Overdogs #2 When Grandma Becomes “Dirty Harry”

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” - Robert Heinlein

I have a dream. It may not be a dream as grand as Dr. King’s, but it’s my dream and I believe in it nonetheless. I dream of the day when gun possession is mandatory. In my dream, Congress passes a law requiring every adult to carry a loaded gun in public at all times. Unconcealed, holstered for all the world to see. A bullet in the chamber. Bullets in the magazine. Big fines and jail sentences if you ain’t packin’ heat. Everyone’s grandma becomes “Dirty Harry”.

What a different day we would experience. Just think of the possibilities. Start with your morning commute. You get cut off on the freeway. You’re mad. Your middle finger limbers up as you race to catch the offender. Your hand is poised over the horn to give him the rude blast he so richly deserves. After all, what’s he gonna do? You’re packin’. So he meekly accepts the display of your middle digit, and you both go on your way. Another case of road rage averted.

You park your car in a seedy area of downtown and walk to work past the homeless, the helpless, and the shameless. They start to approach you for spare change, but think twice when they compare their rod to yours. They have no money, and can afford only the most meager .22 handguns, no match for your .44 magnum. Thinking better of it, they let you pass and target the next poor sucker who is as challenged ammunitionally as they are.

You arrive at work. You put your personal gun into your briefcase. Your work piece goes into the holster in its place. You’re proud. Your new promotion qualified you for a semi-automatic that is the envy of your former peers. They’re still stuck with small caliber revolvers. Your workday reflects our lawmakers’ wisdom. When a subordinate fails to deliver a needed report on time, you kick start him into gear by threatening to revoke his company gun. The thought of having to shell out a week’s pay to purchase his own gun gets quick action. The report is on your desk before lunch.

Going home, you stop at the mall to return a gift. At the returns counter, an elderly lady is taking entirely too long to complete a return. She’s rummaging through her purse for a receipt or something, and this promises to be an agonizingly long wait. You catch her eye and pat your holster knowingly. “I’m a lot quicker on the draw than you are grandma, so get a move on.” Miraculously, she decides the article to be returned is satisfactory after all. She quickly shoves it back into her shopping bag and scurries on.

Life is good. Your manhood is confirmed every time you fill your holster. The neighborhood punks can’t bug you anymore - they’re too young to pack. Even better, your new piece totally outclasses the rusty hunk of scrap your jerk neighbor calls a gun. Careful, though. Any felony conviction relegates you to rubber bullets for the rest of your life. What’s up with that?

Damn! I just woke up, and it was all only a dream. None of it was real. I’m bummed. I amble out to the kitchen for some coffee and the morning paper. The headlines speak again of teens killing one another in schools, of toddlers finding their parents’ guns, with disastrous results, and of misguided gang members slaying one another because, “I didn’t like the way he looked at me.” But this isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare. A REAL one. And it’s lasted 200 years too long.

Guns killed 804,676 people in this country from 1979 to 2002. The numbers numb: 33,528 per year, almost 92 per day, essentially one person every 15.7 minutes for 24 years. Does anybody truly believe this is what our founders conceived when they wrote the 2^nd amendment? I guess Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, et al, foresaw Uzis, AK-47s and hollow-point bullets and said, “Hey boys, we’ve got to make these things legal. Someday, there’ll be a group called the NRA. They’re going to want the right to spray hundreds of bullets into a crowd in seconds.” Our founding fathers were indeed visionaries.

Scott Adams, creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip, said it best: "I believe everybody in the world should have guns. Citizens should have bazookas and rocket launchers too. I believe that all citizens should have their weapons of choice. However, I also believe that only I should have the ammunition. Because frankly, I wouldn't trust the rest of the goobers with anything more dangerous than string."