Why I don’t carry my gun to town anymore...

I received the most quizzical look from a local, retired career Law Enforcement officer recently when we had struck up a conversation. He asked me which kind of sidearm I liked to carry in public. I responded that I no longer carry in public; because my best friend has forbade me to do so any more - he (my friend)  says my temper has gotten too hot for carry since I have entered my senior years.  - A wise friend indeed…

The following is my true life Texas story; the story behind the above story as why I no longer carry a self defense firearm in public. Ironically the cause was not the result of addressing a personal criminal incident rather a legal one. And what makes it even better, is that the DHS actually wanted me to tell you…  

This is my personal account of the incident which occurred in recent months in Walnut Springs, Texas - population 800  (at least in the springtime)…  of a unsolicited encounter with a young and oddly disguised under-cover DHS agent with a way too overdone fake Texas accent; who interrupted a personal and non-political conversation I was having  in a coffee shop with a neighbor. 

The harassing Agent almost immediately accused me of being an “Extremist” - maybe he was offended by my free use of thought and its verbal expression.?  Not knowing his actual identity, I instinctively sensed I was in a legal negotiation and responded by asking him his definition of a Extremist - by the expression his face, I could tell I’d simultaneously thrown him off track as well as made him even more pissy. He eventually re-engaged and his tone became less in character but kept up his go at bullying a couple of old farts drinking breakfast coffee.

The whole thing finished by him telling me - fingers pointed and eyes glaring; for me to spread the word to the locals that ‘We are watching you’.  A week later I was impressed, seems the young man wasn’t 100% puff and piss after all - at midday, a Blackhawk Helicopter was flown at roughly 200 feet elevation, first over my home on Grave Hill and then about a mile and half past, made a intentional turn and flew low and slow down main street Walnut Springs. Message delivered and received. Cool. It was a good show. That doesn’t happen every day here.  

In the end it turned out well for the both of us. I think by the grace of God that morning, my self-defense conceals carry Glock was not holstered inside my jeans, because though I expressed no anger in expression or word to the Agent - he had enraged me internally to the extent I might well have been tempted to have ended the negotiation on my terms and not his. 

So as it has all worked out: Neither am I shackled in a federal confinement facility awaiting trial; and as well, I’m also doing my patriotic duty by complying with the brave Federale’s directive and sharing his message on behalf of the United States Government with all of you other ‘Everyday Extremists’ out there like myself: 

“We are watching you”.    

A final carry out observation on the whole matter might be that Freedom is the social condition which allows us many choices along with the experience of its many consequences; morality and wise action are the disciplines necessary to navigate ourselves and thrive in a free society and not fall to be intimidated or worse, by the armies of Armed Thought Bureaucrats. To quote another good friend of mine who says: “Just because you are free to do something doesn’t mean that you should.”