This shows how little you understand the gun culture. I personally have no problem with the term and take no offense. In fact I have often described myself as a gun nut or a gun enthusiast. Many other firearm owners feel the same.
Check out http://gunnuts.net/ It's run by a guy named Caleb Giddings.
Caleb Giddings
Caleb Giddings is a competitive shooter and blogger. He is the founder of Gun Nuts Media, a popular website and blog among competitive shooters. He is also known for competing in the first season of History Channel's marksmen competition Top Shot.
[edit] Biography
Giddings was born in the US and lives in Fishers, Indiana. He currently works as an insurance salesman. He is also a former Coast Guard.
Giddings started shooting competitively while in college in the NRA's Collegiate Pistol program. In 2006, he founded Gun Nuts Media, a website and blog for competitive shooters.[1]
In 2010, Giddings appeared in the first season of History Channel's marksmen competition Top Shot. During the first half of the competition, Giddings competed as part of the Blue Team. His team ended up winning three challenges during his tenure, but Caleb was eliminated during the fifth week of the competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caleb_Giddings
That aside, many gun owners and holders of carry licenses are outraged over the Trayvon Martin shooting. If the media reports are correct, Zimmerman had no reason to claim self defense as he ignored advice from the police dispatcher and chose to leave his SUV and initiate an encounter with Martin. Many if not most gun owners feel that Zimmerman was a cop wannabe who wanted to play vigilante.
Many knowledgeable people believe that the "Stand Your Ground" law would be not be applicable in this incident. I agree. You don't start a fight, shoot the other individual and claim self defense. Of course, I only read the media reports and have no access to the actual investigation. It does seem to me that the Sanford Police Department is hiding behind the "Stand Your Ground" law in order to avoid arresting and prosecuting Zimmerman.
I believe that the law should be rewritten so as to require a review of any investigation of a claim involving "Stand Your Ground" by a higher authority than the local police.
You have to realize that people with concealed carry licenses realize that incidents like this are used by the media to make them look like cold blooded killers with itchy trigger fingers. This is far from the truth. Currently over 800,000 individuals have Concealed Weapons permits and live in Florida. The percentage of those who have such licenses and misuse their firearms is miniscule. Florida has had "shall issue" concealed carry since 1987 and only 168 people have had their license revoked for committing a crime with a firearm after the license was issued. (Source
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.pdf) That doesn't mean that the 168 individuals shot another person. You can lose your license for merely pulling your weapon and trying to gain leverage in an argument with another person. That could also cause you to spend three years behind bars.
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