Ever had someone who is supposedly on your team do something, either intentionally or accidentally, that helps the enemy? I’m sure we have all been there a time or two, but hopefully not with items of huge importance such as our Second Amendment rights. Sadly, that is the exact situation I find myself in this morning, and the tougher call is how to address it.
Yesterday, Robert Farago over at The Truth About Guns published a post on their website and it found its way into my personal Facebook feed this morning. Upon reading the title, I at first figured it was some sort of clickbaity title and that the post was going to offer a counter opinion, but sadly that was not remotely the case.
The piece I am referring to is this one, titled “Quote of the Day: Armed Citizens Don’t Need to Carry More Than Five or Six Rounds.” Now, I will preface my comments by saying that as a subject (resident) of the People’s Republik of Commieforniastan, a state that is constantly telling the citizens how many bullets they are allowed to put in their guns, what guns they can and cannot have, how many bullets they can buy and where (no, I’m not kidding), I am probably a little more sensitive about blog posts like this, but hear me out.
Publishing just this quote, without any relevant context, without describing anything, without offering opinion or any other text besides just the quote, in my opinion as both a very pro-gun rights person, and as a career cop, is irresponsible. It provides those who seek to infringe on the rights of Americans a place to point and say “Hey look, TTAG and that Sheriff even say that all a private citizen needs is 5-6 rounds…” The anti-gun groups out there already come up with enough asinine BS that they constantly throw out there to the sycophantic media, we do not need to help them by doing things like this. And I am not alone in feeling like this. At the time I wrote this, there were some 239 comments in response to the TTAG blog post, and while I admit I did not read them all, all of the comments I did read seemed to agree with me.
When that guy, who is supposedly on your side, continues helping the enemy in the face of overwhelming opposition, what else is there to do but call them out publicly?
Lastly, as a point of clarification, what I am not doing is arguing the point made by Sheriff Jim Wilson, the man whose quote was taken completely out of context. Sheriff Wilson was not arguing that people should be limited to five or six rounds. He was merely stating that in today’s world, one should not discount the viability of carrying a revolver. On that point, I completely agree.
There are times and places I have chosen to carry my S&W 642 J-frame, but those are limited. More often than not, I leave my house carrying my Glock 19 loaded with 18 rounds of Federal HST (15 round mag, +2 mag base and one in the chamber), and a spare 19 round mag on me on nearby. I firmly believe every law abiding citizen should have the same options as me, but sadly in the state in which I reside that is not the case. If we (gun folks) keep giving ammo to the gun grabbers, those of you living in free states might someday find yourself facing similar unconstitutional laws. Please, think about your actions as they affect ALL of us.
What are your thoughts? Am I off the mark? Did I take it totally wrong?