Active, engaged learner or gunner?

[rapunzel]

I don't really think you have to choose.  You can get to know a prof without being a jackass.  I'm friendly with a large number of people in my section.  I'm known to be active in class discussions but am not on the list of people commonly considered gunners.  I also have had lunch with some of my profs who have served as references and sources for jobs. 

But then at my school we are reasonably kind to our gunners, we tease them for being overeager, and maybe have a joke or two, but really my class as a whole is pretty friendly.  The real dumbasses shut up or dropped out after 1st year anyway.

[Postmodern Punk]

It's a small world, but not that small, so if I had to have a choice, I would befriend my professors anyway, but that is just me and everyone is different.  Personally I wouldn't want to be friends with people who weren't studious anyway because I am usually just an "academically" intense outside of school.  I would assume each law school has a different culture.  I guess making sure you went to a school that fits your personal style is the best thing to do.

[tacojohn]

Would you rather have the respect and contact"ability" with a couple of professors or the peer contacts you would have gained with your classmates if they didn't hate your freakin' guts?!

Depends what type of professors you have.  I think a prof can make or break the difference between being a gunner and just engaged.  If the prof looks to you for answers no one else can give, or makes a point to mock you in class (two extremes, I know) then you're probably a gunner.

[duj06]

If you have to ask this, you're a gunner.

[istically]

People who talk all the time are seen as stupid in law school

Without them class would be horrible, though! They enable others to surf quietly and comfortably during the whole time.

[Leaf2001br]

If you constantly have to vocalize wild guesses to even the most rhetorical questions by your professor, you might be a redn.... er,...gunner.

But I do agree with the above comment.  At some point all of us owe something to the gunner.  Consider the following scenario:
There's 10 minutes left in class.  You fell asleep reading the last case last night and are really not prepared to discuss it.  Your professor looks around and starts towards your side of the class...

Then Gunner pipes up in the nick of time with a barrage of stubborn hypos or random stories, saving the day!!

[aey4l]

If you insist upon asking a question (actually multiple questions) that you know is going to bring up a topic the class is CLEARLY not talking about yet....you are a gunner.

[tacojohn]

If you include a Latin phrase in every answer you give, you might be a gunner.

[_retired_]

If you constantly raise your hand to vocalize how you feel about a policy or to comment about your view on "society", you are a dumbass first of all...and you are a gunner.

[J D]

At my school, they're not called gunners; they're called classholes.