Doc Holliday rides again!

Despite popular mythology, us Texans don't ride horses much anymore, or wear 10 gallon hats, or walk around town with a 6-shooter on our hip. 

That will all change on January 1, 2016, however.  The part about the 6-shooter at least.  Up until then it is illegal to "open carry" a handgun in Texas.  But we will soon be joining most of the rest of the country in allowing our citizens to do just that.  

On that date all CHL (Concealed Handgun License) holders will convert to LTC (License To Carry) holders, and anyone properly trained, vetted and licensed will be able to carry either concealed or openly.  What I can't figure out is why?  Why would anyone want to carry a handgun out in the open?

This lady looks to me like she could easily become a victim at any moment.  Someone walks up behind her with a sock full of quarters and pops her up-side the head with it, and he has himself a nice looking 1911-style handgun, while she gets a very expensive ambulance ride.  Or if a bad guy already doped up and fidgety walks into a convenience store to hold it up and sees her with that gun on her hip, he might just shoot preemptively and take her out.

I have no problem at all letting upstanding citizens who are willing to undergo the proper training and allow themselves to be photographed, fingerprinted, and vetted top to bottom, carry private firearms.  In the world we live in today, with the lawlessness that exists, and with the constraints (budgetary and otherwise) placed on our police, having the means to protect yourself seems quite reasonable IMO.

But I would personally prefer to go "gray man" whenever I could, kind of like having a big honkin' 454 under the hood of a vintage Buick Le Sabre.  I would feel safer not attracting attention whenever possible, knowing that if I really had to, if there was absolutely no other way out, I could defend myself.

Ever hear of the "little man" complex?  Is that what this is all about?  Am I missing something?  What is the point of open carry?  Somebody 'splain it to me.

S

Guns!

I'm on a roll....my last several posts have pissed off a lot of people.  Now I'm really gonna stroke people out.  My topic today is GUNS!

It would be pretty easy to make the argument that the world would be better off if there were no guns at all.  (Hunters might disagree, but that's a topic for another day.)  No guns would mean fewer wars, robberies, accidental shootings, and ex-spouses offed by their former mates, all good things.  Some countries have even outlawed guns in the hands of private citizens, with varying degrees of success.

Fact is, though, in the USA there are already well over 300,000,000 guns in the public domain.  Fortunately most are in the hands of decent, law abiding citizens, but sadly more than a few are in the hands of some really bad people, hereafter referred to as "the Bad Guys".  What makes them "Bad Guys" is the fact that they disobey laws.

Guns are a major political issue.  One group wants to ban them entirely, one group wants virtually no restrictions at all, and another group is somewhere in the middle. 

Those who want to ban guns are IMO living in La-La-Land.  Even if a law was passed that said everyone must turn in their guns, only law abiding citizens would comply.  Bad Guys, by definition, disobey laws, and this is one they would surely disobey.  Guns are the tools of their trade, just like a hammer is to a carpenter, or a Word program is to a writer.  We will NEVER get rid of all guns in America.

The crux of the "ban-'em-all" argument is that the Constitution says only MILITIAS can be armed, not individual citizens.  To which I say, it's a moot point.  Those 300M genies are NOT going back in the bottle.

At the other extreme are the hard-core NRA types who say they will give up their guns only "when you pry them from my cold, dead hands", and I believe they're speaking literally.  They will (reluctantly?) agree that felons and the mentally insane shouldn't have guns, but not much more.  I'm always amazed by the power of the NRA.  (Full disclosure:  I'm not a member of the NRA.)

Unless you're one of the unlucky ones who lives in a high crime area, you've probably never been the victim of a violent crime, which might lead you to say people don't need guns.  The odds of being attacked are infinitesimal.  Not true.  You can be a victim anywhere.

Some examples:  I have a friend who was shot when he was caught in the middle of a botched robbery.  He walked in to a rather nice restaurant on Mockingbird Ave in Dallas, not far from the fashionable M Streets and Lakewood, at the wrong time.  (He recovered.)

My cousin and her husband were once the victims of a home invasion.  They lived in a comfortable neighborhood, but were run over by armed intruders who ruffed her up and pistol-whipped him so badly he needed brain surgery.  (Fortunately, he recovered, too.)

And this lady....

