imported post
I can only imagine this scenario:
I a gun owner, with a gun collection, of sound mind, fairly reasonable temperament and judgment, find myself in one of those public spree situations in a McDonalds or somewhere like that.
Around me lie the bodies of victims. Maybe it's strangers, but even so, maybe women and children or maybe people I know and love.
And for the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the fact that had I simply put on my holster in the morning, I could have stopped it. That my unease at breaking social conventions, or not wanting to be "thought of as a gun guy," or just laziness, led me to be helpless in that random act of violence.
This thought keeps me up nights.
It is often asked of us by our opponents (well, we're more "accused" and "smeared" this way than "asked") - "Why do you live in fear?"
It is more like the ant and grasshopper, and we're ants.
It is a sober acceptance of the fact that while most people in this world are civilized, all it takes is one guy who's taken too much in his life and snapped - or one person who is simply caustically evil, to rain down violence on the innocent. This can happen in gated communities. It can happen at the drive through or the bank. Or outside your child's school. We see this on the news all the time.
And so we prepare, never actually expecting this to really occur, but rationally telling ourselves, "it could, and how would you feel, if you could have possibly stopped it - you with the gun, safely locked up at home - and didn't."
All of the kind of weird uncomfortable, "sheesh it's weird to carry a gun around everywhere...now I'm one of THOSE people" hesitations, or the "everyone looks at me uneasily" issue, or simply refusing to deal with the inconvenience of carrying a pistol, will seem, I suspect, in the wake of such an event, to be absurd reasons not to carry. Stupid. Baseless.
Our opponents want to believe we're paranoid vigilantes, believing the world is, at any moment, about to gang up on us in some way. Or that we're "playing policeman" or "sojer" or "minuteman." The fringes of the gun movement certainly feed this stereotype but really, I have found, those who carry regularly feel some responsibility for what happens in the world. We carry civilization in our hearts and minds.
It is, in fact, the demented crazies that we carry guns to protect ourselves against: the short tempered, the weak minded, the cold hearted. We know they're out there. We hope we will never find ourselves in close proximity. We hope the police will deal with the situation, because any of us who have gone through any kind of training know the psychological and legal devastation even a justified shooting can lead to. I look at the prospect of ever having to draw my weapon with honest dread and loathing. I look at the prospect of being gunned down, or seeing others gunned down...with more.
I think sometimes when we say "god forbid" something should happen, people think we're only going through an obligatory song and dance about this. I can only speak for myself, but I really mean it: I'm not the kind of guy who's going to be "okay" with shooting someone in self defense. I'm way too introverted and philosophical to dismiss that mathematically: "It was either him or me." It's going to hurt. I just know it'd hurt more to not take necessary action. I know for a fact this is true.
We have decided in advance that someone, somewhere, may have to hold the line against the darkness, in defense of ourselves or our loved ones or even perfect strangers. And we are stepping up to do so. Not necessarily because we're swell guys (I like to think many of us are). Not even because of chivalry (I like to think this is also important to many or most of us).
But because the alternative is simply unacceptable. Unpalatable. Nauseating. Not an option at all.
For me, at least, there is no bravado. There is not even fear of anomie or a sense of foreboding about the world.
There is wariness. And weariness - of the extremes that life can push even normal men toward. Resignation, that for every person who commits a crime out of desperation, there is also cold, malevolent evil in the world.
And some of us pray we never find ourselves staring it down. But we are also damned sure we're not just going to roll over and let it have its way with us should we find ourselves staring into its gaping maw.
I'm not going to, at any rate.
Open or concealed is a different issue, but the reason we carry, is because we've decided to make a stand, should the situation ever occur. Because we really have no choice.
I said "we" a lot here. Maybe all the "we"s should be "I"s but I can't be the only one.
