Over the weekend I went to Academy (the right stuff, low price, AcademYYY!) with my dad and brother. They were looking for a pistol that was on sale for my dad to buy to match his new Concealed Carry License. I came along to buy soccer shorts, but that only took around 10 minutes compared to the hour my dad and brother spent at the gun counter. I decided to listen in and ask a billion questions about guns and what did what. It went a little like this…
I walked up to the gun counter where two friendly guys (age 20-30 thereabouts) were helping my dad find the pistol that was on sale. I noticed the prices for these guns were no lower than $300 bucks. The one my dad was looking at was a Taurus something or other, but there were Rugers, Sauers, and other brands that all just looked like handguns to me.
Taurus Rugers Sauers
And then I saw the Glock guns. I couldn’t tell you the official name, but that’s the brand I’m fairly sure Mr. Arizona man used in the recent tragedy. Needless to say, I was disturbed. I informed my dad loudly that that was the gun used in the Arizona tragedy so the guys behind the counter and the other customers could hear. It made me feel better somehow.
There were actually a ton of these. They all looked like police guns to me, like the kind my step-dad carries for his job (working for the Inspector General).
So I took my brother, an avid fan of Call of Duty Black Ops, and made him explain to me all of the different guns up on the wall behind the counter. He explained that this gun was a shot gun, it sprays out bullets and is for hunting birds, this gun is really powerful and is for killing deer, and this gun is the CIVILIAN version of an army issued gun. I asked the gunhelperman if the scary looking army gun (presented third in the following sequence of pictures) was the gun the UT guy had. He said, “No, that was an AK. We don’t sell those. They’re Russian.” Or something like that. He mumbled.
Bushmaster A2 M4 Carbine (looks like a water gun eh?)
$1500 shotgun!! Deer rifle
There were only two of these ‘tactile’ army issue guns in the store, which was comforting. Also, my brother told me one of those guns couldn’t kill a deer in one shot, so that’s pretty reassuring right?
So next up was my dad’s paperwork he had to fill out to get the pistol. He can’t see up close and he forgot his glasses in the car so I read out the questions for him. They were kinda like:
Are you really gonna use this gun or are you gonna give it to your friend?
Are you a felon?
Are you in court to be deemed a felon?
Have you ever been classified as mentally unstable?
Have you ever been arrested for a domestic disturbance?
(all in fancy speak of course)
So that was that. He presented his Concealed Carry License, got the low down from the gun guy, and the end! New pistol.
I interrogated my dad further about why in the world he would want a gun and how he would feel about killing someone. He said that in his class they told him if you shoot anyone in a defense situation, you’re gonna have to pay around $80,000 in court and lawyer fees to defend why you defended yourself with a gun. He said that you really DON’T want to shoot someone. It made me think that why don’t we all just carry fake guns? What about poison darts? Or crossbows? They had a sweet pink one at academy! Or better yet, a mini hand-held pink crossbow with poison darts?? Maybe I’m just naive, but I’m not too worried about being in situations where I really wish I had a gun. That’s stuff Michael Westin has to deal with, not me. I’ll stick to my pink mini poison crossbow.
