As someone who was raised with guns, and is very proficient with them, I’m well aware of the damage that can be caused if they are in the wrong hands. My personal belief is that gun owners should treat it as a privilege, not a right. The more flag-waving and militia talk I see surrounding this issue, the more wary of gun owners I become. Some militia…

Rick Moore’s final question was to ask him to consider if he had actually damaged his own cause–because now Kroger has a “no firearms” policy, so people legally carrying concealed weapons will not be able to carry their weapons into Kroger–and he had no answer to the question, other than he hadn’t really thought about it, and that he still thinks his stunt was a success.

I listened to the interview in its entirety over the course of the day, and I’ve reevaluated the guy. I don’t think he’s a jackass—I think he’s a sociopath. Over an hour-long interview, he showed absolutely no ability to understand how normal human beings think and behave. The guy isn’t dumb. He’s just utterly unable to comprehend societal norms, and shows absolutely no curiosity about it. The effect is even worse than the Westboro Baptist Church. They show up at public events, say horrible, horrible things to and about people, and in doing so they acknowledge that it’s to get a rise out of people. This guy shows up in a public space wielding a very threatening-looking weapon specifically to get a reaction from people, and says that he has no idea of why people react at all. He says he has no regrets, and considers the stunt a success. As one caller put it, having the right to do something and doing the right thing are often two different things.

There was one important point on which he was either being dishonest or simply not thinking clearly. A point that he and a couple of (presumed) confederates on the phone made was that there was nothing at all threatening about what he was doing—that any fool would know that the gun wasn’t being held by the grip, therefore he couldn’t hurt a fly. That’s pure foolishness. If we take his statement at face value, then carrying that rifle was useless, because he couldn’t have defended himself with it. Of course that’s not true. I confess I have not timed myself with either of my own rifles, but I’m pretty sure that I could get it from a slung position into a firing position in a couple of seconds or so. It is likewise obvious to any observer that a rifle can be moved into firing position much more quickly than bystanders are liable to be able to react.

Anyhow, sociopath. With guns. Good times.

http://www.cvillepodcast.com/2013/02/03/wake-up-call-guns-at-kroger/

I haven’t listened to it. I’m just passing the link along as of interest in this thread.

“Would it have been OK to have carried the gun into a store where the Governor or Attorney General were shopping?”