Gun Rights On CNN

Not long after the Tucson shootings, two journalists on CNN were trying to corner a fellow into saying serious Second Amendment restrictions were needed.

The guy they were hammering on was named Alan Korwin. I'd never heard of him before but, it turned out, he's an expert on the Second Amendment, weapons and other such things. I decided right away that he as a genius because he not only had perfectly rational, common sense answers, he was also outgoing and genuinely interested in engaging whatever curve balls came his way. (He WASN'T as creepy introverted loser with darting eyes.)

Alan feels like I do: that you can't take guns away because of shootings anymore than you can take cars away because of collisions.

A prohibition on guns (or on ammo and clips) isn't going to be any more effective than the prohibition on alcohol was in the days of Al Capone. If people with bad intentions want to get their mitts on a weapon, they will. So, if some folks have their way, the bad guys will be armed to the teeth while everyone else is defenseless. First our citizens, then our country.

And that would really suck, wouldn't it.

Given my line of work, I tend to keep a low profile. Rarely will you find me ranting on the subject of gun laws. But this is too important. It became important the first time I started "carrying". One of the first things I learned was to assume that everyone else was carrying too. If you think I'm exaggerating, visit your local gun range sometime. I did. It was back when Obama was running for president. I was with the Colonel (and, to understand this in it's most fitting context, you should understand that the Colonel and I have seen more than our fair share of gun toting wackjobs before). It was 10 am on a Wednesday. We thought most of God's children would be at work. We thought we'd have the place to ourselves. But it was packed. There were five shooting stations (so designated by their big blue 50-gallon drums) and each station had as many as fifteen people buzzing around like bees, waving handguns up down and all around, at each other and at themselves. There was every type person you could imagine: Old timers with their grand kids, soccer moms, bread truck drivers, punks, thugs, skateboarders, divorcees, frat boys -even a couple of midgets (not meaning to pick on the little people, I just don't see them out and about much it seems).

It was a freakn Wild West Show. Half of them had no idea what they were doing and the other half was stupid enough to bee standing around so many locked and loaded idiots. The Colonel and I took one look and retreated to his Porsche. "Screw that, man," I told him, opening the bottle of schnapps we took along whenever we went shooting. "That's the most dangerous place I've been in two months!"

The Colonel just shook his head and laughed and threw the Porsche into gear.

Of course, I'm no role model, no angel. But what I saw that day was just a micro sample of my gun packing brethren. Since then, when I'm at the supermarket in Union or at Lowes in Spartanburg or anywhere off my own property in Jonesville,SC, I automatically assume that everyone I pass is cocked and ready for a poop storm. Even if they aren't, actually.

In other places I've been, most weapon carriers have them slung over their shoulders or strapped to their side. Or have nothing.

In most cases, you know what you're working with.

But in the U.S., the ones that appear to have nothing likely have something. You can pretty much count on it.

Which brings me to my POV on guns: If more people knew how many guns were already out there; already in the hands of Good Guys and Bad Guys alike, there would be less road rage; less robberies, less trivial angst.

People would try harder to be nicer to one another.

Although troublemakers would still come out of the woodwork from time to time,

more of them would think twice before they did,

and more of us would be handy to put them down.

# # #