So we can’t help it. Sue us.

This one’s from Wisconsin, letting us all know that carrying a gun never made anybody safer. No way, no how.

Done laughing?

Actually, neither are we. Let’s take a short break and come back when we’re done, shall we?

[Later…]

[Much later…]

There, all better now.

Letters: Hidden weapons offer false sense of security

Only if you think that getting the gun and the CHL means that your job is done. It helps immensely if you learn how to use it as well.

Ross Bielema makes a few errors in judgment in his Jan. 15 community column about the supposed benefits of concealed weapons.

First, he equates common items like spare tires and jumper cables with guns. The former are examples of reasonable precaution; the latter are simply overkill.

That’s the point.

You overkill him before he overkills you. He’s not going to holster his gun or sheathe his machete because you peacefully approach him with nothing more than a can of pepper spray. We can assure you of that. However, considering your obvious lack of use to society, we urge you strongly to try out your theory in practice if you get the chance.

Oak or pine?

Unless you’re a bodyguard, courier, private investigator or living in the most crime-ridden area of the country, you have no real need to carry a concealed weapon.

Because, as we all know, nobody but bodyguards, couriers, P.I.s and people living in the most crime-ridden areas of the country (which always seem to be the ones with strict gun control laws. Wonder why?) ever got killed, mugged or raped by an armed criminal. Just ask that NYT journalist that got brained (if such is possible where journalists are concerned) in DC recently. Oh wait, you can’t. He’s dead. OK, so he did actually qualify according to your criteria, seeing as how he lived in one of the most crime-ridden areas of the country. Not that he could’ve gotten a gun, seeing as how the reason it’s so crime-ridden is that nobody can get a CHL.

So the only ones with a legitimate need for a carry piece are the ones living in areas where they’re illegal?

Gotcha.

Thank G-d that His Majesty long ago quit paying attention to the actual content of Idiotarian speech or his brain would’ve been utterly fried by now.

Oh, and how many times do you hear people saying, immediately after a goblin murders somebody, how “they never thought it could happen here in our nice, safe neighborhood?” We guess that in those cases there’s at least ONE person in the world who would disagree with them. If it wasn’t for the fact that said person was communicationally challenged at the time due to being, well, dead.

If simple precaution justifies guns, then perhaps we should all be investing in things like defibrillators, anti-venom kits, parachutes and armored vehicles.

Give us one good reason why not? We’re sure that anybody with a heart attack would appreciate the sudden increase in available defibs.

Of course, using logic on the likes of you is about as likely to produce a worthwhile result as humping like a bunny rabbit is likely to restore virginity.

What we have here is the classic example of “if you don’t prepare for EVERY eventuality, you’re better off not preparing at all”, with the added statist, dictatorial twist of “because I don’t think that I need one, NOBODY should be allowed to own one.”

Listen, Comrade ClueFuck, His Majesty would much appreciate it if you’d cease and desist in your attempts to define and decide what I need and don’t need. If you don’t want a gun on your person, fine. I’m not going to force one upon you. A goblin will do that one day anyway, at which point you’ll be pissing and moaning about your lack of protection and wetting your pants until the bastard kills you. Your choice. Don’t EVEN try to make that choice for me. I’m likely to get quite disagreeable, right quick.

Fear is a bottomless pit. There is never enough security for some.

…so we might as well just resign to the cruelty of fate and await our doom…

How this nihilist freak managed to stay alive for so long with a positive attitude like that is beyond me, but there you have it.

Second, he believes that most criminals think rationally. They don’t. If a criminal is desperate or daring enough to commit a burglary or assault, they’re not going to be deterred by the possibility that the victim might be carrying a gun.

That’s funny, because all available statistics seem to say the exact opposite.

But hey, who am I to talk. All I’ve got is facts which are, as we all know, vastly inferior to Idiotarian memes and postulates.

Goblins aren’t the most intelligent species on the planet, that much is for sure, but they have been endowed with just enough intelligence to make them think twice about assaulting a prospective victim if there’s a chance that he or she might be armed with a lethal weapon.

Here’s a thought experiment so skullcrushingly simple to understand that even a liberal ought to be able to grasp it:

You’re a crook out to do some property reallocation (no, we’re not talking about IRS agents today). In your neighborhood you have two streets. On one street nobody’s allowed to own a firearm. On the other street, everybody can own whatever they want. There are a lot of NRA bumperstickers on the cars on this street, and there always seems to be a pleasant smell of cordite coming from the trunks of those cars.

Which street do you decide to hit?

Here’s another one:

You’re a horny son of a bitch with the personality and looks of a warthog, so you have to get your poontang in other ways. In one city you know for a fact that any citizen carrying a firearm will be put in jail and in the other you know that all law-abiding female citizens have the right to carry a big, nasty .357 mag. In which city will you be less likely to force your affections on that sweet lil’ thang standing on the corner?

