it seems like everyone else has entertaining gunners. mine are just annoying. i feel like i'm not getting the full law school experience.

My primary gunner is terrible. She talks, guaranteed, for at least 5 minutes per class. At times, she's talked as much as 7 minutes (yes, I timed it) consecutively. No matter what she is saying, she has the most obnoxious, self-satisfied, smug tone in her voice. Something along the lines of "yes, I'm saying something either factually inaccurate or blatantly obvious, but I thought of it all by myself so you should all be damn impressed by me."

The problem really is that she's often factually inaccurate. She went on a 5 minute economics rant in Torts the other day... espousing an economic theory that has been the laughing stock of economists for decades, trying to claim that said theory was actually the most prevalent and widely accepted theory among economists and judges. She went on a similar rant in Property about how the court was refusing to enforce a contract to protect a woman who was party to the contract through her husband. The rant included a ton of feminist propaganda, a tirade about how women were mistreated in the 30s and 40s, and how the courts needed to protect women at the time. Only to have that rant followed up by a student pointing out that the contract was actually the woman's idea in the first place, so protecting her because she had no say in the contract clearly wasn't part of the deal.

I really don't mind short questions or even hypos. If they're short. But if you're going to go on a 5-7 minute rant in every single class every single day, for God's sake, be factually accurate occasionally. Unfortunately, most of my professors encourage any and all comments, which results in her thinking her comments are actually worthwhile... even though the Professors refer to every comment as good, regardless of its content.

The way I look at it, 5 minutes of each class correlates to approximately 6.67% of class time. That means she talks for 6.67% of my semester. As far as I'm concerned, she should have to pay me 6.67% of my tuition for the semester, since I never signed up to pay to hear her talk.

This is probably good advice. Like my mother always said, "It isn't what you say, it's how you say it." If you come off like a jerk (in UG or LS), you're gonna be an outcast. If you're coherent, friendly, and respectful, you'll be treated just fine.

Maybe my worries were a bit unfounded.

We had a gunner in my paralegal studies class. She dropped out of UVA Law School 15 years ago to show horses and she liked to try and play "I'm smarter than you" (mostly with dumb hypotheticals, so maybe she learned how to gun at UVA) to the lawyers teaching the class. She ended up cursing one of them out. But the whole class turned into middle school and 90% of the people in the class were somewhere in their mid-late 30's and above. Needless to say, I'm not particularly looking forward to a repeat of it.

A lot of it is how you sound. My least favorite gunner annoys me so much in part because she always sounds so smug and proud of herself. It's bloody obnoxious.

But really, I think it just comes down to purpose. I think people can usually tell why you are making a particular comment. If someone is genuinely confused or curious, you can tell. If they just want to hear themselves talk, you can tell. I really don't think anyone minds a student who participates meaningfully or asks relevant clarifying questions. It's about how you participate, not whether you do or how much you do. That's what differentiates a regular student from a gunner.

All that being said, I think Kohinoor was being a touch sarcastic.

As long as you're not "that guy" in philosophy class:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40984

My section is starting to have a few gunners, but only for certain classes. We have one in torts who always makes a few long comments per class (almost every time) but nothing in any other classes. There are two people who tend to talk a lot in contracts also, sometimes asking ridiculous and complicated hypos. We don't have any gunners for civ pro, but I think the professor is too intimidating and would insult them.

I had the ultimate gunner in my individual in society class. It was so hilarious because the Professor was discussing self knowledge and awareness in terms of development, and she said “we all know someone who just has not developed self knowledge and cannot monitor themselves, thus they never shut up they just babble on and on”. The whole class was laughing and the idiot never even realized it was him. Everyone would go into shock when he opened his mouth because shit would just start spewing out-he would basically call the Professor incorrect or not able to understand. He is gone now and we actually discussed him and how nice it is he is gone, but sadly he left for medical reasons-still nice he is gone.

Real live question asked in Torts today:

Professor is discussing the products liability defense of product misuse... the company needs to foresee the misuse in order to be held liable, etc etc. He offers a hypo that one wouldn't expect someone to use drain cleaner to flush his eyes out or something ridiculous.

Student: "What if someone DOES use drain cleaner for what THEY think it should be used for? Like, what if he wants to kill himself so he drinks it to kill himself... so he's using the product for the reason he bought it. Shouldn't the company be held liable? Isn't that a foreseeable misuse? Suicide?"

And after the professor answered him, he wouldn't let it go for a couple minutes. We usually don't have much gunning in this class at all, so I have NO IDEA where that came from. Fridays, I guess?

When we are discussing Nobel prize winning economic theories, the 1L starts his comment with "The theory is obviously flawed..."

He reminds me of the guy in the beginning of Legally Blonde who says Steven Hawking stole the Brief History of Time from his fourth grade paper. Except tremendously less attractive.

Coase Theorem?

No

Our gunner is consistently late. As is really late. He's shown up with 20 minutes left in an hour and 15 minute class. Another time he has shown up with less than 5 minutes before class ends.
You may be thinking to yourself, "Self, this guy doesn't sound like a gunner at all." Well... here's where it gets even better. In discussing complicity in criminal law, and specifically whether the provider of the guns for the Columbine shooting should be held as an accomplice - our gunner decided to raise his hand and then posit a theory that the government, for having created a statute the kids were prosecuted under, should also be held liable for their failure. This is the same douche nozzle that earlier considered Bernie Madoff a "victim of his own intelligence" and wanted liability on the government for failing to catch him. And, again, in torts, he found the government liable when it failed to prevent a spill in the Boston Harbor. He's like a retarded Alan Shore.

Haha... that's hilarious and also terrible.

I wonder if he is late because he sits outside the classroom coming up with absolutely ridiculous ideas to gun with?

I'm just hoping that someday I can be a powerful enough lawyer that just saying my name (a la Denny Crane) is enough to win cases.

Thank you contributors to this thread. As an aspiring 1L, I have decided it would be in my best interests to retain a criminal attorney before I begin my law school career.
Your stories illustrate a harsh reality. I thought that maybe my eye-rolling, forehead covering, head shaking and stomach churning days were over. I wanted to say that "gunners" were just probably trying to to get some public-speaking/litigation practice.
From the majority of what I've read here though, it's obvious that ineptitude can slip through the cracks. How ignorant I was to think I could get away from sheer stupidity by simply tackling a challenging curriculum.

On the upside, perhaps he will sue the government after you choke him.

each one of us needs
some good social networking
said the broke salesman

no
one
cares

A guy in my practice group does that and he's certainly not a gunner.

gunner - there is no such thing as consent in sex. consent only applies to transactions. the law should use a different word.

professor - so if two adults talk and agree to go upstairs and have sex with each other that's not consensual?

gunner - not in the true meaning of the word consent. you can't consent to sex.

true story.

I believe the gunner meant to say that no one had ever or would ever consent to having sex with him/her. Roofies FTW.