. LA used to be home to companies like Pachmayr. The CA gun industry has since retreated to Arizona.

Anyway, as you get involved in your new hobby, the preconceptions about guns and gun owners you subconsiously aborbed (at least in part) as a New Yorker will gradually fall away. You will continue to develop a more balanced, three dimensional view of the issue.

The good news is this: Nothing beats predjudice so much as personal diplomacy. I've taken many of my old NYC chums to the range. They leave with a different view...not because I've persuaded them, but because they've now actaully handled a firearm, fired a few rounds, and had a personal opportunity to re-evaluate their views on guns and people who own guns lawfully.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth. One half cent, anyway, after taxes.

Wow. What a story. You are quite correct about the way folks from Second Amendment starved states are conditioned.

I am a cop in Texas. Just a few years ago, I was working an overtime assignment. A hollywood movie company were filming a movie at my town's football stadium. During a break in filming, a nice middle aged lady came up to me at my post, to pass the time of day. I discovered she was from New York.

Well during the conversation, the issue of guns came up. She said " I think only the Police and military should have guns." This is of course the long time mantra gun grabbers have conditioned others for years. I asked her "Do you think if someone broke into your home in the middle of the night, you have a right and a duty to protect your family? She of course said yes.

I then told her that the Second Amendment gives us the right to use a gun to do that, and don't you think every American should have the right and duty to protect their family in the same way, especially if the criminal in the house has a gun? She answered yes, and she told me she had not thought about it that way. She was a lady in her forties and had never ever understood that simple reality, because of the way her politicians and far left media have portrayed law abiding gun owners, and conditioned people like her. I hope I help open her eyes.

quote:

Originally posted by Oldjarhead:
Wow. What a story. You are quite correct about the way folks from Second Amendment starved states are conditioned.

I am a cop in Texas. Just a few years ago, I was working an overtime assignment. A hollywood movie company were filming a movie at my town's football stadium. During a break in filming, a nice middle aged lady came up to me at my post, to pass the time of day. I discovered she was from New York.

Well during the conversation, the issue of guns came up. She said " I think only the Police and military should have guns." This is of course the long time mantra gun grabbers have conditioned others for years. I asked her "Do you think if someone broke into your home in the middle of the night, you have a right and a duty to protect your family? She of course said yes.

I then told her that the Second Amendment gives us the right to use a gun to do that, and don't you think every American should have the right and duty to protect their family in the same way, especially if the criminal in the house has a gun? She answered yes, and she told me she had not thought about it that way. She was a lady in her forties and had never ever understood that simple reality, because of the way her politicians and far left media have portrayed law abiding gun owners, and conditioned people like her. I hope I help open her eyes.

Well said sir.

quote:

Originally posted by klwells:
JSig29,

I do NOT advocate the overthrow of the government by force or violence, I use the tried and true method of voting.

Think about it!

Stay safe!

KLW

this here is where i think you are wrong. it just wont work at this time now. there will come a time that we will be forced to pick up guns and raise them up and start firing just to protect our original basic rights. like thomas jefferson liked to say,"every once in a while we must bloodied the liberty tree...."