NYT: Who Wants to Live in a Society Where Everyone Is Armed for Self-Defense?

The newspaper admitted that “all people in that situation, unarmed and under fire, would want long to be able to protect themselves and their friends,” but quickly hedged in the admission by positing:

Yet consider the society Americans would have to live in–the choices they would have to make–to enable that kind of defense. Every member of Congress, and every other American of whatever age, would have to go to baseball practice, or to school, or to work, or to the post office, or to the health clinic–or to any other place mass shootings now take place–with a gun on their hip.

Full article: NYT: Who Wants to Live in a Society Where Everyone Is Armed for Self-Defense?

AP/Rogelio V. Solis

Imagine the drop in mass shootings, gang violence, etc. that would take place if the armed assailant knew ahead of time that 95% of the people he comes across are going to be able to shoot back!

This is why I hate articles about guns and self defense with guns by people who don’t own guns, shoot guns, or know anything at all about guns.

For a large portion of the USA, the above unimaginable bother that they are using to make self defense with a gun unfeasible is what we do. That’s our life. I am usually armed. Unless I know I am going in to a government building, I am armed. If you ever happen to meet me, you can bet money that there’s a gun on me somewhere. And I’m not alone, not by a long shot.

Any time I meet someone, I assume they are armed. 99% of my friends are armed.

The media wants to make it seem like this is a hardship that not many people are willing to do. But we do. There’s a lot of us, and it is public record, and we’re exercising our rights all the time.

For those who do carry, you know. At some point, and you don’t even realize it, you forget the gun is even there. When trouble seems to be coming, you remember it really fast, but most of the time we don’t think about it. It’s there, we put it there, but we can’t feel it and it isn’t getting in the way.

I carry a revolver and sometimes a compact 1911 (not usually at the same time). Sometimes the 1911 jabs me in the ribs because it likes to remind me it is there. But both firearms are in good holsters (leather for the revolver, plastic for the 1911) and don’t move, shift, or slap around while I walk. They push into my skin and stay there until I say otherwise.

So to me, no, carrying a gun through my daily activities is not a bother. In fact, I feel better being out alone running errands. I have never pulled my gun in anger and hope to never have to. But if the time should come, I can’t really run away anymore. My mother – who also carries – is on a cane and sometimes a walker. She can’t run away anymore either. I feel better going out alone, and I feel better about my mom going out alone, knowing we’re both armed and know how to use our guns. And yeah, sometimes I forget it’s there.

You know what is a bother? Having to think about my mother burying her only child because a guy stabbed me death for my purse. I lost a friend like that years ago, he was shot in the neck for the $3 he had in his pocket and then died slowly in the street because none of the a-holes walking by could be bothered to call 911. That was a real bother. I lost a really dear friend, who you can tell I am not yet over, and his parents lost their only child weeks before he graduated college. You know what else would be a real bother? The emotional and physical turmoil I’d go through post rape. That would be a lifetime full of bother!

So no, carrying my gun really isn’t that much of a bother.

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