It takes all kinds to make a
world; and I am pretty tolerant of people until they get in my space. I really don’t have a problem with gun
ownership and I can even forgive stupid people; but when stupid people are
packing firearms in my vicinity I don’t like it.
I have lived for seventy plus
years and I have never felt threatened in a restaurant or a grocery store or
Wal-Mart or Home Depot.
If a person is so insecure
they feel they need a firearm just to leave their house, perhaps they should
just fortify their home and bunker down.
It seems to me the real
reason for people carrying firearms openly in public places is attention
seeking. Just like the militia, grown
men and women pretending to be paramilitary; people carrying guns in public are
living in a fantasy world of Road Warrior, where they are waiting for the world
to go to shit so they save the day with their gun – automatic badass heroes –
and it is all in their head.
Most of these people, if not all, are not
screwed down tight. They don’t actually
see conspiracy theories around ever corner – they invent them. It is a mind game. They are badass wannabees and they think
openly carrying a weapon impresses people.
And they are right: but the impression they are making is that of nut
case with a gun; somebody best not to be around; an accident looking for a
place to happen.
I live in a community of
about six thousand people – a small college town. It is a quiet, safe and intellectually
stimulating place to live. About four months ago my wife and I went into
the local supermarket. Down one of the
isles we happened on a mother and her son: he appeared to be thirteen or
fourteen years old. He was in dress
pants, a dress shirt and tie, shined shoes and carrying a holstered Glock on is
belt. What kind of mother takes her
armed teenager into a grocery store?
0bviously she was someone not playing with a complete deck of
cards. Considering the unusual way he was dressed,
with his mother, and carrying sent up red warning flags and we left our half
filled cart and departed the store.
I have owned guns all my
life. I am probably more proficient
than the average gun owner. I was a
member of the Quonset Point Navy pistol team and fired scores high enough to
compete in All Navy competition. I had
an allotment of one thousand rounds of 45 cal. per month for practice. I was awarded Navy Expert Rifle and Expert
Pistol ribbons. So I am not anti-gun: I
am anti-gun nut.
We have let the idiots take
over the asylum and they are armed and packing and dangerous. They are a greater dangerous to public
safety that the people they claim they need protection from.
If you want to go to a
grocery store, a restaurant or a movie, leave your fucking guns at home;
because you armed presence will definitely run my day and every other person in
the area with common sense. Stay out of
my space with your fucking fire arms. I
have a right to live threat free and you are a public threat.
A few weeks ago I happened to be in our county's administrative offices. I was doing some genealogical research when a fellow came in who wanted to apply for a concealed carry permit. It got me to wondering which is worse: the open carry nutjobs who advertise right up front that they don't have both oars in the water or the concealed carry lunatics who harbor the same Mad Max fantasies but aren't as blatant about it. At least the pimply-faced adolescent with the Glock advertised loud and clear that no one should be in the same building as him; with the concealed carry lunatics you wouldn't know they were around until they whipped out their handgun and started shooting. For sure the guy doing the paperwork for his concealed carry permit looked like someone I'd hesitate to allow to carry a Super Soaker water gun, let alone something that fired actual bullets.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this post Buzz. I was only joking my friend. I was being sarcastic because I am surrounded by militia types everywhere I go. My new pistol comes with me on car trips and the rest of the time lives at home in a dresser drawer where it remains til needed. I may take it out in the desert. We have rattlesnakes and I don't see or hear as well as I used too! good post!
ReplyDeleteby the way, it is illegal for minors to be in possession of handguns everywhere in the US including Maine.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I am for gun control. How do you decide who is sane and who's not? My father was like you in that he always had guns around when he was cleaning them but they always got locked up in the garage afterwards.
ReplyDeleteIn Oklahoma when they made it legal to carry guns openly, the more together businesses could post signs saying "no guns allowed" and it was then legal to keep people with guns out. Anyway, not much of a problem here in Portlandia.
What the hell does anyone need a gun for unless they are going hunting birds or game?
ReplyDeleteYou truly live in an alien world over the water... haven't seen a gun of any sort in years, hell i haven't seen a copper round the town for a loooong time too.
ReplyDelete