Nothin' better than a day shootin' stuff.

This from section 26 of the Arizona Constitution; The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the state shall not be impaired...

Those words probably meant a lot in 1912, when Arizona became a state, but as Bob Dylan opined, the times, they are a-changin'. Except of course, in Hooterville, where the ultra-right-wing wackos, from the Mormon territories surrounding Phoenix, still control our legislature.

What this means is that in Arizona you might be out on the town enjoying yourself, not a care in the world and come face to holster with an insecure buffoon carrying a gun on his waist.

Mrs. Sneed, Noah and I went out to a family-style restaurant this evening and had the disconcerting experience of sitting near a dope toting a big old sidearm, not on his waist, which was indiscernible, but on the back of his pant. The jackass had his wife and kids with him and felt sufficiently threatened by the atmosphere to bring his gun with him. What a moron.

Before you jump to the conclusion that he might be in law enforcement, allow me to dissuade you of that notion. He weighed about three hundred pounds, too heavy for even the most veteran of cops.

To a certain extent, I blame the management of the restaurant for serving him while armed, but maybe no one noticed except us and the other one hundred patrons. I guess I'm equally to blame for not complaining to the manager.

Most of the second amendment types I see around look like men who got beat up a lot as kids. Now they're not taking any chances. You rarely see a normal-looking person carrying a gun on his waist.

"But Sneed," you might ask, "who defines normal?" Me, that's who.

As bad as open firearms are, Arizona felt the need to pass a concealed carry law in 1994. Now, one in one hundred citizens of our backwoods state are wandering around with a gun stashed somewhere on their person.

The second amendment loudmouths love to bluster about who they would blast and what crimes they would prevent with their swell pistolas given the need. But the truth is that a citizen almost never stops a crime in progress with a personal firearm. The NRA likes to brag that six-million crimes per year are stopped by an armed citizenry, but that's hooey if you ask me.

I swear we are a bastion of hickery.



Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky