On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 01:54:48 -0500
"Freewheeling" <
[email protected]> wrote:
> John:
>
> California is a "may issue" state, so it's not very likely the gun was
> legal.
>
> It's highly unlikely that a legal or legitimate gun owner with a CCW
> permit, in California or anywhere else, would retaliate against a near
> collision with the gun. The general rule of thumb is that if you use
Not every state. Take Utah, for example. Nearly anybody can get a
concealed carry permit here.
Granted, probably not if they have a history of convictions for violent
crimes, but, ask any neighbor of a serial killer whether quiet, mild
mannered, even gentle people sometimes snap.
The oversight is surprisingly lax. Shortly after our looser CCW law was
passed, an escaped criminal was legging it up the canyon on a nice summer
day, trying to evade the swarm of cops looking for him, ran headlong into a
picnic area, and was shot dead in mid-step by a salt lake city alderman
who'd had his CCW permit for something like two weeks.
He spent about an hour talking to the cops and was released, and that
was the end of it. His story was something along the lines of "he was
brandishing a knife". The interesting part that got a lot of comment in the
media was that if a cop had shot him, that cop would be driving a desk for
six months or more during the internal investigation. But an alderman is
off the hook before dinner.
I've never advocated violence. OK, maybe i have, in the 'a little
revolution, now and then' sense. I'm a pacifist. But that doesn't mean i
don't get really angry sometimes - just that I'm a wimp about it.
I can understand wanting to shoot somebody for almost killing me with
their surburban assault vehicle, I'd just never actually go through with
it.
A friend tells me that, during his motorcycling days, he got a lot less
trouble on the road when he started wearing a welded link chain as a sash,
even though he never had the occasion to wield it. I wonder what the
equivalent for a cyclist is.