Image from Nikki Haley’s Facebook page.
Anyone who has seen her display her unarmed-defense skills may understand why Nikki Haley might want a gun — that is, if they forget for a moment that she has an armed escort, provided at state expense.
But say she didn’t have protective detail. Say she actually felt a need to defend herself.
Why would she brag to the world that she now has a nice, new Beretta 9mm?
See, I wouldn’t. I’d prefer to keep the bad guys guessing. I would neither want to advertise to potential assailants that if they came at me, they’d better use deadly force (and shoot first), or to tell them that I had a valuable item on me that it might be worth shooting me in order to steal.
Nor would I want to let my kids know that I had a handgun, because I’d worry that they’d do what I always did as a kid — find my Dad’s, wherever he’d hid it, and get it out and play with it. (Yes, I always made sure it was unloaded before practicing my quick-draw — something that was easier to do with a revolver than with a semi-automatic, which takes more skill and wariness in order to remember to check the chamber.)
But that’s me. To me, a gun is just a gun. It’s not something I feel I have to flash on Facebook in order to curry favor with a political base…
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If she is able to use a gun as well as she performed that “karate blow” she demonstrated, we all might be advised to be very afraid. Combine that level of skill with her good sense about gun ownership, which you just noted, and I think I’ll try to stay out of firing range. Thank goodness she’s frequently out of state, and likely to be more so during the upcoming year.
Beretta makes good shotguns, but I’m not wild about the Storm. It’s ok, but nothing to write home about. Now, the Ed Brown Executive Carry? Yowza!
As for the politics: I’m not inside Governor Haley’s mind, so I can’t say this is or isn’t a political move. I think it’s fair to say that we have to consider the possibility that she’s just genuinely happy to receive this gift. On the other hand, if it is a political move, I don’t think it’s to “curry favor”. Most everyone knows she’s pro-gun. It’s not exactly a secret, so I don’t see how this earns her anything with her base.
If it’s a political move, I would like to think it’s just to annoy liberals who hate guns on an emotional level. I have an FN SCAR key chain emblem on my keys for that very reason. I toss that on a table, and anti-gun people just freak out. It’s great at social events.
Santa brought me a pretty cool gun safe for Christmas, because I was extra good this year. I’ve been wanting one for awhile, and with a two-year old running around the house, now was the time to get one.
What did the rest of the commentariat get for Christmas?
Jack Daniels….
Yikes. It’s a good thing they’re so far apart politically. Get Kathryn and Nikki together, with their favorite Christmas gifts, and it’s Thelma and Louise time… 🙂
Hey, I can rock a head scarf and red lipstick, but Nikki?
I think not.
Kathryn,
Just jump out of the Caddie before it goes over the cliff.
Bryan, you’re not thinking about the layers on which a political gesture works.
If “it’s just to annoy liberals who hate guns,” then that is a play to please one’s base. Simply annoying people accomplishes nothing, unless there’s a segment out there that will be pleased with you for annoying them…
But let’s say she’s just that pleased by this gift that she can’t contain her joy… Well, that’s disturbing. And I say that as a guy who’s kinda in the middle when it comes to guns.
Your enjoyment of firearms doesn’t bother me. But if this is the gift that delighted her most, that does. Here’s a woman whose husband just returned from Afghanistan, who also has armed professionals protecting her, and she’s thrilled over getting a gun?
I could have seen the gun as a gift from her husband as he was LEAVING for Afghanistan — “Here, hon, I want to make sure you and the kids are safe…” — again, assuming that she doesn’t have armed, professional protection paid for by the state. Assuming she and the kids don’t live in the most secure domicile in SC, outside of a military installation.
We are left, then, to think that this is a hobby sort of thing — that she’s into pistol shooting as a sport. Maybe she is, but I don’t recall having heard about that.
All she says is, “Our family had a wonderful Christmas together! I must have been good Santa gave me a Beretta PX4 Storm.” Set aside the lack of punctuation, bordering on functional illiteracy. As she reflects on this wonderful time, THAT is the one treasured memory she wants to share with the world — “Hey, y’all — I got a gun!”? Really?
If it’s not a political gesture, then it’s just plain odd.
The lack of punctuation….the sentiments….paging Sarah Palin!
Next Christmas, she wants a helicopter — so she can shoot wolves from it.
Which would outdo Sarah — shooting them with a pistol…
Maybe it is a political statement. I guess if you’re a politician everything is political. Maybe she’s doing it so other people who received firearms or firearm related gifts will relate with her and believe that she “shares their values”. But for her, this isn’t new. She’s known as a fan of guns already, so it doesn’t really move the needle.