Still not with me? Fear not, I have another one:

Suppose you and your missus decide to take a trip down here to the Imperial Capital, leaving the cold of Wisconsin behind and enjoying some honest-to-G-d down home REAL cookin’.

You arrive here, check into your hotel and decide to take a walk in the West End. Of course, seeing as how it’s July and you’re walking around outside, everybody with half a brain will immediately know that you’re damnyankees. Not a value judgment, just the facts. Nobody except for tourists, mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun around here. Sure, we’ll chuckle, but there’s no malice and we won’t do it to your faces. We’re Southerners, after all, and we take hospitality and courtesy to guests seriously ’round these parts.

Anyway, I’m sitting inside a nice, airconditioned bar looking out at the cute tourists getting their skulls baked while enjoying a nice, cold Shiner. Suddenly I see a goblin jump out and try to mug you and the wife. Since he knows just as well as I do that you’re tourists, he smells money and he knows that you’re likely one of those sophisticated Northerners who wouldn’t be caught dead around a gun, which translates into “easy pickings.”

Now (and this is assuming that I beat the rush) the next thing that happens while you’re busy telling him to take your wallet and have his way with your wife is that you hear a shout along the lines of “DROP YOUR WEAPON AND PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!”

Yep. That’s me, pointing a nasty-looking big gun at your assailant. A nasty-looking big gun that my State doesn’t consider “overkill” and has allowed me to carry. At this point one of two things will happen: 1) Immediate compliance on the part of the goblin, in which case everything is fine or 2) non-compliance on his part, in which case you’ll get a nasty stain on your suit as I shoot the motherfucker in the eyesocket. Being a Southern Gentleman I’ll obviously pick up the dry cleaning tab for you. Either way you and the missus are fine, if a bit shocked and shaken, but nothing that a dinner and a few drinks on me won’t fix.

Are you beginning to see some of the benefits of this whole CHL thing yet?

Probably not, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t still save your ass.

Criminals will do their best to get the advantage and the “drop” on the victim.

Yes they will, which is why it’s important to make it as bloody hard as possible for them. Sticking your hands in the air and screaming “I’m unarmed” is unlikely to produce desirable results. Sticking a .45 in their face and saying “Sayonara, Shithead”, on the other hand…

Third, Ross probably also believes that gun-carrying citizens actually possess the coordination, skill and presence of mind to successfully use a weapon in a crunch. They don’t.

A lot of skillet-wielding citizens don’t have the skills to make a friggin’ omelet, but that doesn’t mean that I’m about to outlaw eggs. Oh, but that’s not potentially lethal, you say? A lot of folks wouldn’t know how to tighten a lug nut either, so I suppose we should outlaw spare tires? Having an insufficiently tightened wheel come off on the highway can be quite dangerous, after all.

If they don’t train, then that’s their fault. They’re friggin’ idiots and they deserve what happens to them. They’re still no worse off than if they were unarmed, however, and I’d still rather have their untrained asses around in a live situation than nobody at all. If nothing else, they’ll serve as interference.

One thing’s for sure: If you outlaw gun ownership, NO citizens will know how to act in a real-life situation.

Ross speaks of deer hunters, but not the ones who couldn’t hit a deer standing still with a scoped rifle. Standard, required gun training doesn’t make a person a marksman or a citizen soldier.

Who the fuck is talking about standard, required gun training only, dumbass?

The standard course will teach you to avoid killing yourself with your gun and check if you can hit paper with it, which is enough to make sure that you don’t accidentally blow your wife’s head off in a gunfight. Everybody knows that and it’s actually something that is hammered home repeatedly in class. Just like a driver’s license. It means that you may drive, not that you can drive.

If somebody is serious enough about self-defense to go to the trouble of getting a CHL and carrying a gun, it’s fair to assume that they’re serious enough to invest some extra time and money in making sure that it’ll actually do them any good if the shit hits the fan. It’s no guarantee, but again: How does this make them worse off than if they were unarmed? And how in the Sam Hell are they going to ever get any good if they’re prohibited from learning how in the first place?

Moron.

Alas, conceal and carry may indeed happen in Wisconsin, but it appeals most to those obsessed with security and fear.

They’re the ones most likely to save your ass in a hairy situation, so a little less condescension and derision might be appropriate here, you ungrateful son of a bitch.

But hey, no matter. You can sneer at my “obsession with security” all you want.

At least I’ll live long enough to bury you.

The rest of us don’t need weapons any more than we need a second spare tire.

Richard Froemming, Neenah

So don’t get one, Dick.

Oh, and you just might blow out two tires at once one day.

You can always sneer at the “obsessive security freak” who stops and lets you borrow his if that happens.

Asshole.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 at 12:10 am and is filed under Gun Fearing Wussies, Idiotarians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.