Ready. Fire.. Aim.

Contradictions and random pot shots from a hotel room outside Chicago.

I hate guns, especially hand guns. But I think the right to carry concealed hand guns is a good idea. I figure the bad guys won't know who is carrying and who isn't, so if hand guns are going to be around lets make them effective deterrents, even when they don't exist. The threat is better than the real thing.

I think anyone who wants to carry a hand gun should be the first one with their head examined. Or at the very least, a psychological profile completed. Seriously, if you WANT to carry a hand gun, you have issues. You might be paranoid, or have a phallic fixation, or your a man, and all men are perpetually twelve years old.

I don't get the whole thing about registering either. Seriously, if the government was big enough to come and find all those with hand guns simply because they were registered, well, the fact that they were coming to take it away would be the least of your problems.

I went to Arizona on a backpack trip recently, and one of the guys thought we should have a gun to deter crazy drug induced bad guys. First off, drug induced bad guys don't hang out in the remote desert. Second, he only wanted it because his dick is too small. Third, if we had a gun, he would definitely be the LAST one I would want to carry it. Second to last would be me, since it was likely that same guy would piss me off to the point I would want to shoot him. Having a gun nearby would not be a good thing.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. The gun just makes it easier and more convenient. It removes you from the vicinity of blood. You ever notice on TV, they don't show the man with the gun AND the man getting shot in the same frame shot? They show a man with a gun, pulls the trigger, and then move over to the man getting shot. When you put them both in the same frame, it adds to the violence. It's much more personal. Its much more real.

Last, a stolen story. From somewhere on the internet.

An old prospector shuffled into town leading an old tired mule. The old man headed straight for the only saloon to clear his parched throat. He walked up and tied his old mule to the hitch rail. As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, have you ever danced?" The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No, I never did dance... never really wanted to."

A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, "Well, you old fool, you're gonna dance now," and started shooting at the old man's feet.

The old prospector --not wanting to get a toe blown off-- started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet. Everybody was laughing, fit to be tied.

When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon. The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately. The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly. The silence was almost deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the oldtimer and the large gaping holes of those twin barrels.

The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he quietly said, "Son, have you ever kissed a mule's ass?" The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir..... but... I've

always wanted to."

There are a few lessons for us all here:

Always know who you are dealing with. Never be arrogant. Don't waste ammunition. Whiskey makes you think you're smarter than you are. Don't mess with old men, they didn't get old by being stupid.