So on Tuesday, this whack job with a gun tries to off two guys at a construction site, then wanders over a state border and shoots some farmer in a rural area.....
While a tragedy, and I hope they catch the guy (unlikely, as there are few leads and a poor description of the perp and his vehicle) the reaction of the residents in the rural area towns was laughable...
A significant percentage of the people in the NW Indiana towns near the incident began openly carrying (or at least not well concealed) pistols...Of course, this was the next day...(Wednesday)...The dude had not been seen since something like 11:00 am on Tuesday, had apparently departed the area last seen heading north, and had not been seen nor heard from since. It was also amazing to see how many pickup trucks suddenly grew rifles in the racks behind the seat.
While I encourage the (legal) carriage of firearms, it was kind of amusing to see the number of people whose hips suddenly sprouted pistols in the face of a pecieved threat.... The sad fact is that by the end of the week, unless there is another reason for them to continue to carry, they will all fall back into "condition white" and return the firearms to the safe/desk drawer/nightstand from whence they came.
How many of those folks have practiced in the past 6 months? Will they take the time to toss a few rounds downrange just to keep current now that the need for a firearm for defense has been demonstrated to them?
(The best part was the comments made by one guy at the hardware store to me......."You should be carrying a gun...you never know when he'll be back!"....Little did he know that I was....(it's called CONCEALED carry for a reason)...and I always am carrying.. I am seldom in "condition white" and I am NEVER without a firearm unless I am travelling to a state where such is illegal. It is for just this eventuality that I carry even while doing work in the yard....and I NEVER trust people who come up to me.
If there is a need to carry today, then there is also a need to carry tomorrow (and probably yesterday). You can't be a sheepdog some of the time.
ETA: I think that the face in the sketch looks sorta like the mighty OG..If ya squint real real hard....Although IIRC, he has an alibi for that time frame.....
Mostly, the guy ain't anything like ugly enough to be me, and I never wear hats except when actually shooting. But I wouldn't put it past me.
ReplyDeleteThis is all true, but we might be able to take comfort in the fact that this incident may have been an honest-to-God wake-up call for at least a few individuals who were all-too-oblivious before. Sure, we are probably not talking many folks, but even one is all it takes to stop this kind of thing in the future.
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