09:35 – I just shipped my first kit using the on-line USPS Click-N-Ship. Well, technically it’s not shipped yet, but it is queued for pick-up by the USPS. I was surprised to see that today was among the options available for ship date. I wonder if the USPS actually has people driving around on Sunday picking up boxes to be shipped. We’ll see.
I follow the Well-Trained Minds forum, which is one of the largest homeschool forums. I was amused yesterday when a woman posted a query about which holster would be best for her for concealed carry, knowing how some of the forum members would react.
I wasn’t disappointed. Many responders, including me, posted responses that tried to help her but, as I expected, the anti-gun folks were also out in force. There are many forum members who live in Canada, Europe, Australia, and other places that aren’t gun-friendly, and they simply don’t get it. Some of them were horrified by the idea of a private individual carrying a concealed pistol, but many were simply puzzled why anyone would want to. Most responses to that question were the same as I use: for the same reason I carry a spare tire and fire insurance on my house. I don’t expect to need any of those, but I’d rather be prepared.
What amused me was the number of people who responded something like, “Well, no one around here except the police carries concealed weapons” or “no one I know carries a concealed weapon”. Yeah, right. Other than Illinois and DC, which have no concealed-carry permits (and where many people simply carry anyway), essentially everyone who lives in the US knows many people who carry concealed–they just aren’t aware that those people do so. Here in Winston-Salem, I’d estimate that about 1 out of every 15 to 20 adults you pass on the street or in the mall carries concealed, many of them with permits, but many without. And, as some posters on the WTM forums commented, that makes me feel more secure, because most of those armed people are Good Guys. If some lunatic starts shooting the place up, there’s at least a reasonable chance that they’ll encounter someone who can shoot back. And, as they say, when seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.
Agreed 200%. And luckily for us here in Vermont, we don’t need no stinkin’ permits or licenses. We could, if we wanted, carry openly, but I have yet to see that. Oh wait—there was that time a few years ago that the city council in the state’s capital tried to ramrod an anti-gun ordinance through the mill just as soon as the city manager left town for some business and hundreds of locals showed up carrying everything under the sun.
That little measure went down to defeat instantly. Typical lefty maneuver, though, as the capital is infested with aging hippie wannabe types, wealthy neo-Bolsheviks, and the school system, churches and media pretty much accept a version of neo-Marxist-Leninism as mainstream thought and behavior. This is the corridor that runs from Montpeculiar through to Burlington, and the several college towns scattered around the state. They seem to get what they want all the time from the “legislators” in the Snake House and from the leviathan bureaucracy of careerist statists.
Whole different ballgame out in the sticks.
I suspect around Tiny Town and Meganapolis, the figure of concealed gun-toters is somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 10. I think it is much higher than most people ever imagine.
Occasionally, during my video work, the question is asked as to whether the person carries a gun, and to my amazement, the answer has always been yes.
OFD wrote:
“the capital is infested with aging hippie wannabe types, wealthy neo-Bolsheviks…”
In other words, people like you… 🙂
Is concealed usually legal where open is not, or vice versa?
If both were legal which would most people choose? I’m mystified as to how a gun can be concealed on the upper body without wearing a jacket. Surely a “concealed” sticks out like a sore thumb.
The list of states were people don’t carry is a little longer than the one Bob mentioned.
There are states which allow gun permits, but that are not shall issue states. For example Maryland issues permits, but they are rarely granted.
It really varies widely jurisdictions. In North Carolina, for example, anyone can carry openly without a permit, but carrying concealed requires a permit. In other jurisdictions, it’s relatively easy to get a CC permit, but it’s illegal whether or not you have a permit to carry openly. And even cities and counties may have laws that impact what you can do. For example, I got my Pennsylvania concealed-carry permit the day I turned 21. Things may have changed since then, but at that time that permit gave me the right to carry concealed anywhere in Pennsylvania, *except* Philadelphia.
The Bill of Rights guarantees us the right to carry concealed, despite the twisted way some have interpreted it, usually by focusing on the explicatory first clause (A well-regulated militia…). The actual right is at the end of that sentence, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” That supersedes any state law that attempts to restrict our right to own and carry firearms. Prima facie, those laws and regulations violate the Constitution.
