There seems to be a growing trend in some parts of the country for some people to visit retail stores openly wearing guns. It recently happened at a Kroger in Virginia where the store manager asked them to leave the property.
This has prompted more than a little discussion in social media. Quite frankly, I am baffled there are people who want to come into areas that we traditionally don’t think of as threatening or hazardous armed to the teeth.
This flagrant display frightens the average citizen and has, more than once, resulted in tragedy. From the outside looking in, it appears to be no more than an ego-driven show of power by a paranoid few in what is a benign environment.
The Clarion-Ledger recently reported legislators are being pressured, if not bullied, by the Mississippi gun rights lobby to vote for unlicensed concealed carry in Mississippi. You have to wonder what has changed in our society to merit this level of activism.
If we were reacting to 9-11, I might not be surprised. But we are 14 years and a couple of conflicts away from that American nightmare.
Like most “boomers” I grew up watching westerns. Every Saturday night you could find me in front of the TV during Gunsmoke, fantasizing about being out West. There was my personal favorite, The Lone Ranger, on Saturday morning. Rawhide, Bonanza, etc. appeared in prime time throughout the week.
Watching Marshall Matt Dillon walk the boardwalk into Miss Kitty’s saloon was a recurring scene. I thought nothing of all the ranchers and cowboys wearing their guns on their hips hanging out around the bar, hotel and feed store. That was the norm for that day and time.
The idea of guns wasn’t threatening because we knew Matt Dillon and Hoss Cartwright. We knew they weren’t going to shoot up the town because they had a bad day or were suffering from PTSD. Though I always wanted to be a cowboy in the “wild, wild West,” I understood that reality says “no” to many fantasies.
As someone with a Mississippi firearms permit, I am not anti-gun, quite the contrary. I was at one time a pretty fair skeet shooter. I have handgun training through the military, and I am comfortable in the presence of guns in an appropriate atmosphere. Walmart simply doesn’t fit that bill. It is also troubling to think we may not know until it’s too late the training or mental state of the person one aisle over who happens to be armed.
I don’t suggest there is reason for anyone to give up their weapon for home or travel protection. But no matter how many times someone talks about the “right to bear arms” today I can’t seem to reconcile why any rational person finds it important or socially comfortable to strap a piece on their hip and mingle with friends and neighbors. There is something disturbingly surreal about the notion of someone packing heat amidst the vegetable producers at the local community market.
I remember vividly how disturbing it was 30 years ago seeing Taiwanese military police with automatic rifles across their arms walking the busy streets of Taipei. I thought then how glad I was we were not subjected to that in-your-face level of force in America.
There is something distinctly menacing about armed troops strolling around streets of retail shops and restaurants. But that is someone else’s country and their approach to external threats.
Absent the rare occasions when we need curfews and military involvement as we did during the Katrina disaster, we simply are not accustomed to such visual extremes. Our police are not normally seen patrolling America’s main streets with automatic weapons at the ready.
I am proud we Americans have no need to display our firearms on Main Street, though I confess to being torn between our right to do so and that some people feel a need to express that right. It is a dangerous trend, one I hope our leaders have the courage to withstand.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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