0525blog

Strap On Your Pea Shooter

Now this breaking news from the great state of Texas, the land that brought you the wild, wild west, Bonnie and Clyde, the Alamo, Dealey Plaza and the grassy knoll and the world’s first use of lethal injection on a death row prisoner. Strap those six guns on and mosey on down most anywhere you want because soon you can now pack a rod in Texas without any kind of permit and without a second of training and it makes you look really cool and really macho unless you accidentally shoot your mother.

Am I the only person who thinks it ironic that a state that believes so strongly and so religiously and so sanctimoniously and so hypocritically in the sanctity of life, and to prove it, has essentially prohibited abortions while at the same time the same Lone Star State has executed 571 people since 1976, more than a third of the total people put to death in all of the U.S., and now will likely allow any Dirty Harry wannabe yahoo to walk into a local Albertsons supermarket, packing a .357 magnum tucked away, hidden inside his belt, ready to blow the head off of someone who appears to be someone who deserves to have his head blown off, more likely either a Mexican or other person of color.

The majority Republican (what a surprise) Texas Legislature approved the measure Monday and Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will sign it. The good and great governor is the same governor who signed a law that bars the state from requiring people from wearing face masks so they don’t get or spread COVID-19 so that says something about a love of life.

I understand that in the hearts and minds of many in the “Friendship State” that the Second Amendment is hallowed and to be respected and protected at all costs but I would be a tad concerned knowing that Charlie, who has never fired a gun, and who probably would miss a target from five feet away, can sachet around town, see what he thinks is a crime in process and empty all chambers, killing four bystanders including a pregnant woman and a nun but missing that dastardly criminal who wasn’t doing anything more criminal than having a very dark complexion while speaking with a gal with a very white complexion.

I guess the brilliant minds deep in the heart of Texas believe that a person who never fired a gun before will have the grace under pressure, the peace of mind, the bravery and the reflexes to act in moment of terror like he has never experienced in his wildest dreams and take down the mass shooter, like the one at the El Paso Walmart, a church in Sutherland Springs and a high school outside Houston. I think that is what police go through vigorous and lengthy training for, to be able to respond coolly and appropriately.

You know that there are more than 1.6 million handgun license holders in Texas, a state that had some of the loosest gun laws in the country before the latest action. Previously, at least a person had to have a license to carry a gun and I really don’t see how that is an unfair, unnecessary impediment and violation of the god-given right to bear arms and form a militia and attack the Capitol.

So strap on your spurs and your .357, hop on your pony and trot into town, mistakenly and magically thinking that you can defend yourself from grave dangers and those liberal, marshmallows should just shut up because down in Texas a man has the right to shoot any varmints who trespass on his land or even near his land, especially if they are lefty, commie, supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, their brothers in arms, the feared and totally amorphous Antifa and/or Democrats.

Texas already allows people to carry rifles in public without a license so now they can be virtual arsenals with guns at the hip and automatic rifles at the ready. Sorry, if you’re under 21 you won’t be able to carry the handgun and sorry, if you’ve been convicted of a bad crime, you can’t carry but everyone else, come on down.

Under the Texas bill, businesses could stop people from bringing guns onto their properties but I would expect the same business owners will be packing and they wouldn’t want to stop patrons from having guns and risk look like spineless wimps even though said business could be a bar where people tend to drink and as everyone knows, drinking and guns don’t mix.

To be fair, there are nearly two dozen other states that allow some form of unregulated carry of a handgun, but none of them are as populated as Texas. So if you want to carry a gun and you don’t want one of those pesky permits, travel to Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri or New Hampshire.

The laws about carrying guns are quite a bit stronger for limp-wristed, spineless, frightened residents of New Jersey. A carry permit is allowed in narrow circumstances approved by the police chief and the applicant has to prove he or she needs to carry a gun for “the urgent necessity for self-protection, as evidenced by specific threats or previous attacks which demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life that cannot be avoided by means other than by issuance of a permit to carry a handgun.”

Applicants also have to pass the dreaded, and most unfair background check, something that is not required out west in Texas.

To get a license to carry a gun in New Jersey also requires completion of an approved firearms training course and isn’t that silly.