Obtaining a concealed handgun license is a responsibility, not a privilege.
Yes, you read that right.
I believe as parents, husbands, wives and otherwise responsible adults it is our duty to learn firearm proficiency and get a concealed handgun license.
Why?
Adam Walsh.
You might recognize that name from a 1980s made for TV movie about his tragic murder or recognize him as being the slain son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh.
As a youngster I remember watching the initial broadcast and being absolutely stricken with horror with the reality that someone kidnapped and beheaded a little boy close to my age. To this day, when I see the words “Code Adam” (kidnapping code) on a sign in Wal-Mart or see his father on television my heart sinks and I face the cold reality we share the planet with some genuinely evil people. Not misguided or confused, but evil and disgusting.
After a grim remembrance of Adam Walsh, I took my daughter in my arms and vowed to do absolutely whatever it took to protect her and that included taking my right to carry a concealed handgun far more seriously.
You see before there have been many times I left my gun in the truck when I entered places perfectly legal to carry and even forgot it at home. No more.
When I can carry, I do in addition to having greatly enhanced the security and armament of our home.
I know things can still happen and I can’t be there for my family every second but when I can I would be letting them down to not take every precaution.
If we drive the road without buckling our child in their car seat, we could get penalized for child endangerment. In some places you can even get a stiff fine for smoking around them, yet it remains politically incorrect to carry the tools necessary to fend off an attacker. The progressives will give us a million reasons why a Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy or Tookie Williams should not be executed yet give us no way to protect ourselves from them.
I could use an old cliché and say the last thing I want to do is to use a gun on someone even if they are a perverted drug-addled parolee with a rap sheet as long as my arm. However I would be lying.
In reality, the last thing I would want is to live with the guilt of knowing the simple act of carrying a concealed handgun could have stopped my wife or little girl from being savagely murdered, raped or abused. Or that I was not equipped to stop someone from taking my life, my family’s security and our chance of seeing one another again on this Earth away.
If I am going to become some sort of gun related statistic I want it to be the kind the liberal media loves to either totally ignore or spin to fit their agenda. I prefer to be the one who had to use deadly force in self-defense than the one who lost his life or family to an act of evil perpetrated by a human predator.
Do I think concealed carry should be forced upon the public? Absolutely not.
In case you haven’t noticed, I am not a progressive.
The only kind of choice they believe in involves a scalpel, a sink and an unborn baby while I prefer the kind that deals with things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Those of us who believe that innocence should be protected from meth heads, serial rapists and murderers should have legal rights to do so despite what political elitists living in gated communities with paid security may think.
This isn’t about some macho view of firearms or visions of Clint Eastwood reciting one-liners to bad guys. This is about the ultimate responsibility of adults, the protection of our families and our very own lives.
No one should be able to take that from us, at least not without a fight.