DISCLAIMER AND CLARIFICATION:
I am not an anti-gun nut. I don’t hate firearms and I am not afraid of them. Projectile weapons, whether toy or functional, have been part of my life since shortly after I learned to walk. The details on my DD Form 214 note that of the two years, eleven months and two days of my period of active service in the Regular Army, Viet-Nam service consumed 362 days. I have trained and qualified on the M1, M14 and M16. I also carried other pieces at various times during that era.
TL;DR Introductory Narrative:
One evening in Nha-Trang, I was given light duty because of a medical issue (DON’T purchase and eat a mango from friendly local vendor without extensive precautions) and instead of Sergeant of the Guard duty, I was assigned to prisoner escort duty. My job was to convey the subject to a point where he was to be collected the following morning, and make sure he was still there for collection, employing whatever means necessary.
To make the job easier, I was issued the iconic handgun, the M1911, with web belt, the other stuff that designated me as “under arms”, and a “don’t mess with me” brassard. Inspecting the piece, with which I was already entirely familiar, I found a full clip, no round in the chamber, and all mechanisms in good estate. All was right with the world, at least in my tiny corner of it.
Until, in the wee hours of the morning, I began to think about the whole experience.
I was bothered.
Strapping on that comfortingly heavy artifact had wrought a change in me that I had not considered before.
I was a different person.
No longer the scrawny, kinda weird kid who was an electronics wiz, I was now nine feet tall, very muscular, entirely covered with hair and most definitely someone who had made grade E5 eleven months in. I had the instrumentality to enforce my least whim, and something deep within noticed, approved, and gave indication that it would like more of the same.
The person I had become was one I did not like at all. Necessary in the circumstance, but not for everyday use. I had earlier hints of this, but when you are busy getting your RF squad in position during one of those frequent terrorist incidents, the M16 is only a part of what is happening to you.
THE GIST:
Unlike myself, many people like the person they become when carrying a weapon, especially when nobody else, except for nearby members of their tribe, is visibly armed.
Unfortunately, like many other psychoactive drugs, carrying can fundamentally change your decision making process. You might find yourself putting rounds into a vehicle driven by a suspected shoplifter in the Walmart car park, for a recent example.
And it can definitely be habit-forming.
WELL REGULATED:
Considering the phrase “well regulated militia”, I recall that the most heavily gun-controlled environments I have ever experienced were military installations, especially those in a combat zone. Folks who didn’t have a duty reason to be under arms, but just liked to swagger around with weapons handy, would have been swiftly taken into custody and sent to the stockade for further processing, assuming that they didn’t get into a fire fight when the CPs came to arrest them.
THE UPSHOT: SKEDADDLE!*
I have good reason to remove myself and my family immediately from any area where people are wandering around heavily armed but ignorant of the basics of trigger discipline. Especially when their judgment may be clouded by a drug that cannot be detected in a Field Sobriety Test.
* Or, in Texas, absquatulate.
