Tobie normally kind of avoids my bedroom for his own reasons except in certain specific circumstances, like he needs the window overlooking the driveway or…
…Uncle Joel is washing dishes. When I do that he almost always makes himself scarce in the only other available room, and I really don’t know why. If I were giving off Bad Mood vibes I could get it but I really don’t mind washing dishes. It’s one of those relaxing chores where nothing serious is likely to go wrong.
It’s deep in Monsoon, with afternoons hot and often unusually humid indoors and out. But there’s one place nearby that’s almost always in the seventies, and it’s got a nice shower. And ice cubes!
And wouldn’t you know it – just when I would normally start spending more late-day time there just to keep the sweating to a minimum, for some reason the signal booster inside Ian’s Cave has apparently gone on the fritz. I can’t see anything wrong with it, but…
The Cave has so much grounded rebar that it’s basically a Faraday Cage. Without active assistance no device requiring outside radiation is going to work inside. So I’m just going to have to bring a book instead. Oh piteous me. And speaking of Ian…
Here’s what passes for Deep Philosophical Pondering here at the Secret Lair: Back in April I was talking to Ian about my reason for swapping my every-day .44 Magnum for a plastic 9mm. “Truth is,” I said, “This place has gotten kind of boring.” Seriously, it used to be you never knew what you were going to encounter around any given corner, or how hostile it was going to be. The question “Do I really need a big-bore pistol today” never entered my mind, though “Is this enough?” occasionally did. And I must admit I kind of liked it that way.
But it hasn’t been that way for quite some time. People have pretty thoroughly inhabited the Gulch for decades now and all the interesting animals have gone away. That problem with the pit bull puppy mill was resolved years ago. I found myself wishing for something lighter and less of a hassle than three pounds of iron and an assortment of ammo in speed loaders. I even – rather blasphemously, in terms of my own belief structure – found myself wondering if I weren’t being a little silly open carrying at all. With the exception of that one rude coyote two months ago I never shoot at anything but targets anymore. Is it really necessary now?
Not long ago two men came to my porch, which is very unusual, to discuss buying Ian’s tractor, and I greeted them dressed the way I always am in summer…
…and nobody said anything about it because it’s not that unusual and anyway this is a free place where you don’t have to hide your weapons if you don’t want to – but I did wonder to myself later if maybe somebody a little less local-flavor than these two guys might have found it off-putting. Maybe even rude? Maybe I’m taking this ‘armed all the time’ thing too far? Maybe it’s time to lighten up on that rule?
And then in the past couple of days I learned two factoids: a) my drunken loser acquaintance of two weeks ago, whom I had never met before, was identified as the infamous “Jay” who was quite notorious a few years ago for being a light-fingered troublemaker who went away for awhile when he got caught breaking into somebody’s home, and also b) He just went to jail for four counts of assault with a deadly weapon and will probably be going to prison for quite a spell. I did not know any of that at the time – the second thing hadn’t happened yet – and there’s nobody out here going to defend me from people like that but me. Which means Mattis’s Law still has relevance even in this kinder, gentler Gulch.
So I guess I’ll keep carrying the gun, and keep practicing.
Yours is an intelligent conclusion to the local situation. Practice as much as possible too.
While we here are in theory in a safe zone with almost non-existent crime, we watch nightly as towns and parts 5 to 45 miles away are “enjoying” nightly shootings and rather odd road accidents (as in road rage incidents). Last evening some 100 local denizens congregated in the streets of a town not so far away when around 11 PM it devolved into Chicago weekend for Indiana with 200 shots fired (the local LEOs have nice shot detection equipment).
All said, I now carry whenever feasible (impeded by all the silly no gun zones and liberal establishments). Sigh!
Having had a stranger knock on my door, try to force his way in when I answered, break through the door when I tried to keep him out, and wound up with him getting a lifetime supply of bullet holes from me, I can tell you that if someone has a problem with you answering your door with a holstered gun, thats their problem. Your safety trumps their arched eyebrow every time.
Who’s the first responder when trouble finds you?
YOU ARE!
“He just went to jail for four counts of assault with a deadly weapon and will probably be going to prison for quite a spell.”
So, I’m guessing that you aren’t going to get your tow strap back… 🙂
But seriously…
Joel, I’ve read the other comments, and I’m sure there will be other comments after mine. One thing to remember is that people like me, thousands of miles away with zero skin in the game, can give you all kinds of advice. But the reality is that you have to make a guess about what to do and guess right because your life, home and even Tobie’s life may depend upon it.
Joel, you made the right decision. Not having a way to defend yourself when you need to is a lot more disagreeable and disappointing than having a way to defend yourself and never needing it. And open carry is honest carry, the way I think. I’d rather anyone with bad thoughts see what I carry before they get too close. Then they can leave before I need todo more than simply carry. Have a good week with ice cubes, a shower and a refuge from monsoon weather. And whiskey, if that is what I see in the glass.
If things go down hill in the cities because of all the hate politics going on now there may be some who head for a place like the gulch and think they can take over. I live in rural Alaska forty miles from the nearest trooper who has a hundred miles of road in each of four directions. I at least keep a weapon handy and if there is any iffy news I carry. If thing went bad in Anchorage and food was scarce there would be lots of people headed for Chitna to dip salmon and they would go right past my subdivision so they might stop to see what else they could pick up. Alaska is both constitutional carry and open carry so having a holstered gun in sight is legal and might diffuse a situation without having to draw it. One old lady I know from church chased off a couple guys trying to break in to her son’s house next door just by showing her gun!
Guns are like seat belts. If you need it, and aren’t wearing it, it’s too late.
Re: Tobie & dishwashing. My guess is he just doesn’t like the clatter.
I have a different philosophy, I carry concealed. Nobody needs to know I’m armed. I carried a Colt Commander, then a Glock 19, concealed in So. Cal. for 35 years, no license, with a good inside waistband holster under a 1x too large Hawaiian shirt (urban camo). In Tennessee, it’s a plaid shirt (Tenn. urban camo). If someone wants to do me harm, I don’t want them planning around me being armed. I want them ignorant.
I recently read an article about hand gun defensive use against bears in Alaska, ALL calibers stopped bears, even 9mm. 9 mil with premium ammo performs VERY close to .357, .40, .45.
There’s an emergency room doc that’s also a combat vet and gun collector and a scribe for, I forget which magazine, named Will Dobbs. He say’s wound ballistics between the usual rounds are indistinguishable, all deadly. So, every chance you get, don’t get shot.
YMMV.
Oh, sure. When I lived in Kali I carried concealed and obsessed over whether I was printing. In urban california the consequences of getting caught carrying are often worse than the consequences of not carrying. Different strokes for different circumstances. I don’t advocate open carry – it’s just appropriate for my living conditions.
Dr. Dabbs writes really good stuff for GUNS Magazine.
Armed all the time equals prepared.
Can’t choose the day you’re presented with “challenges”.
Murphy says that the time you desperately need that gun will be the time it’s locked up in the safe.
I carry mostly concealed because it’s harder for other people to tell when my gun needs cleaning.
sad