To Carry, Or Not To Carry

THIRTY SIX STATES have right to carry gun laws, some open, most conceal. In the states with right to carry gun laws, open and conceal, the crime rate has remained constant since 1970, while in those few remaining states in which it is not legal to pack heat, the crime rate has dropped by thirty eight percent since 1970. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up. In countries like Australia and England, which have confiscated guns, crimes rates have dropped dramatically, despite what you might have heard from pro gun American conservatives. And really, if you think about it, it makes sense; the fewer guns, the fewer shots being fired. The United States has more guns per capita than any country in the world, and the highest rate of violent gun crimes. It seems to add up, there seems to be a pattern. And yet, this does not automatically mean that it wold be a good idea to abolish the second amendment, or to disarm the American people. It could be that the United states is a special case, a place where there is so much violence perpetrated by bad guys that it is necessary to well arm the good guys to stop the bad guys in their bad guy tracks. Maybe. The problem is in determining, in advance, who the bad guys and who the good guys are. How can you tell? By checking felony convictions? By interviewing everybody in the country, then assigning status, red driver's licenses for good guys, blue for bad? All bad guys were once good guys, all bad guys emerge from the ranks of the previously good guys, and tomorrow's supply of bad guys will come straight out of our existing stock of good guys. If all the good guys carry guns, there will, of necessity, by definition, be a certain percentage of them who will later become bad guys, and while doing so, they will have the option of being assisted by the piece dangling from their gun belt, if they carry. Good guys experience road rage, go through divorces, lose their jobs, file for bankruptcy, have mental and emotional disabilities and short fuses, leave the military as heroes suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, are foreclosed on their mortgages, - all kinds of horrible things happen to good guys, and there are many among the ranks of the tens of millions of American good guys who are stable gun carrying citizens today, carrying guns, ready to stop criminals in their tracks before crimes are committed, ready to gun down mass murderers before they ever get rolling, and presto change-o, become veritable emotional train wrecks tomorrow, still with a gun, and decide, what the hell, I no longer have anything to lose, the wife is sleeping around, cheating on me, the bitch, and by god, I'm going to teach her a lesson, and while I'm at it, that son of a bitch stabbing me in the back, who I thought was my best friend, well, he's gonna learn a lesson too. Who among us has not known a perfectly good person going through a crises, a time of alienation, emotional distress, and anger? Who among us does not know someone like that even as we speak? who among us does not know several good guys like that now? Are we so sure we want to arm them all, to protect us against the bank robber who is likely never to appear in the bank lobby, or to protect us against the mass murderer who is less likely to kill us than a bolt of lightening? Nearly all of us are good people, qualified to carry guns, and nearly all of us are plagued by the stresses of normal daily life, only a house payment or a tailgater or an unfaithful spouse away from....losing it, becoming very, very angry, ready to lash out. Everybody who lashes out in violence was recently a good person who had not previously lashed out. Maybe, just maybe, we would be better off as a nation where guns were perfectly legal, but rarely carried by civilians. Maybe.