She was visiting friends at the high-end Shops of Legacy, the same neighborhood where K and I lived for three years, when she was abducted.  Now, five months later, she's still missing and presumed dead.  I've parked in the same garage she did, dined at the same restaurants, and walked along the same streets. *gulp!*

I think the middle-grounders are on the right track.  Some people definitely should not have guns, but others, those who know guns, all the safety rules, and the legal obligations of gun ownership, should be allowed to have them, and even carry them concealed.  Odds are they will never need to use them, but the odds are their house will never burn to the ground, either, but they still want the protection of fire insurance.

It's relatively easy to identify who the good guys are.  They agree to being fingerprinted and photographed, a very detailed 2-3 month long background check (by local, state, and national law enforcement), and take safety classes and pass proficiency tests with their firearms. 

These measures seem to work.  In the most recent year my gun-totin' state of Texas has records for, the number of crimes committed by over 500,000 licensed concealed handgun carriers was only .1897% of all crimes reported.

If you ask a concealed carrying gun owner why he carries, he will likely tell you there are too many Bad Guys, and not enough good guys (cops).  True.  Cops are almost always RE-active.  They show up AFTER a crime has occurred.  

A super efficient police force might take 4-5 minutes to respond to a call for help, but in many cities that might be 30 minutes or more.  In rural areas it might take an hour.  Most violent crimes are over in less than 2 minutes.  

Unless we're prepared for a DRAMATIC increase in taxes to support 5 times (?) as many cops as we have now (and good luck even finding 5 times as many potential cops!), enough to put one on every corner, we can't depend on the police to protect us.

The real answer to the "to have or not to have" guns issue is finding out how to get guns out of the hands of the Bad Guys, and that is an answer we may never find.  *sigh*  Figure that out, and everything else will fall into place.

Some might say, "two wrongs don't make a right".  Just say "NO" to guns.  Others will say it's human nature to want to protect yourself, and the more you tell people they CAN'T do something, the more they'll want to do it.  

Bottom line:  Guns are here, now.  People already have them.  Many people will carry them concealed for protection.  I would rather see them reasonably regulated and made legally available to those who are vetted and properly trained, than have them purchased with no restrictions from a guy named Rocko in a back alley somewhere.

S

Gun talk

So far autumn, my glorious autumn*, hasn't disappointed.  For the past 3 days the early morning temps have been in the mid-50's, with the high barely touching 80.  Blue skies, slight breeze, and low humidity, too....true Chamber of Commerce weather.

I love autumn.  Spring is nice, but it reminds me of Sunday afternoon:  It's very pleasant, but you know next up is Monday morning.  Yuck!  But autumn, autumn is like Friday afternoon.  You know the full weekend lies ahead.  :)

* We even named one of our companies "Autumn Investments".  Now that's hard core right there!

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Lets talk guns:  I'm baffled by all the paranoia about licensed concealed firearms.  The big push for concealed carry in my state (Texas) came after a mass shooting in a Luby's cafeteria in Kileen, TX in 1991.  A deranged man crashed his truck into the cafeteria during lunchtime, then walked table to table, shooting 50 people, killing 23.  It was pointed out that just one properly trained and armed person might have been able to neutralize the shooter and save many of those victims.

The public's knee-jerk reaction to concealed carry was there would be "blood in the streets".  As we now know, that did NOT prove to be the case.  The behavior of concealed handgun license holders (CHL) has been statistically MUCH better than the population as a whole.

And I really don't understand why businesses would post signs on their doors saying they prohibit CHL holders from bringing their firearms inside.  By doing so they are specifically taking responsibility for the safety of their patrons.  Deny a CHL holder the ability to protect himself, he's yours.

A CHL holder has undergone extensive classroom training as well as gun safety and must pass a live shooting test.  He has submitted him/herself to being fingerprinted and photographed, and he has undergone a lengthy (roughly 4-6 week) background check.  

Think about it....if you are a business owner, who would you want standing across the counter from you?  That properly trained and vetted CHL holder, or some guy off the street you know absolutely nothing about?

IMO, we need to quit wasting our time and energy trying to keep guns away from us all.  They're here now, and they aren't going away.  I would like to see enough citizens properly licensed to carry that bad guys would have to think twice about who to rob, mug, or rape.  

We need to support those who are willing to undergo the scrutiny and training, and concentrate on identifying and getting help to those among us who are mentally ill.  And slamming those who are walking around illegally armed. They are the real problem.

S