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Amazing letter to liberals from “the gun owner you hate”

Amazing letter to liberals from “the gun owner you hate”

“Your liberal self-righteousness may have made you feel superior, but my gun kept you safe”

Wow. Just Wow.

This January 9, 2016 Letter to the Editor in The Boston Globe is just amazing, To the man I sat next to on the train: I am the gun owner you hate:

TO THE man I sat next to on my way in to Boston:

When I boarded the commuter rail, you were already in the midst of a spirited phone conversation and didn’t seem to care about how loud you were talking. You were talking with someone about the Paris train attack and the growing epidemic of gun violence in America.

You spoke about the “murderous NRA” and “bloodthirsty gun nuts” who were causing our schools to “run red with blood.” You spoke profanely of the Republicans who opposed President Obama’s call for “sensible gun control,” and you lamented the number of “inbred redneck politicians” who have “infiltrated Capitol Hill.”

I found myself amazed at the irony of the situation. While you were spewing your venom, I sat quietly next to you with my National Rifle Association membership card in my wallet and my 9mm pistol in its holster. You were only 12 inches away from my legally owned semiautomatic pistol. I suppose I didn’t look like the “bloodthirsty gun nut” you thought I should be. It apparently didn’t register to you that I could so cleverly disguise myself by wearing a fleece coat, Patriots hat, and khakis.

So, to the angry liberal who sat next to me on the commuter rail: I don’t hate you. I don’t have any ill feelings toward you. I don’t wish to do you harm. And I don’t regret sitting next to you. On the contrary; I feel bad for you. It must hurt carrying that much hate inside of you.

You obviously have strong opinions about this hot topic. So, let me say this as plainly as I can: If a bad guy with a gun had decided to walk onto that train and start shooting people, I would have been prepared and able to use my gun to defend my own life and the lives of everyone else on that train, including yours. Although you may hate me, a gun owner, I would risk my life for you.

Opinions and ideologies make a pretty thin shield against the bullets of a madman. Your liberal self-righteousness and ignorance may have made you feel superior and comfortable, but during that 40-minute train ride to Boston, my gun kept you safe.

A. Linden
Dighton

Dighton, MA, by the way, is in Southeastern Massachusetts near the Rhode Island border where we used to live. It is nothing like the liberal Boston suburbs; very working class and conservative. It’s basically the Massachusetts equivalent of flyover country — and I mean that as a compliment.

There were almost 500 comments to the letter the last I checked. It is like a window on the ideological divide.

Who wants to guess what the letter reminds me of? Some of my favorite lines about men (and bloggers!) who guard the walls.

Col. Jessep: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns…. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post….

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Comments

I’m trained as an Air Force pilot and my CCW is a survival tool. It’s job is to protect me and to get me out of a survival situation. My weapon is not there to protect others. If you need help, get your own gun.

    Andy in reply to wukong. | January 11, 2016 at 11:14 pm

    I was thinking the same thing.

    Being charitable and generous, I trained as an EMT so I can apply a 4×4 occlusive bandage to the sucking chest wounds of those who don’t after the fact.

Henry Hawkins | January 11, 2016 at 7:33 pm

Saw this a few days ago. I recall standing in the checkout line at a Piggly Wiggly behind a college-age kid who was opining to his (apparent) mother about the dastardly NRA and gun nuts, unaware I had a Keltec .32 in my pocket. They really have no idea of the prevalence of concealed weapons.

Saturday morning, I read the first 40 or so comments on this letter. Thankfully, even in this blue state, some commenters actually showed that they have their heads on straight with regard to 2A. As for the rest, they showed nothing but malice towards that which they will NEVER understand.

Has Branca left our beloved Commonwealth yet?

That was very well written. Thank you for sharing it. I always ‘carry’, nearly 99% of the time. When I’m in the room, everyone in my view is safe and the same goes for most who also legally ‘carry’.
An armed society is a polite society.

In most states, to be able to legally carry requires an extensive background check. To be able to carry illegally just requires a contempt for the law. Guess which population is being targeted by these new so-called common sense gun laws.

    Milhouse in reply to rabidfox. | January 11, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    If you’re referrin to last week’s announcement, the only ones actually being targeted are genuinely crazy people, and those who’ve been bypassing the NFA regs by buying through a trust or corporation. The rest of the announcement did absolutely nothing, and therefore didn’t target anyone.

      Steve_in_SoCal in reply to Milhouse. | January 12, 2016 at 11:28 am

      Then why the big hugaboo from Obama about it?

      Townhall. Alot of SOTU tonight.

      Had more had CC, alot of those “crazy” people would have been stopped. And given none of those events would have been avoided with Obama’s new EO’s, your comment makes even less sense.

        The big production was precisely because it was a whole lot of nothing. If his lawyers had found some way for him to actually do anything meaningful he’d have done it. But they didn’t, so he was reduced to putting on a big show for his supporters, while actually doing nothing.

        Of course crazy people can be stopped by armed bystanders. But they should be stopped from buying arms in the first place, and that’s already the law, and everyone agrees on that law. But HIPAA was preventing state agencies from telling the NICB when someone was adjudicated to be crazy. That’s crazy, and surely you agree that 0bama was right to fix it.