Her in the hills of East TN probably 1 in 2 carry, permit or not. And in them pick-em-up-trucks the ratio is probably 1 to 1.1 that have a weapon in the truck. Especially the shiners.
Oh, as to your second paragraph, most people would probably choose to carry concealed, for all sorts of good reasons. Most of us don’t want to make anyone nervous, and many people have an irrational fear of guns. More importantly, it’s advantageous for others not to know one is armed. If a wolf starts savaging the flock, I look just like any other sheep if my .45 is concealed. If I carried it openly, he’d shoot me first, just as those bastards always shoot the cop first if one happens to be present. If my weapon is concealed, worst case I’m dealing with him on a level playing field. (Actually, it’s very tilted to my advantage. Very few bad guys have ever practiced, whereas some days I’ve put 1,000 or more rounds through a pistol in realistic practice. The average private citizen who carries is much more competent with his or her pistol than the average cop, who unless he’s a firearms enthusiast probably shoots only once or twice a year to qualify, firing the minimum number of rounds under unrealistic conditions. And many goblins have never fired their guns on a practice range. They think it’s cool to hold the pistol sideways and other bullshit techniques they’ve seen in the movies.) Most of the time, the advantage really is with me, because I can wait until the wolf’s attention is elsewhere or his back is turned. (Yes, your honor, I fired six warning shots into his back…).
It’s pretty easy, particularly for a big guy, to carry concealed without a jacket. I’ve done so many times with an inside-the-pants holster or even the Mexican carry. If you wear a shirt outside your pants, there’s usually no problem, particularly with a nice flat pistol like old slabsides (the Colt .45 Auto).
I’ve always envisaged a sheila with a button undone about half way down her blouse and a handgun concealed under one of her boobs. She could reach in easily, withdraw easily. That would be a good hiding place… 🙂
Oh great, now I’m going to have to look extra hard to see if all the women I met are “packing”, or not. This is going to get me into trouble, I just know it.
Everything Bob said above is right on the money. And by “above” I just mean the firearms-related stuff, NOT the religion stuff.
And yeah, Greg, I fit right in with these lefty asswipes around here so much…NOT. I have a beard and specs but I note that they seem to be able to tell right away that I am not one of them. Once a soldier and a cop…I guess, plus being large like Bob and others here. The buggers can tell, and so can the goblins.
I don’t carry openly in the towns up here for the reasons Bob mentions, and I don’t care to see who is faster like them old West fairy tales. I plan to shoot the fuckers in the back if possible, from ambush or counter-ambush, if possible. You gots to bushwack the folks that aim to bushwack YOU. (I forget where that is from, but it was some old-timer in frontier days). Fuck knights-errant and chivalry and all that rot unless one is armored, mounted on his trusty steed, and carrying a lance or sword. And the opponent is similarly attired and accoutered.
Hey, are all the broads down in Oz named “Sheila” or what? Wot’s up with that, mate? And who is this dame “Matilda?”
Bill wrote:
“Oh great, now I’m going to have to look extra hard to see if all the women I met are “packing”, or not. This is going to get me into trouble, I just know it.”
Join the cops. It’ll give you a legal reason for carrying out these checks, and you’ll be doing it in the name of keeping us safe… 🙂
OFD wrote:
“Hey, are all the broads down in Oz named “Sheila” or what? Wot’s up with that, mate? And who is this dame “Matilda?””
From Wikipedia: “Sheila is also a colloquial term for a girl or woman in Australia and New Zealand.”
I thought the Poms used the term too, but no mention was made of that.
From Wikipedia: “Waltzing Matilda: The title is Australian slang for travelling by foot with one’s goods in a “Matilda” (bag) slung over one’s back”
I don’t generally use the terms sheila, chick, bird and so on about our woman because they perceive it as sexist and I’m getting too old and slow to defend myself against angry young women.
Up here, I have found some chicks like “chick” and some don’t. No way to tell until it is too late.
Mature women love being called “girls”, however.
Ha!
When I was about five years old and on my way home from Sunday school I’d notice, week after week, a lady being pushed in a mobile trolley/bed to the adult church service.
When she didn’t get any better I said to her “I don’t know who your doctor is, but I don’t think very much of him.”
