@ twency: “Oh puh-leaze” is not really an argument.

I really didn’t think anyone would question the gun being a phallic symbol at least going as far back as 100 years. Freud would have said so based on the shape. The shape of the penis is universal. It hasn’t changed, so penis-shaped things are phallic symbols. But here is something less speculative:

A dictionary of sexual language and imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature.

Page 631, for guns/penises:

http://books.google.com/books?id=2XtWDhgljvkC&pg=PA632&lpg=PA632&dq=%22language%22+%22shoot%22+%22gun%22+%22phallic%22&source=bl&ots=SaTFrSTXdT&sig=mOVHtg4tonWx3eyj0N_g77cBuws&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0UNoT6K3I8jPiAKB0ZjXBg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q&f=false

In Hungarian, the word for “coitus” is “shoot”. We certainly have plenty of words in English that share similar meanings: shoot, discharge, “weapon”, load, “gun in your pocket”, etc. 

Here is the oldest known phallic symbol:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4713323.stm

Hey, people, she’s twiddling with a phallic symbol in her lap. I only meant to say it’s not so much of a stretch that people should say this came from “some dark place” in Cory’s mind. 

Off to polish my gun after all that…

The custom of carrying a 1911 cocked with a round in the chamber and the slide lock engaged came about when civilians began using the weapon.

In military settings, regulations forbid carrying a cocked 1911 and frown upon carrying one with a round in the chamber except in active law enforcement situations or in a combat zone.

Your Ruger has the same sort of “safety” as does the Colt 1911. which is a transfer bar. This is that is the opposite of the majority of revolvers. My comments on dropped gun discharges were directed to revolvers having a pinned hammer.

As for your statement about modern revolvers having a safety? I don’t consider a hammer block bar to be a safety any more than I consider the rhythm method to be effective birth control.

It was, as my brother and I found out by the time-honored practice of searching our parent’s dressers, an Iver Johnson 32, much like the one shown above, but without the fancy engraving. Yes, it was a .32 short and probably would not have stopped an attacking kitty cat.

My brother, being the gun nut of the family, sneaked it out one day for some target practice. He later reported that it was the most inaccurate handgun he’d ever tried. Knowing my father (now long passed away) he had it mainly for effect (and to meet job requirements) anyway.

cue R.M.Sapolsky

This statement is based on what? Citation, please. 

And smelling the toxic gunpowder fumes after shooting… it becomes clear that this flame-belching, body-kicking thing in your hands is a very serious machine of death, deserving of respect. 

Its just not a worthless slide that keeps the trigger from being pulled, but rather a very stout transfer bar which requires a full trigger pull to place the bar between the hammer and the firing pin.

This is actually safer than a trigger safety, it prevents discharge even in the event the revolver is dropped onto its hammer from considerable height. By contrast the trigger safety on many old Remington rifles won’t make the rifle drop safe and can actually cause an accidental (not negligent) discharge when turned off, an action required to open the bolt.

BTW, most people carrying 1911′s carry them “cocked and locked” which is how the design was intended to be carried if loaded.

Actually, thats not ALL that children are taught.
TV and movies teach them to actually carry the gun with their finger on the trigger, sweep it across things they wouldn’t be willing to shoot, play with it as a toy, and forget what might be behind the target.

Our culture actually educates against the four basic rules of gun safety rather than teaching any of them. Then we wonder why people die from mishandled weapons.

Wish I could buy a decent revolver for $6 today. At least I will presume that childhood gun ownership was less dangerous to our society than the fiat currency of the private Federal Reserve Banks.

Granted, this was a different era and society’s attitude toward guns and children might have changed over the years. But what has not changed so much is the language of symbols and of the subconscious mind. 

People just might not want to see it because it’s just to weird since it is a child. If it was a grown woman doing the same thing in bed it would be easier to see. 

He is one of my all-time heroes.

http://www.meridenfirearms.com/images/pistols/pistol3