Hi all,
I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but it goes to the core of why I'll carry and what I think about that.
Today really got me thinking about sheepdogs, "sheeple", and the responsibility I'll be taking on when I receive my permit and carry a firearm.
My wife and I have two kids; A boy, 2 yrs 8 mos, and a girl, 8 mos. We went to a park in Hollywood (Broward County) today to meet up with my mom who lives in Dade and my aunt, my cousin and her three triplet girls, 2 yrs 7 mos. They're all down here from NYC, which is where I grew up.
Let me start by saying nothing bad actually happened, but enough stuff occurred to keep my family's safety on my mind for the three hours we were at the park.
The park has a couple of play areas. One is obviously geared toward toddlers. It is fenced off and has low slides and small climbing apparatus. The other is available to kids of all ages, but the main set piece is a big climbable plastic pirate ship. The slides are plastic and there is a water spraying apparatus. There is no posted age limit, but it is quite obvious that the apparatus is designed for kids who would be happy to run around on a big plastic pirate ship. What age would that cap-out at? ten? thirteen tops?
No matter where I am with my family I am basically in a state of yellow awareness. I try to keep my head on a swivel without annoying my wife. So when we got to the park, I took a look around to see what we'd be dealing with for the next few hours. Most of what I saw was no big deal. I saw families having bbq's and birthday parties under the various shelters the park provides. I saw other picnic tables full of people and I saw small children (6 yrs and under) playing at the larger, unfenced play area. We walked/wheeled over to a picnic table next to the play area and started putting a water-diaper on my son so he could splash around in the spraying water. We were still waiting on my aunt and cousins to arrive.
The only person who caught my attention was a young man (early 20's?) who was playing in the water area with what I assume were his younger siblings and cousins. He was playing a little rough and jumping around on the pirate ship a bit too much for my taste, but he didn't seem drunk and he wasn't intentionally causing any problems so I chalked it up to being too much of a clown. He ended up being no problem at all.
My son ran around a bit under my watchful eye, and I stood next to him while he played. The water was spraying my sneakers and pants-bottoms, but I didn't want any of the bigger kids to accidentaly run into my boy so I stayed close. Again, I wouldn't have blamed anyone for accidentally running into him, kids are kids, but there was no need to leave him exposed. After a few minutes I heard some lumbering running steps behind me. A rather large young man came running straight into the spraying water and threw himself on the ground and laid there. He seemed to be trying to cool off. He then stood and I noticed that he was holding up his shorts so as not to expose his boxers, which the water was proving were made of a very thin and see-through material. The shorts were cargo type. At first I chuckled wondering why he had unbuttoned his shorts, but then I realized that they weren't open, they were (literally) at least three waist sizes too big. They looked like the shorts he wore before he lost 60 lbs or something. I quickly realized that this young man's shorts were a consscious fashion choice on his part and that they were supposed to hang beneath his buttocks as the young folks are wont to do nowadays. OK, I have little use for "gangstas", but I try not to judge folks based on appearance, so who cares what I think? This kid could be the nicest guy in the world, so what if I think he dresses funny? The thing that DID bother me, though, was that he was easily 5 ft 10 inches tall (I'm 5 ' 7"), weighed close to 170 lbs (I weigh 190) and he couldn't have been less than 16 or 17 yrs old.
And he was going to play on a plastic pirate ship?
I now went to conditon orange. This young man began climbing the bars and running around the pirate ship. he slid down the slides wet, which just made him slide faster. Each time he slid he sprawled at the bottom in a heap that shook the ground near him. This was a physically grown man playing on child's apparatus at full speed. His younger friends/cousins/sibling soon joined him. There were three of them and they looked to range in age from 12 to 14. They were much smaller than he, but still bigger than the dozen or so toddlers that they were weaving in and out of on the plastic ship. They were rough-housing and cursing and jumping and sliding, and I knew it was just a matter of time before some little child got hurt. Well, it was NOT going to be my boy. I lifted my son up and carried him back to the picnic table. He started crying, of course. My wife (who lives in condition white) asked why I wasn't letting him play. I pointed out what was going on and she understood, but suggested I just let him play in the water and keep an eye on him. I looked to where the young man and his cohorts came from and saw a family having a cook-out. There were 5 or 6 men and 4 or 5 women. They had a few small children, but most of the adults were drinking beverages from brown bottles and the music was a bit loud for my tastes. I felt it was not a scene conducive to maintaining orderly behavior among the adolescent members of that clan.
I told her that I wasn't sure how long we'd be staying if this kept up. I got the obligatory eye-roll and "just relax" talk, but stood my ground. I explained that under no circumstances would harm come to my children, even by accident, if I can anticipate and avoid it. And I didn't give a rat's a$$ if my cousin gets annoyed with me for leaving early.
Nevertheless, I walked my son over to the water and he splashed about. I did my best to stay between him and the rowdy big kids, and in the end nothing bad happened. Btu they got dangerously close on several occasions.
