Apparently some people just don’t get it.  I’m sure there are gun-crazed weirdos everywhere, but man they sure seem to flock to the States for some reason.  I saw an article about a new trend for gun owners to openly carry their handguns as they go about their business.  Apparently in most states you can openly carry a gun (in a holster) as long as you have a permit for it.  Well, these rocket scientists decide that’s a great idea and have started to do just that.  Carrying guns when they drop their children off to school, into their bank, into stores, etc.  Their argument is summed up:

“What we’re trying to say is, ‘Hey, we’re normal people who carry guns,’ ” said Travis Deveraux, 36, of West Valley, a Salt Lake City suburb. Deveraux works for a credit card company and sometimes walks around town wearing a cowboy hat and packing a pistol in plain sight. “We want the public to understand it’s not just cops who can carry guns.”

Well, that’s true, criminals also carry guns.  And I’m not entirely certain I would call anybody who carries a gun around in any free society “normal”.

Forget about exercising any archaic rights that only made sense 200 years ago (bear protection, anyone?), do you really want to make the police’s job any harder?  These guys aren’t just carrying guns, they wear uniforms that make them targets for criminals.  I’m pretty sure I don’t want them to be jumpy around me and invite disaster.  I just love the mentality of these gun–tards:

“I’m not going to hide in the corner of a school and mall and wait for the shooting to stop,” he said.

No, I’m sure we all want not one socially maladjusted psycho shooting a gun in a public place, but two (or more).  The police have the training to respond to this sort of thing, not some beer soaked redneck squinting through last night’s hangover as he tries to focus.  As for me and mine, I would rather have an unarmed society that would respond to a glimpse of a gun tucked into a waistband, rather than a society so jaded and numb to the sight of weapons that any reaction to danger is too little too late, and with the CERTAINTY of more bloodshed.  There’s no reason to carry a weapon in a public place, none.  End of story.

The sad part is, although all of the evidence points towards just removing guns from the public landscape, these people just won’t change.  Do you think this grandmother thinks any differently about carrying guns around in public now?  That’s a lesson I never want to learn, myself.