This lady mentioned it to my mum, with a laugh. Mum was completely horrified that I’d said that, this woman had polio. (This was in the early Sixties, when that was going around a lot more than now.)
A few weeks later I made up for it. I saw this woman again and and said “There’s that girl again.” (She would have been 50+ at the time.) I think I was forgiven.
I’m from Australia, and I get it. We got hit with some extraordinarily silly gun laws after a tragic mass shooting. As I understand it, the Prime Minister at the time used the federal budget to twist the arms’ of all our states to pass new legislation.
That legislation explicitly excludes self defense as a reason for a permit for a weapon.
I know two women who’ve been stalked.
Colour me unimpressed, but there’s no practical chance of changing things: the number of people here who “get it” are far too few to push a change through any time in the near future.
:cross:
Chuck, didn’t you say that using the term fräulein was just about a hanging offence in Germany?
I tend to use the term “lady”; or “sister” when I’m trying to offend a feminist.
RBT wrote:
“I follow the Well-Trained Minds forum, which is one of the largest homeschool forums.”
Interesting, but I had problems with all the cryptic abbreviations.
I don’t think you have to look any harder than normal, Bill. If you aren’t noticing such things already, you might want to visit the optometrist.
On second thought, I advise you to stop looking at women. The last woman I looked at complained about being around me causing nausea, constipation and weight gain for nine months. Finally those symptoms went away, but now there are weird noises and smells around the house at all hours.
“Oh great, now I’m going to have to look extra hard to see if all the women I met are “packing”, or not. This is going to get me into trouble, I just know it.”
Join the cops. It’ll give you a legal reason for carrying out these checks, and you’ll be doing it in the name of keeping us safe…
Or just get a job with the TSA and you can frisk anyone you want with no consequences. Unless of you course they single out someone like Janet Reno for extra screening which would make the job most unpleasant.
Been there, down that, got the puke stained T-shirt to prove it. Son&Heir#1 is 20, Son&Heir#2 is 17, and those are years, and not months, like you will be using for the next couple of years.
PS, It wasn’t the ‘looking’ that caused all this. Perhaps Bob’s new book will explain things a bit better than I can?
Bill, thanks, I already know what caused it. I left out the steps between the looking and the onset of symptoms. If I put in all the other steps, clueless nerds everywhere would be causing fires trying to figure out how to cook for women. And, yes, I know cooking a woman dinner doesn’t create babies. It does however help get women in the right frame of mind.
In fact the only thing I remember from my high school Biology class is this experiment that I wanted to try with my lab partner. Sadly, she didn’t seem that interested in scientific inquiry. Hey, at least I spent the whole class thinking about the relevant subject.
Hah. You think that’s bad? In my 9th grade biology class (back in about 1968), we had a plastic human torso with the crotch area *blank*. Just smooth plastic.
Back in those days, a willing lab partner of the opposite sex was about the only way we could learn about such details. Fortunately, I had one. Well, she wasn’t my lab partner, but she did live just down the street from us and had a garage with an old sofa that was free of adult supervision. Alas, she would go only so far, and no further.
Should have cooked for her, Bob. That’s what did it for me, and Dave apparently!
My biology class had the same torso, so either a willing partner was required or else you had to extrapolate from the National Geographic.
RBT wrote:
“Hah. You think that’s bad? In my 9th grade biology class (back in about 1968), we had a plastic human torso with the crotch area *blank*. Just smooth plastic.”
Since at least the Eighties advertising for women’s underwear here in Oz has had the models just in the underwear. But in the Seventies I remember the store catalogs didn’t show bare skin. Models would wear a t-short or thin sweater with the bra they were modelling over the top. A young woman I mentioned this to in the early Nineties (she was born in 1970) couldn’t believe it, and she was a bit of a prude.
“Back in those days, a willing lab partner of the opposite sex was about the only way we could learn about such details. Fortunately, I had one. Well, she wasn’t my lab partner, but she did live just down the street from us and had a garage with an old sofa that was free of adult supervision. Alas, she would go only so far, and no further.
”
She sounds like a very wise girl.
Miles_Teg says:
Chuck, didn’t you say that using the term fräulein was just about a hanging offence in Germany?