As time wore on, that family party over there had its share of shouting. And one of the family members did climb into a newish Chrysler 300 and squeal the shiny rimmed tires for 5 or 6 seconds as he weaved laughing and fist-pumping his way through the parking lot not 30 feet from running toddlers. The big rowdy kid was kind enough to go get a belt so he could tighten his pants around his upper thighs! And after watching several incidents of parents scooping up their kids and taking them out of harm's way (one of which included a dad who narrowly grabbed his crawling baby from in front of the slide as the 17 year old was whipping down again to the bottom - that baby would have needed an ambulance) my wife even commented that these kids were a bunch of a-holes. And when they weren't rampaging like visigoths through the plastic pirate ship, they were on the swing set where two of them would swing and the other three would run betwen the swings trying not to get hit by their pendulous family members.
I never said anything to the big kid or his cousins. My wife suggested I should go say something to the family with the brown bottles. :smack
I explained what I'd been reading about in the Gutmacher book. I felt that saying something to drunk people about how ill-behaved their kin are was a from of escalation that was unnecessary at the time. In addition, I was the only male representing my family and the rest were three women and five children under three years of age. Sun Tzu would not have recommened a strong stance here.
Needless to say, since I still have another 60+ days to wait for my CCW, I was unarmed.
We eventually broke for lunch and headed to the official toddler lot and the day ended without incident.
But the whole thing got me thinking...What if I was armed?
The big kid, the family, none of them had a gun or a knife that i saw. Even if I had a gun, I almost certainly could not have used it. And unless I felt a forcible felony was going to occur (hard to prove when they don't have weapons), I was probably the only one who'd go to jail if the gun came away from its holster.
At the same time, the danger was real. This big kid could have been warned several yimes and still ended up hurting my son. And unless the whole family descended on me while I whacked the kid in the mouth, again, a gun would be useless.
It's strange. I realized that carrying a concealed weapon doesn't solve every problem. At least not if I want to stay out of prison and not get sued. All I could really do today was gather up my family and leave.
And I also got to seriously thinking about how my wife (whom I love dearly and we have a phenomenal and awesome marriage - let there be no doubt or question about that) is basically a sheep. She chooses not to believe that bad things can happen. She wants our boy to grow up adorable and happy, and I have decided to raise him as if he were John Connor, and I'll train him to lead the human resistance against the machines after judgement day. I've asked her if she'd be willing to grab my Beretta if someone broke in while I wasn't home and she basically said "no". I like to believe her motherly instincts would take over and she'd do whatever needed to be done to protect our family, but for now, I'm IT. I read threads about guys buying guns for their wives and I chuckle at the thought in my home.
Bottom line: I'm taking on a huge responsibility here. I have to be smart. I have to know when to use my gun and when not to because a mistake on either side of that dilemma can rob my family of ME. I have to control my emotions and my fears. I have to be protective without being the aggressor. I have to be wary of escalation. i have to set up defenses for my family even when i'm not around.
There's a lot going on. There's a lot to know. I just have to make sure I'm ready for how serious this all is. I have no doubt that if necessary I'll give my life or take someone else's to defend my family. But I think the best thing to do is make sure that to whatever extent possible, I keep my family out of harm's way in the first place.
The moral of our story: Avoidance should be the first method of self-defense.
Thanks for reading.
Dan
I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but it goes to the core of why I'll carry and what I think about that.
Today really got me thinking about sheepdogs, "sheeple", and the responsibility I'll be taking on when I receive my permit and carry a firearm.
My wife and I have two kids; A boy, 2 yrs 8 mos, and a girl, 8 mos. We went to a park in Hollywood (Broward County) today to meet up with my mom who lives in Dade and my aunt, my cousin and her three triplet girls, 2 yrs 7 mos. They're all down here from NYC, which is where I grew up.
Let me start by saying nothing bad actually happened, but enough stuff occurred to keep my family's safety on my mind for the three hours we were at the park.
The park has a couple of play areas. One is obviously geared toward toddlers. It is fenced off and has low slides and small climbing apparatus. The other is available to kids of all ages, but the main set piece is a big climbable plastic pirate ship. The slides are plastic and there is a water spraying apparatus. There is no posted age limit, but it is quite obvious that the apparatus is designed for kids who would be happy to run around on a big plastic pirate ship. What age would that cap-out at? ten? thirteen tops?
No matter where I am with my family I am basically in a state of yellow awareness. I try to keep my head on a swivel without annoying my wife. So when we got to the park, I took a look around to see what we'd be dealing with for the next few hours. Most of what I saw was no big deal. I saw families having bbq's and birthday parties under the various shelters the park provides. I saw other picnic tables full of people and I saw small children (6 yrs and under) playing at the larger, unfenced play area. We walked/wheeled over to a picnic table next to the play area and started putting a water-diaper on my son so he could splash around in the spraying water. We were still waiting on my aunt and cousins to arrive.