Also, simply owning a gun doesn’t impress me. When someone tells me “I’ve got a _____ (fill in the blank with a type of gun)” my response is: “Cool. When was the last time you shot it?”
Sheheen fires back: https://twitter.com/PhilBaileySC/status/416404209924186112
Oh, and I got a Roku for the upstairs TV — the one in the room with the elliptical trainer. I figure if I can watch Netflix while working out, I’ll work out more.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been tipping the scales at about 13 stone, which sounds better than saying “more than 180 pounds.”
For a lot of guys, that wouldn’t be bad, but my proper, fighting weight is more like 160 something. I’m very uncomfortable, and can’t wear a lot of my pants. I’ve stopped wearing a tie most days (very out of character for me) because I can only button the top button of two or three of my shirts.
My goal is to get under 12 stone — so I can wrestle Shute, should the occasion arise…
Whoa. The last time I used that “wrestle Shute” high-school-wrestling meme, I was concerned because I weighed more than 171 pound.
So you can see how I’d be alarmed at weighing (on one occasion, fully dressed) more than 184…
Oh, and by the way, the first year I was on my high school wrestling team, I was in the 115 class. And was the same height I am now.
Then, the following year, I was weighing in at 132 before I had to quit, due to injury, before the season started.
I was way too skinny then. I’m too fat now. Somewhere close to 160 is right.
I was scrawny, but tough. The reason I went out for the team is that I was beating guys who outweighed me by 40 or 50 pounds (without being fat) in P.E. class. I just seemed to have an instinct for it…
Stone is wicked confusing to the arithmeticly challenged
Canada is sort of on the metric system….
Because they are only partially on the metric system. When we stayed there one summer, I surmised that things where being on the same system as the US would make sense, they were. I bet building materials is one of those things. Also most, if not all, of the housing stock was built using English measures, pre-metric conversion, and converting to metric would not make sense,
My house is a charming “older” home, and instead of modern, nominal material sizes, the materials are in actual inches, so my 2×4’s and 2×8’s are actually two inches wide, while the new stuff are 1-1/2 inches wide. It’s only annoying sometimes.
A Canon DSLR. It’s my first DSLR, so I am experiencing culture shock after 34 years of shooting film. I also own 3 Canon SLRs that use film.
I think that Governot Nikki Haley fancies herself as Dirty Harry in a skirt. She wants some thug to challenger her just so she can pop him. It’s in her nature. She’s challenged various unions just for the hell of it.
Perhaps the next Republican nominee will pick her for VP. That would be a smart move on their part because having Haley as the next in command would be a deterrent from anyone wanting to assassinate the president. Nobody tried to assassinate George W Bush because they didn’t want Dick Cheney as President.
Yeah, she has this whole “get tough” persona. Calling people out, talking tough….
Meanwhile, she portrays herself as Boss Hogg and Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane from the Dukes of Hazzard to the citizens of South Carolina.
How awful. I can’t think of anything that that is more opposite than Christmas and hand guns. I have several guns that stay locked in a gun safe and have no problems with owning firearms. Still, I often think about my grandfather who fought in WWI and never touched guns again. He’s my real hero. He was in France for almost two years and said he’d never forget “the stench of death.” That memory alone often makes me think of getting rid of them. He wasn’t a poser bragging about an Italian pistol on a day of peace and joy. He was someone who was there and was changed because of it.
Okay, The State has a very slow news time, but devoting a huge box to reprinting online comments about Nikki’s gun?
The top third of the front page is a photo purporting to show that the USC football team made it to Florida….it does not actually prove it, even….
Yeah, I kinda noted that this morning. Almost the entire above-the-fold space taken up by a photo that is sorta, kinda about the USC football team being in Florida to play a game… a few days from now…
But in the paper’s defense, the Clowney speeding ticket and Nikki’s gun (which dominated the less-visible parts of the page) were pretty much it for news in SC yesterday.
And the rest of the world wasn’t exactly producing stories that demanded to be on the front.
I know this because I thought about doing a Virtual Front Page yesterday, and was underwhelmed by what I found at The State, the WSJ, the NYT, NPR, the BBC, the WashPost and The Guardian.
After looking through what was available, I just did a post on the Clowney thing.
I had already commented on Nikki’s gun…
Maybe they could do some, um, reporting. Investigate a local college?
We think there’s no news, but isn’t it actually that no one has found any?
What’s your synopsis on the below/above the fold (fray) thing they put out on Christmas day? Baby Jesus was below the fold (fray). Mine is that too many people have too much time on ‘they hands.’
There is such a fray?
I mean, he was in a manger and all. They could have held him up, Lion King style….
I think it is a waste of newsprint to print the picture, but at least it is prettier than the stupid Gamecocks in Florida series….