My friend and I, and another guy who worked in the same machine shop, spent a lot of time in gun stores, traveling to shooting ranges, and generally shooting the shit about all things guns. We were completely into it.
I had a sweet little Charter Arms .38 Special “Undercover” model revolver that I carried everywhere in a back belt holster. There is a protocol about being in public while “packing”, and its a fool’s move to give away your “defensive position” in any way. In other words, as far as anyone else was concerned, you were unarmed.
At that time in my life, we also spent a lot of time in bars, some of them pretty rough. Biker bars, for example. In this context, you are always thinking about threats—you know, that burly, scarred-up guy who might say, “Whadda you lookin’ at, huh?” That never happened, of course, but the mind builds scenes where there is no choice but to reach back and haul out your gat, and... I never got any further than “and...”.
After a while, the stress of this weird mindset began taking its toll. When my girlfriend questioned why I always carried a gun, I had to concede that there was no good reason, and stopped. I haven’t carried since.
I was 31 at the time, and generally had a pretty good head on my shoulders. Please understand that in the late 70's and early 80's, my friends and I were not driven by politics—at least not per se. We were enthusiasts, and were somewhat fueled by the notion that should our country be invaded and occupied by enemies, we, the citizens would not be caught flat-footed. I should also note that the movie, "Red Dawn" was released about this time, and it expressed our thesis almost exactly, a fact that embarrasses me now. Suffice it to say the issue of Second Amendment rights was nothing like the hot-button it is today.
Consider now a child at the age of 17 in the year 202. This child grows up in the same kind of atmosphere that I was absorbed in, but instead of getting cranked up by his drinking buddies, he is encouraged by his parents, and by the people he most admires: the police.
A seventeen year old boy, filled with ideas of glory and too much testosterone should not be out in public with one of the most deadly firearms available to civilians. If he had stayed home in Antioch, Illinois on that night, two people would be alive, and a third would not be looking forward to perhaps years of painful and expensive surgery. But instead of being safe in bed in Antioch, it is alleged that he was driven the 20 miles to Kenosha by his mother where the opportunity to be a hero overcame any moral guidance he might have received from his Christian background. In the heat of that night, the awesome power of the .223 caliber AR-15 military-style assault rifle held sway, and its deadly work was done.
Some people—especially the allegedly Christian group who have now exceeded their $200,000 goal for Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense—believe this was a justifiable act. What part of this narrative involves driving a boy, armed with a weapon he was too young to have, into a zone where anguished people were protesting yet another outrageous shooting at the hands of the police—the police that this boy revered?
If you can find a clear and compelling defense for this behavior, I’d like to hear it. We should be taking action now to make sure that no more Kyle Rittenhouses ever walk the streets of America looking for glory.
Originally posted in somewhat shorter form on Facebook on August 30th, 2020, five days after the murder of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum people and the maiming of Gaige Grosskreutz at the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse during street protests in Kenosha, WI. —the author
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