Guns--Back To The Old West

Oh my. Now there is a discussion about whether or not states ought to have laws preventing people from carrying concealed guns into bars and restaurants that serve drinks. First you give them a gun—then you take away their inhibitions.
I prefer my gun toting neighbors to be as inhibited as possible, thank you. The thought that the chap at the bar who is getting more noisily bellicose by the minute might have a .38 caliber pistol on him does nothing to make me feel safer—whatever the NRA may say.
One of the surest signs that a western town was entering the first phase of civilization was the (enforced) sign by the door of the saloon demanding that guns be checked. Old West sheriffs were under no illusion that guns and liquor mixed well.
The insane thing about our present gun laws is that they license CONCEALED weapons. If we absolutely must have people carrying pistols about, let’s at least insist that they be holstered in plain sight. Then we know what we are dealing with, right up front.
The penalties for concealed guns should be positively draconian. The fellow who carries his armory right out in the open has given me fair warning—he can have whatever parking place he wants, whether I was there first or not. It’s the peevish fellow I didn’t know was packing that scares me.
I don’t want to have to guess whether the person next to me is armed. The thought that people can walk around with a gun secreted on their person—I don’t care who licensed it—is absolutely appalling. Of course I’d prefer that no one in McDonald’s had a gun, but knowing about it is better.
And I am a firm believer that the Second Amendment does grant an unalienable right to bear arms. To take that right away completely would require another amendment that revokes the 2nd. There was good reason for it then.
When the 2nd Amendment was pinned to The Constitution, there was no national army. Nor was there a police force worthy of the name. It was very much up to the citizen (especially in rural areas) to defend himself—against animals that might eat his crops (or his kids), rustlers and marauding Indians. These were all real issues a mile or two out of town.
Hunting was necessary if you wished to eat. My own preacher grandfather was raised on a Michigan farm in the 1800s where he hunted for food. (He was such a crack shot that he would startle his parishioners when he went hunting with them.)
It’s still a major national sport. (I don’t like people who shot animals merely for the trophy—God didn’t authorize that in Genesis; he said we could eat them. I have no objection to people who thin out the deer herd every fall and then eat the venison.) November 15—the opening of firearms season--is the biggest holiday in western and northern Michigan.
Now that we’ve eliminated wolves and cougars, if we didn’t hunt the deer they would overrun us, our crops and our gardens. (I’ve had as many as six deer in my backyard, nibbling at the growing veggies.) Hunters don’t usually use concealed pistols; they carry long guns right out in the open.
But we are stuck with a second amendment that says citizens may bear arms and that right may not be “infringed”. What constitutes infringement? That’s where the argument between gun people and gun control folk really gets vituperative.
Positions range between two extremes. You have the radical gun enthusiasts who feel that anything less than allowing all citizens to own, fire and carry military assault weapons wherever they wish is unconstitutional infringement. Any effort at control, identifying or licensing is downright unconstitutional, the first step to tyranny.
(I find it hard to believe that our founding fathers really meant for home grown militias to arm themselves and play war all weekend with weaponry that would make the Taliban envious. The words “well-regulated militia” also appear in the amendment. The guns were, incidentally, for “the security of the state”—not as a defense against the state.)
On the other hand, you have people—often city folk who have learned, for good reason, to be very afraid walking around at night—who want all guns licensed, identified and off the streets. Period. They basically favor a whole lot of infringement.
I’m sympathetic to people who want guns carefully controlled and regulated, if not outright confiscated. My wife grew up in a “changing” neighborhood where a neighbor boy was shot dead on the front porch next to her house. The best restaurant in the area closed and moved when neighborhood kids began the practice of backing departing customers into the vestibule and relieving them of their valuables at gunpoint. Eleven year olds began shooting it out on the same street.
Unfortunately there are two practical considerations: one, a very popular amendment will have to be repealed first. You’ll have all sorts of scared hunters, collectors and just plain gun lovers voting against you. You’ll probably lose overwhelmingly.
Second, suppose you get it repealed. Now comes the fun part. How do you disarm, say, Los Angeles? How many tens of thousands of politically reliable troops will it take to surround that city and go block by block, confiscated illegal shotguns, pistols and automatic weapons?
Then you’ll have to leave a very large detachment of troops in place to make sure guns don’t sneak back in while you go on to disarm the next city. And all the country folk with extra guns. I think it is safe to say it would require more than a million troops on almost endless duty.
We’d have our own Iraq right here. Throw in a few Afghanistans while you’re at it!
That’s basically impossible. But, for crying out loud, do we have to put our lives even more at risk by allowing people to mix alcohol and CONCEALED weapons? Someone might be able to argue his right to carry a gun into a bar—but let’s make sure it’s right out in the open.
Then the bartender can say, “Okay, check it.”