I carry in SLO frequently. Higuera street in the main downtown area is off-limits (GFSZ), but Marsh street is not. I hang at Ben Franklins for lunch quite often, as the owner is also a gun nut.
No, he's not. We're not "gun nuts." I own two firearms, and have qualified on countless handgun, rifle, and air launched firearms qualifications under my belt over the years, uncluding several from our nuclear arsenal.
Yet I own just two firearms these days, so what makes me a "gun nut" simply because I choose to protect and defend myself and my family against those who would break the law by committing robbery, burglury, assault, or other forms of criminal behavior against myself or my family?
You want to know what a gun nut is? I can't define it. I campaign for our Second Amendment rights, but that campaign began in 1989, when I swore an oath to do so, commensurate with the commissioning oaths all officers of our Armed Forces are required to take prior to our commissioning.
That doesn't make one a "gun nut."
Years ago, when I was in middle school, my father had to leave on a business trip and my mom was away with her mom, who was suffering from cancer. They left me in the care of some very good friends. Shortly after that time ended, I saw his collection at his house and was like "wowee!" It wasn't an arsenal, but it was certainly a serious collection of antiquities originally owned mostly by people you and I know from having read about them in our history books! Wow!
One night, while heading towards the midnight trenches, I ran into his wife in a negligee, too, and as I was in 8th grade, my response was the same: Wow.
Lol, life as an early teen...
Anyway!
Ok, you skanks, it was just a brief run-in, nothing more. Back then both her and my generations were raised with
morals, damn you! Damn you all to hell!
Ok, an hilarious take-off from Charleton Heston's Planet of the Apes final epilogue.
Seriously, while I'm having fun at this (we all watched Planet of the Apes earlier) nothing happened, so cool your jets.
And getting back to "gun nuts," he wasn't a "gun nut." He was an "afficionado of armed antiquities." In other terms, he could most certainly be described (and probably was) an "antiquities collector" as he had the entire pedigree of each and every firearm laid out in illuminated display.
He was a curator. I could care less if "modern" curators would care to count them amongst themselves. He spent more time detailing the history of each and every firearm in his posession than I imagine most curators would of their own works.
He was a curator.
Not a gun nut.
So, whoever you are who might be throwing that "gun nut" term around, you're not exactly doing us a favor by doing so. We're not "gun nuts." Please note that several Hollywood Special Effects shops have hundreds of fully functional replicas on hand which have been and will continue to be used in countless "shoot-em-up" movies throughout the years and into the years to come.
Are they "gun nuts?"
No.
As an individual who has fired everything from a BB gun to the most powerful (simulated) nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal (1MT+). I do not consider myself to be a "gun nut." I consider myself to be someone who rose from the ranks of a newspaper carrier to military officer to retired thereof. Along the way I developed an appreciation for the historic rights of our forefathers to keep and bear arms, and the fact that our country would not have ever existed without that right.
I also developed a sense of preservation of the peace which, our principal founder prayed for, often, and which he, also often, hoped would never come to pass. Throughout it all, he prayed things wouldn't have to come to a head, but he was no stupe. He understood it might, was probably aware that it would, and was prepared when it did.
We see it in 20/20 hindsight. He saw it as it happened, in 20/0 hindsight.
***
The difference is that I see each and every day of our civilization blessed with a wonderful opportunity to grab hold of our new day and make the most of it. I make no promises. I simply know that our human spirit has yet to end, despite 10,000 years of vehement, violent opposition against us.
- NEVERENDS