The Power of Gun-Envy in California

By Rob Morse

American Gun Owners
The Power of Gun-Envy in California **
Slow Facts
Slow Facts

Southern California –-(Ammoland.com)- Let’s get real about armed self-defense.

30 million of us live in California counties that won’t issue concealed carry licenses.

Responsible gun owners can change that.  Remember that 10 million Californians live in shall-issue counties!  That is a lot of people.  Combined together, the shall-issue counties of California have the same population as the state of Georgia or the state of Ohio.  There are as many Californians in shall issue counties as in the states of Alabama and South Carolina combined.  My neighbors living in those shall-issue counties can have a concealed carry license for the asking.

There will be over two hundred thousand concealed carry holders in California in the next few years.. and they will be everywhere.

Nothing speaks louder than a living example.  My responsible neighbors will show us that discrete carry is not the fearful monster the politicians described.  Our armed neighbors from shall issue counties can walk down Market Street in San Francisco, where San Francisco natives must be disarmed.  They can walk down College Avenue, where Berkeley, California residents must be disarmed.  There isn’t a wall surrounding Los Angeles so my legally armed neighbors from San Bernardino can shop and stroll down Rodeo Drive while they carry discretely.  Couples from Bakersfield can carry legally concealed firearms as they stop to eat on Washington Boulevard in the people’s republic of Santa Monica.  Our neighbors will show that licensed carry is a boringly civilized.  Almost no one will know they are carrying.

You’ll know and I’ll know.  We are not a violent society, but once in a great while some criminals will find out.  I bet the gun-hating politicians won’t like that.  The anti-gun politicians could try to ban guns on their city streets.  The west coast politicians could say “no legal guns allowed” just as federal regulators have prohibited licensed carry on trains and at the post office.

The liberal politicians probably won’t do that.  These politicians need to serve their big political donors, and their big donors don’t want their security personnel disarmed.  Sure the liberal politician could disarm the little people on the train.  But those same politicians had better not disarm the limousines!  The left coast politicians will follow their campaign money and leave the rich donors with their guns.

The law is on our side.  Yes, conservative judges recognized the right of poor people to protect themselves.  The Peruta decision from the ninth circuit court recognized the right of ordinary citizens to carry arms outside the home for self-defense.  Unfortunately, liberal politicians don’t care what the court says.  They will appeal the Peruta decision.  They will appeal the case to the Supreme Court no matter what it costs or the ruling of the lower courts.  The politicians will appeal the case because politicians listen when anti-gun campaign money talks.

[  The people who pay to take our guns away are planning to keep theirs.  ]

Rich celebrities rent their security while citizens in rural California have to provide their own.  Thank God the sheriffs from rural counties recognize that fact.  Once you get outside Los Angeles and San Francisco, the citizens of California are pretty reasonable.  They know self-defense isn’t comfortable or easy.  They also know it is reliable.  Only the urban politician will pretend otherwise.

Public safety budgets are hard hit in debt ridden California.  The middle class voter in Los Angeles will get soon spend thousands of dollars on bars for their windows, and for home and car security systems.  These same middle class voters will get tired of being defenseless when they take that first step outside their home. Their out-of-town visitors will be the exception, and maybe the out of town guest will volunteer to carry the trash bin to the curb late at night.  The out-of-town guest with a carry license is one of the few safe people in Los Angeles.

That is obvious to us.  Give them time and the Angelinos will figure this out for themselves.  It will be a sea change when the Los Angeles residents ask their out-of-town guests why the guests don’t have their carry permits!  Replay that same story in San Francisco and Oakland.

There is also a regulatory side to the culture change of self-defense.  Crazy California has allowed cities and counties to preempt state law and enact their own firearms regulations.  You can count on liberal-dominated cities to further restrict their citizen’s rights of self-defense.  There are two sides to that political coin.  Responsible counties could use those same state regulations to promote self-defense.   Sheriffs could help train armed civilians.  School staff could be encouraged to provide armed protection in private schools.  Those shall-issue counties might even recognize concealed carry licenses from out-of-state gun owners!

As the gun culture expands, the urban middle class will eventually figure out what the rest of us have known for a while.  They will see they have the right and the duty to protect their family.  The smart middle class of Silicon Valley will finally ask why they must be disarmed while their neighbors working the farm fields of California’s central valley can protect themselves.  The final step is for the urban resident to pay some attention to politics and change how they vote for sheriff.

The gun-grabbing candidate for sheriff will promise public safety.. someday, while warning that their will be blood flowing in the streets if citizens were allowed to defend themselves.  The experience of the average voter will tell them otherwise.  Another candidate will say honest citizens need to protect themselves until the police arrive.  Sensitized voters will hear the important difference between the candidates.

Those cultural changes won’t happen overnight.  Yes, politics also takes money, but there are about 8.3 million gun owners in California.  They too will have to pay attention to politics.  California gun owners will have to donate to political campaigns rather than buy their next box of ammo.  The sheriffs, even urban sheriffs, will follow the will of the voters who elect them.  All this happens once California voters accept their responsibility for self-defense.

Is your state any different?

 

** Images provided by Oleg Volk. Olegvolk.net

This is part three of a three part series on self-defense.  Here is part one and here is part two.

About Rob Morse:
By day, Rob Morse works in Southern California as a mild mannered engineer for a defense contractor. By night he writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Gun Rights Magazine, www.gunrightsmagazine.com/contributors/rob-morse/ and writes the SlowFacts blog. www.slowfacts.wordpress.com . He also loves the M1911 and shoots combat handgun on the weekends.