Fantasyland!

19 Sept 07

Fantasyland! This from one of our instructors, a gun retailer in OK:

"I had a curious conversation yesterday with a young couple in our store. He has purchased several pistols from us and has a state CCW permit. She' doesn't believe in guns.' Both were in the shop.

He confessed that he carries his concealed pistol (S&W M&P) with an empty chamber! He went on to say that he never chambers a round in his holstered handgun, because he has children, and it's 'just not safe to carry a loaded pistol near them.' 'Besides,' he continued, 'all I have to do is rack the slide. Then, I can shoot. Right?'

I asked him bluntly, 'Who promised you that both your hands will be available when you need your pistol?' He stammered and squirmed.'You may be pushing those children of yours behind cover while trying to draw your pistol at the same time. You might find a home-invader on top of you doing his best to stick a screwdriver into your eye. As you fend off the screwdriver with one hand and draw your pistol with the other, how will you persuade it to fire then? ' I concluded, 'Who don't carry loaded pistols needn't bother carrying at all!'

By now, his wife, having lost all of her color, looked at me and said, 'I'm SO glad we don't live in YOUR world.' I replied unapologetically,'There is only one world, my dear, and we're all currently immersed in it, right up to our necks!'"

Lesson: Many still foolishly entertain the fantasy that pistols possess an inherent, magical ability to repel evil, and that mere proximity grants onea violence-free existence! Again, they act poorly, because they think wrongly. "Emotional thinking" is not thinking at all!

In high school, my trigonometry teacher referred to the " Wishing-Will-Make-It-So" Theorem so often used used by some of my classmates. It wasn't acceptable even among children, and should be less so among (at least "professing" ) adults.

In the novel, "1984," emblazoned in raised letters above the entrance to the "Ministry of Truth" is:

Slavery is Freedom War is Peace Ignorance is Strength

Sound familiar?

/John