Guns

I don't carry a gun. I like to say that I don't carry a gun because I am afraid that I might lose my temper with some idiot and use it. The fact is I have never felt the need to carry one. The few times I was in a situation where it might have been prudent to have a gun I was able to recognize the situation and back away.

Carrying a gun is a nuisance. Anything bigger than a pocket pistol is heavy and cumbersome. And how would I conceal anything bigger? I would have to wear a jacket, which I seldom do. If you are going to carry a gun, you really should carry it with you everywhere. I look at it kind of like seatbelts, or any other safety precaution. The one time you don't buckle your seatbelt, or don't carry your gun, is going to be the one time you will need it. I understand now why the original James Bond carried a 25 caliber Beretta. (It was tiny.) Here are some pocket pistols.

Left to right: Colt Vestpocket 25, Kel-Tec P32, Baby Browning 25. P-32 is the lightest of them all, as you might guess.

Guns and the way people react to them are funny. I don't mind seeing policemen with guns, but that is because that's what I grew up with. Police have always had guns, it's just the way things are. There have only been a couple of times when I have encountered people with guns (outside of a shooting range) who were not police, and my reactions were interesting (to me anyway. Maybe not to you. Har de har har). Sometimes they made me nervous, sometimes they didn't.

I think all this noise about "common sense" gun laws comes from people who are unfamiliar with guns. Most people don't own guns and don't encounter them in their daily lives, except for the police and the police are like fixtures. Then they hear about these violent massacres and think we should do something about this. They have always lived their lives according to the rules, and they think everybody else should too, so we will just make a rule that says nobody can have any guns. Then the world will be safe and everything will be fine and dandy we won't ever have to worry about anybody getting shot ever again.

I hope the NRA is successful in getting all the restrictive gun laws repealed. It might be a little tougher with the Democrats in power, but I have heard inklings that at least some of the Democrats understand the issue. And then there is the recent US Supreme Court ruling that should go a long way to clearing out these foolish restrictions on gun ownership.

Imagine what it would do for the economy if people could buy machine guns! Imagine all the guns and ammo people would buy! Shoot, a day at the range with a machine gun could easily cost you $1,000. Yea ha! That would put a boost in the economy!

(Yes, I know you can buy a machine gun now, the restrictions are onerous. Never mind that I wouldn't be able to keep it fed.)

Update April 2019 fixed a problem with the picture.