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Our state legislature certainly has more important matters to consider than concealed weapons permits. But law-abiding gun owners, the backbone of the National Rifle Association, are a potent lobby in this country, and they're upset at the current system.
As the law stands, local police chiefs and sheriffs are in charge of granting concealed weapons permits, and do so at their whim.
Some restrict the permits to contributors to the sheriff's election campaign or to merchants who buy whole books of tickets to the policeman's ball. Others, like El Paso County Sheriff John Anderson, will issue a concealed-weapons permit to any citizen with a clean record.
Does a permit matter?
Imagine an unlicensed woman walking home from work one night, Beretta in a shoulder holster under her jacket. She is accosted by a thug, whom she maims. The police arrive.
Will they even cite her for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit? And in that unlikely event, would a district attorney take her to court on these charges?
Of course not. Think of her tearful interviews on the
nightly news: All I did was protect myself from this
goon, and now they're making me out to be the
criminal.
And of the derision that columnists and commentators
would fling toward any prosecutor who pursued such charges:
What is this, New York, where muggers have rights and
citizens don't? Can the DA even read the Second Amendment,
which says that the right of citizens to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed? Where's the exception that allows
infringement if the arms happen to be concealed?
What's the thug going to say? That he has a right to assume that any woman on the street is unarmed, and that his right has been violated, and thus he is entitled to a few million in compensatory damages?
That's one reason that the entire legislative debate is
bogus. It's a meaningless law.
It's also one that we used to wonder about when I was a kid. Among grade-school boys 35 years ago, the playground debate continued for days on just how long a knife blade could extend before a tool in the pocket became a dangerous concealed weapon.
Our consensus, as I recall, was four inches. Below that, it was just a harmless jack-knife that every red-blooded American boy spent hours learning how to hone. Beyond, it was lethal stuff.
We dared each other to ask when the town cop came for the annual lecture on why we shouldn't take candy from strangers, especially mustachioed strangers in pin-striped suits driving big straight-eight Packard Patricians, but nobody ever summoned the courage. We thus spent our adolescent years worrying about friendly strangers when we should have been worrying about strange friends, but that's another matter entirely.
Our educators have progressed since then. They've eliminated this schoolyard debate by forbidding all knives, even of the scout variety. So why aren't our schools safer?
To this day, I still don't know whether I'm violating the law if my coat covers my belt knife with the 3.95-inch blade when I'm walking down the street. Nor do I care.
If the police want to arrest me, they'll find some
reason -- jaywalking, unsteady gait, suspicious demeanor,
overdue library book -- if the knife isn't long enough to
provide cause. If they want an excuse to shoot me, they can
always claim that the suspect made a move toward a
suspected weapon
and then plant one, if necessary. The
knife will never matter, and it's handy for opening
letters, cleaning fingernails and removing plastic
wrappers.
Why do people want to carry concealed weapons anyway?
There's the argument that concealed weapons are necessary for self-defense in a violent world.
But which provides better protection from street
riff-raff: a pea-shooter derringer that nobody can see, or
a visible MAC-11 which proclaims that I'm packing some
serious heat here. Keep your distance. Mind your manners.
Don't mess with me.
Obviously, the visible weapon makes the stronger statement.
So it isn't the weapon that matters. It's the permit,
which is a status symbol, a way of to say I am so
important, and I deal with matters so vital, that I have a
permit to carry a pistol under my coat. You don't. You're a
nobody.
Since the U.S. Constitution forbids titles of nobility, concealed-weapon permits have evolved to perform the vital role of defining who's a baron and who's a peon.
Here's what will happen. Our legislature will come up with a new concealed-weapons law, so that permits will be easier to get in some jurisdictions.
All will go well until a particularly gruesome murder is
committed by someone with a concealed-weapons permit. Then
there will be a public outcry -- How could they give a
license to this sociopath?
-- and the legislature will
tighten the law. The NRA will inspire law-abiding gun
owners to complain. Another law will be passed, and so on
through eternity.
And none of it will make the slightest difference in the crime rate.
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