I have to stop composing stuff in browsers. I wrote a response to this, then Firefox crashed, and–of course–it was lost.
Yeah. My info came from one of my Volkshochschule German teachers (a long-time experienced language teacher). Perceptions of the general public differ, based on my conversations with other Germans about the word. She told us that the actual history of the word is that it refers specifically to girls of the approximate age of 12 to 17, who are going through puberty. Brad had never heard of that, but noted that barmaids are often referred to as Fräulein. My questions of people around me in Berlin over the years yielded the result that–at the least–Fräulein is not considered high-class use of the language.
During my nearly 8 years in Germany, I never once heard the word used by a native. In fact, the word was banned from official use in German government correspondence back in the 1970’s. Most women I talked with about the word, would not consider it a compliment to have been called “Fräulein”. It does not have a positive connotation among any of the Germans I knew. I am not sure young kids have the same sense of the word as older people; the ones I talked with about it, considered Fräulein to be hopelessly dark-ages old-fashioned, and would never use it on that basis.
I have never seen independent confirmation of what my German teacher told us about the puberty bit, but all I can say is that I trust her as much as the all-time best of my US English teachers.
Americans have no clue about all this; most think Fräulein is the acceptable equivalent of “Miss” in English. These cultural differences are hard to nail down. One of the first things I was told when we arrived in Germany, was that no one over about 40 years of age, should ever use the word “geil”, which basically means “sexy”. Older people who use that word are immediately considered low-class, low-moraled, dirty old men and women. I have not been able to think of any English equivalent of words that are acceptable for young people to use, but completely inappropriate for older people to say.
Shit, now I feel like an idiot; I called our German exchange student “fraulein” and she seemed OK with it, but probably thought I was a typical ignorant American dirtbag old bastard. And Mrs. OFD and daughter keep telling me not to call them “mademoiselle.”
What I get for trying to be nice and polite.
And American women can go pound sand; doesn’t seem to matter that ya call ’em, they still somehow manage to always be pissed off.
“what” ya call ’em, of course, but hey, no editing/correction here or on SpaceBook.
Hehehe. I’m sure she appreciated your efforts, OFD, even if they were clumsy.
She went back to the northern shore town in Germany where her dad is a vet (animal doctor) and her grandfathers are vets (Wehrmacht). Six feet tall with long blonde hair and blue eyes and legs that don’t stop, but dumb as a bag of hammers. Also left a bunch of her junk here, too, which she didn’t seem to care about; daddy will buy more, I’m sure.
I’ll just stop addressing women in anything other than “Yes M’am” and “Right away, M’am” and thus stay outta trouble, maybe.
OFD wrote:
“What I get for trying to be nice and polite. ”
Don’t be nice and polite. Speak English to them. That’s why there on exchange: to learn the world language.
OFD wrote:
“She went back to the northern shore town in Germany where her dad is a vet (animal doctor) and her grandfathers are vets (Wehrmacht). Six feet tall with long blonde hair and blue eyes and legs that don’t stop, but dumb as a bag of hammers. Also left a bunch of her junk here, too, which she didn’t seem to care about; daddy will buy more, I’m sure.
I’ll just stop addressing women in anything other than “Yes M’am” and “Right away, M’am” and thus stay outta trouble, maybe.”
There was a girl like that in my Year 11 class way back in 1974, except she wasn’t dumb. She wasn’t the smartest girl in the class but she was well above the average at my high school.
She was an absolute goddess, she could have come straight from the BDM. And she was dating the scruffiest looking guy I’d seen to that time. There were a number of girls with German sounding names in that class, some of them very attractive, but Meredith was the cream of the crop.
We had a female exchange student from Germany in our class. I could say a number of things about her, but I’ll just say that she should have had a bag sewn over her head. I think I’ll leave it at that.
I try to avoid women I don’t know by any sort of title, although I’m happy to call a woman “Sister” if I think she’s a rabid feminist.
*avoid calling women I don’t know…
Have I ever mentioned how nice it would be to be able to edit posts?
Maybe once or twice…
A forlorn hope. If a stupid cow is determined to take ordinary courtesy as an insult, there is no way to avoid “insulting” her. (Or him. Faux thin skin does not respect boundaries of sex, race, or religion.) The only thing to do is to fire back with both barrels.