Tuesday, January 03, 2012

It's Okay To Stereotype And Mock Gunnies

After all, it's hard to tell us apart -- we're all surly, scowling people who love camo and can't carry a tune in a basket, right? Just itchin' to "plug" somebody, right? Not quite as couth or clever as our betters, are we?

At least, that's the message I'm reading from one of our local civil-libertarian types, who seems to be very much in favor of 9 out of the first 10 amendments to the U. S. Constitution. But oh, that pesky Second! Oh, those feeeeeelthy, ignernt gunnies! (Oh, heavens, what if one moved in next door? There goes the neighborhood!)

Writing about the incident in which a Kroger employee shot and killed a man with a previous history of armed robbery, who was in the process of taking a hostage to the manager's office by threat of arms,[1] she quotes her husband saying, "Here we go again. It won’t be two days until the gun lovers start insisting that everyone should be armed." And she agrees.

Really? Everyone? Nonsense, dear sir and and ma'am; like the State for a generation now, I simply insist that no law-abiding citizen should be kept by law from being armed if he or she chooses to be armed. Nobody's saying you should be, only that you should not be prevented from so doing.

Interestingly, Indiana has one of the most liberal shall-issue handgun carry permit laws in the country and has been that way for a generation; this state went shall-issue in 1980, seven years before Florida, and had been "permissive may-issue" since before WW II.[2] 31 years on, Indy's still safer than no-legal-carry Chicago.

This doesn't prevent the usual Dire Prediction Of Blood -- not in the streets, this time: "I can see it now: Shoot-out in canned goods! Gunfire in the cereal aisle.... So what if a trigger-happy employee misconstrues a “situation” and starts shooting?"

Except, you see, we're already running the experiment. We've been running it longer than both the shooter and the dead criminal at Kroger had been alive. We already know the outcome: there aren't any "shoot-outs in canned goods" and 99.99999% of the time, the only red on the floor is from a dropped jar of tomato-based product (or hot sauce). Your worst fears have not come true -- because most people, yes, even those of us who had a State Police background check, got fingerprinted and paid for a License To Carry Handgun, most people are good and decent; most people are reluctant to take human life.

I don't carry a gun to shoot somebody, I carry a gun so I can have a better chance of keeping bad people from hurting me.

In Indianapolis, persons with carry permits are several percent of population and you can be assured that any time you're in the grocery, odds are you're in the presence of a lawfully-armed individual. Odds are even better they're not going to plug you over that last can of creamed corn, any more than they'd run you over in the parking lot for taking a space they wanted -- and nearly a hundred percent of the shoppers, checkers, butchers and stockpersons have a car. Why do you trust them with an automobile but not a gun?


Still no word from Kroger. It appears almost certain that they do have a "no weapons" policy; while it doesn't have the force of law, the man who stopped a criminal before things could go from bad to worse may yet lose his job over it -- and Kroger may be waiting for the fuss to die down before they act. Hey, Kroger? Don't count on us forgetting. We'll be watching.
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1. It's still an open question if the malefactor had a real gun or "merely" something that felt like one pressed against his hostage's back -- and it doesn't matter; Indiana law recognizes that victims often have no way to tell and that the crime is the threat of force, the "do as I say or else."

2. In fairness, that's for a given value of "permissive." A middle-class or better-off paleface male would have had little problem; for the rest of us, the bar was higher, quite a bit so in some places. Which is why shall-issue is better.

13 comments:

Underground Carpenter said...

Hi RX,

"The man that wants to disarm me, whether a random crazy hobo in the parking lot to the highest authority in the land, only wants to do so because he is going to do something to me that I could prevent by using a weapon. Whatever that agenda is that requires me to be helpless, it cannot be good."

Living in Babylon

Dave

Unknown said...

For what it's worth, I emailed Kroger a few days ago. I like my Kroger, and I worked there years ago, but if they fire him I'm not going back.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Well said.

Although FWIW, while Sheila Kennedy may consider herself a civil libertarian, I never bowed to the common "wisdom" that said so. I've considered her a snake in the grass for a very long time.

DaddyBear said...

Looks like the comments on her site predominantly follow your line of thinking. There may be hope yet.

Drang said...

1980. Pfft! Washington had Indiana beat with shall-issue by a full generation!
Of course, we don't have the "for life" option. :-(

I've noticed that a lot of the anti-gun rights folk I know insist that they don't want to disarm everybody--just those people. Who "those people" are varies. And they just don't get that it's not the diametric opposite posin from ours.

Panamared said...

The sheep have a hard time telling the evil wolves from the friendly protective dogs, unless the dogs wear uniforms and carry badges. It will be a constant vigil to make sure that they don't disarm the friendly unbadged dogs.

Robert Fowler said...

We just got shall issue in Jan. of 11. We had may issue here since about the turn of the Century. That's 1900 ;). May issue was based on Jim Crow laws that gave the sheriff the ultimate discretion, we can't have those uppity Negros carrying guns now can we.

We're winning slowly but surely. Of course there are going to be some states that will be a real fight to change. Like New Jersey and Kommiefornia.

If they want to make fun of me for carrying a gun that's fine. I know what it feels like to be a victim. At least I have the balls to say never again. I don't cower and wait for some lowlife to come and take what I have or do physical harm to me or mine. I don't understand how people can live like that.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Panamared,

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty..."

Mad Jack said...

I think it's all been said, but I liked Underground Carpenter's comment the best. Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Thanks for posting this and supporting our right to bear arms.

Old NFO said...

Excellent response Roberta!

Weer'd Beard said...

And not even an acknowledgment from the nutty professor.

She hates it when her lofty observations are torn to shreds by the unwashed masses.

Roberta X said...

Oh, I wouldn't say that -- she has comment moderation enabled, so even having one posted is something of an acknowledgement.

We may not have enough common ground on the topic for meaningful direct discussion. Someone who has a hardwired "guns are bad, individual self-defense is bad, guns cause crime" outlook isn't going to read what you or I wrote in the same way as we wrote it. I think it is possible to recognize the size of the gap from either side.

Roberta X said...

NBTW, Underground Carpenter, that's a nice quote, and well-selected. He's less nice about it than I would be, but SF is who he is.