      Loren in reply to Milhouse. | January 12, 2016 at 12:10 pm

      “those who’ve been bypassing the NFA regs by buying through a trust or corporation.” Bypassed or actually complied with? IF you are buying a full automatic, as I understand the regulations, if you die, the spouse immediately becomes an illegal holder if you die without a trust. My associate and his son formed a trust to own a, now legal in this state, silencer. That way either can use it at the range. Very few criminals (any?) go to the expense and hassle of setting up a trust or corporation.

        Milhouse in reply to Loren. | January 12, 2016 at 4:31 pm

        That’s all very well, but because the original regs didn’t account for trusts, those using them weren’t required to supply the ID that ordinary buyers do. That’s not what Congress intended, so it made perfect sense to fix it.

        Very few if any criminals go to the trouble and expense of buying NFA-regulated weapons in the first place, whether through a trust or in person. You may well question the need for the NFA at all, though a case can be made that all this shows is that the NFA works as intended, and that without it those weapons would be used by criminals, as they were in the 1920s. At any rate, though, so long as the NFA does exist it makes sense for it to apply equally to all owners, regardless of the form in which they choose to buy. The right of corporate entities to own weapons is inherited from their shareholders, so it makes sense that those shareholders be identified just as they would be if they weren’t using a corporation.

I’m glad the guy wrote that letter and it was published.

The elitist snobbery of so many, especially in the N.E. (no offense to those the shoe does not fit) and DC, NY, LA, etc. is astounding.

It comforts them to think of us as hillbillies, rednecks, and peasants. Too bad, because I’d gladly place my life in the hands of the so-called inferior class than in the hands of sanctimonious liberals who would only be able to cower in the face of adversity.

Police, firefighters, and EMTs are rarely “first responders.” “First responders” are the people at the scene of an incident when it occurs; those at the scene have a moral responsibility to defend their own lives and the lives of others in their charge. Everyone else arrives late.

FWIW, I believe it’s dangerous for anyone carrying concealed to feel they’ve got it sussed, they’ll protect themselves and others if something happens. What if the first shot is to the back of my head? What if three or four gunmen start firing without warning? What am I, James-freakin’-Bond? I carry because it increases my chances of survival, but I’m the last guy to get cocky about it.

    DaveGinOly in reply to Henry Hawkins. | January 11, 2016 at 11:18 pm

    In a crowd of people, the chance that any particular person will be shot first, or even early, in an attack, is unlikely. This is why prey animals who inhabit habitats with little cover form herds – there is safety in numbers (statistically speaking). The chance of being the first shot can be further mitigated by situational awareness, planning, and thinking tactically (like sitting where you can see one or more entrances or likely avenues of approach for a shooter). Be polite and courteous, but have a plan to kill every person in view. One of them might need it. In public, always be in “stage yellow” of Jeff Cooper’s stages of preparedness for employing lethal force in self-defense. (Note that Cooper did not invent the stages of awareness. He developed a parallel scale of steps for the psychological preparation to use lethal force in order to prepare the mind to do something it has been conditioned to not do – kill another human being. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Cooper#Combat_mindset_and_the_Cooper_color_code)

    And what if three or four gunmen open fire near you? Are you not going to protect yourself (whether you run, hide, or shoot back)? Thinking about how you’re going to protect yourself in certain situations is not getting cocky, it’s part of the mental preparation for a very low-probability event. Having a plan or imagining how you’ll react in certain situations is better than not planning or not imagining (a simulated event in your mind). “A good plan executed violently now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

      Henry Hawkins in reply to DaveGinOly. | January 12, 2016 at 12:43 pm

      “Thinking about how you’re going to protect yourself in certain situations is not getting cocky..”

      Calm down. I said nothing about ‘how’. I spoke only to those, evident in previous comments, who appear to believe that the presence of a gun in their pocket ensures that they and those around them will survive. That is cocky.

Carrying is a huge responsibility.

Taking the Illinois required licensing classes (16hrs) and taking to heart Branca’s LOSD book would force anyone into sobering reality.

You may take someone’s life. The moral component will weigh heavy on you. Also, the potentially overwhelming and life-ruining legal process just begins. And, when politics is given more credence than truth it will be a long haul to justice if at all.

I do not think the Obama admin has any clue about what is involved with legal gun owners. Laws don’t take responsibility. Only humans do.

What is most amazing to me is the the Boston Globe actually published it. Read more here:
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/299727-I-wrote-a-letter-to-the-Boston-globe

Many states allow property owners to post signs saying that they prohibit firearms, licensed or unlicensed, to be brought onto the property. I think that I might create a lapel button or a t-shirt that says something like, “If you are a firearms carrier I neither want or need your protection.” Because I don’t want or need it. Nor do I need the paranoid “You’ll be grateful for me if things go down” smug attitude of the letter writer. If I thought that I did I’d get my own CCW license, but I haven’t and in 60+ years of living have never wanted or needed it. I’m far more concerned about accidental discharges, kids obtaining possession of guns from mom’s purse, the occasional Rambo or deranged CCW carrier, and similar risks attendant to a large number of mostly-responsible people carrying firearms than I am concerned about any risk of criminal or terrorist attack. Thanks for thinking of me firearms carriers and being willing to protect me whether I want it or not, but if I were given a choice of having your protection or not I’d pass.

    Humphrey's Executor in reply to jcarter50. | January 17, 2016 at 10:46 am

    The fact that you or I CAN carry, whether we choose to or not, is itself an effective deterrent. It’s also a badge of freedom, which is kinda nice.