Packing Heat?

There is a new hobby blazing through my part of the world. It seems close to a passion among its devotees, men and women. Many of my friends have taken it up, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. It appears that I stopped paying attention for a few minutes and suddenly half of my friends are packing heat!

I hear the stories about otherwise stable, ordinary, unthreatened people my age buying Smith & Wesson’s, and heading off to the shooting range for some good old fashioned family fun. Others, even more alarmingly, have secured concealed carry permits and so they never have to leave home without a deadly weapon.

Ok, before you guys get all “fired-up” and start lecturing me on the 2^nd Amendment let me first say that I fully recognize your legal and constitutional right to keep and bear arms. I’m not part of the anti-gun crowd. It’s just that the idea of a movie theatre filled with upper middle class middle aged men and women packing newly issued handguns, makes me nervous as hell!

Of course, if while walking from the movie to my car in the parking lot, I suppose I would be grateful for one of those Glocks if I got accosted by some drugged up meth head demanding my money or my life. Although, come to think of it, I would just give him my money. Gun play with a twitchy addict might prove problematic.

I guess the rise in popularity of guns has something to do with the growing sense that society has gone off the rails and that we are headed for some sort of dystopian world where only the fully armed citizen will have a chance at survival. Either that, or we upper middle class folks are getting more bored by the minute and enjoy the thrill of filling a sketch target with lead. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

Knowing that so many of my friends are now armed does give me pause. Maybe I should think twice before playing that 100 point triple word score at Words With Friends against someone carrying a .357 magnum. Perhaps I should rethink trying to sink that 5 foot putt on the 18^th hole for the match. Or maybe…just maybe, I should buy a gun. Can you just imagine? Me and my nervous energy, can’t sit still, practical joke-loving, easily pissed off, quick with the snarky putdowns self, walking around with a Springfield XD-S 45 on my hip?

Yikes!