[HTML1]
You gotta wonder if the news media actually listens to themselves. I mean, here’s a group of yoots that form a “flash mob,” storm a department store, and make off with a bunch of merchandise. The reporter chooses to focus on the idea that responsible, honest citizens are concerned, and are exercising their Constitutional rights, and are choosing to carry concealed. And their biggest fear is that some armed individual might shoot a kid. Um…really?
In the real world, a majority of US citizens realize that while owning/carrying a gun doesn’t automatically make you a movie hero, it also does not automatically make you a bad guy or gun nut. We realize that, in a world where the idea behind a “flash mob” has evolved from “harmless prank” to “robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.” We realize that it would be all too easy for it escalate further into violent crime. And we realize that the responsible thing to do is to carry a concealed weapon, just in case.
It might surprise you to know that I don’t think carrying a gun means I need to jump in and try to save the day, should I witness a flash mob committing a crime. Nope. I’m not your Huckleberry on that one. However, if a flash mob (or anybody else, for that matter) suddenly decides that my daughter or I am a convenient target for a little of the old ultra-violence from the ringleader and his droogs, I’d rather be armed. Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
What it really comes down to is the issue of personal responsibility. What galls me beyond belief is this lock-step Liberalism from the media, where they automatically assume that someone carrying concealed is looking to have a confrontation, and if any situation comes up in their presence, they’ll come out, guns blazing, and end up shooting some poor defenseless kid, who’s only crime was being part of a violent, criminal gang. Oh, wait…but that makes the gun owner seem as if they are exercising common sense, doesn’t it? The media? Not so much. Listen to these two reporters, with banter that sounds as if they are trying to out-do each other on moral outrage and groupthink points.
Am I worried about a flash mob? Nope. Not yet, anyway. (If the whole “let’s get violent and break some laws” meme goes viral among the flash mobbery, I’ll likely change that assessment. But I worry a lot less about any kind of bad things happening, when I have the ability to defend myself and keep my daughter safe. It’s not a panacea, but it sure does keep me from being one of the herd of sheeple. The truth is, if you carry a gun, you may never need it. And you probably expect that you’ll never have to draw down on another human being. But you also realize that bad things happen, and carrying a gun is a way to try to make sure they don’t happen to you.