The only person who caught my attention was a young man (early 20's?) who was playing in the water area with what I assume were his younger siblings and cousins. He was playing a little rough and jumping around on the pirate ship a bit too much for my taste, but he didn't seem drunk and he wasn't intentionally causing any problems so I chalked it up to being too much of a clown. He ended up being no problem at all.
My son ran around a bit under my watchful eye, and I stood next to him while he played. The water was spraying my sneakers and pants-bottoms, but I didn't want any of the bigger kids to accidentaly run into my boy so I stayed close. Again, I wouldn't have blamed anyone for accidentally running into him, kids are kids, but there was no need to leave him exposed. After a few minutes I heard some lumbering running steps behind me. A rather large young man came running straight into the spraying water and threw himself on the ground and laid there. He seemed to be trying to cool off. He then stood and I noticed that he was holding up his shorts so as not to expose his boxers, which the water was proving were made of a very thin and see-through material. The shorts were cargo type. At first I chuckled wondering why he had unbuttoned his shorts, but then I realized that they weren't open, they were (literally) at least three waist sizes too big. They looked like the shorts he wore before he lost 60 lbs or something. I quickly realized that this young man's shorts were a consscious fashion choice on his part and that they were supposed to hang beneath his buttocks as the young folks are wont to do nowadays. OK, I have little use for "gangstas", but I try not to judge folks based on appearance, so who cares what I think? This kid could be the nicest guy in the world, so what if I think he dresses funny? The thing that DID bother me, though, was that he was easily 5 ft 10 inches tall (I'm 5 ' 7"), weighed close to 170 lbs (I weigh 190) and he couldn't have been less than 16 or 17 yrs old.
And he was going to play on a plastic pirate ship?
I now went to conditon orange. This young man began climbing the bars and running around the pirate ship. he slid down the slides wet, which just made him slide faster. Each time he slid he sprawled at the bottom in a heap that shook the ground near him. This was a physically grown man playing on child's apparatus at full speed. His younger friends/cousins/sibling soon joined him. There were three of them and they looked to range in age from 12 to 14. They were much smaller than he, but still bigger than the dozen or so toddlers that they were weaving in and out of on the plastic ship. They were rough-housing and cursing and jumping and sliding, and I knew it was just a matter of time before some little child got hurt. Well, it was NOT going to be my boy. I lifted my son up and carried him back to the picnic table. He started crying, of course. My wife (who lives in condition white) asked why I wasn't letting him play. I pointed out what was going on and she understood, but suggested I just let him play in the water and keep an eye on him. I looked to where the young man and his cohorts came from and saw a family having a cook-out. There were 5 or 6 men and 4 or 5 women. They had a few small children, but most of the adults were drinking beverages from brown bottles and the music was a bit loud for my tastes. I felt it was not a scene conducive to maintaining orderly behavior among the adolescent members of that clan.
I told her that I wasn't sure how long we'd be staying if this kept up. I got the obligatory eye-roll and "just relax" talk, but stood my ground. I explained that under no circumstances would harm come to my children, even by accident, if I can anticipate and avoid it. And I didn't give a rat's a$$ if my cousin gets annoyed with me for leaving early.
Nevertheless, I walked my son over to the water and he splashed about. I did my best to stay between him and the rowdy big kids, and in the end nothing bad happened. Btu they got dangerously close on several occasions.
As time wore on, that family party over there had its share of shouting. And one of the family members did climb into a newish Chrysler 300 and squeal the shiny rimmed tires for 5 or 6 seconds as he weaved laughing and fist-pumping his way through the parking lot not 30 feet from running toddlers. The big rowdy kid was kind enough to go get a belt so he could tighten his pants around his upper thighs! And after watching several incidents of parents scooping up their kids and taking them out of harm's way (one of which included a dad who narrowly grabbed his crawling baby from in front of the slide as the 17 year old was whipping down again to the bottom - that baby would have needed an ambulance) my wife even commented that these kids were a bunch of a-holes. And when they weren't rampaging like visigoths through the plastic pirate ship, they were on the swing set where two of them would swing and the other three would run betwen the swings trying not to get hit by their pendulous family members.
I never said anything to the big kid or his cousins. My wife suggested I should go say something to the family with the brown bottles. :smack
I explained what I'd been reading about in the Gutmacher book. I felt that saying something to drunk people about how ill-behaved their kin are was a from of escalation that was unnecessary at the time. In addition, I was the only male representing my family and the rest were three women and five children under three years of age. Sun Tzu would not have recommened a strong stance here.
Needless to say, since I still have another 60+ days to wait for my CCW, I was unarmed.
We eventually broke for lunch and headed to the official toddler lot and the day ended without incident.
But the whole thing got me thinking...What if I was armed?
The big kid, the family, none of them had a gun or a knife that i saw. Even if I had a gun, I almost certainly could not have used it. And unless I felt a forcible felony was going to occur (hard to prove when they don't have weapons), I was probably the only one who'd go to jail if the gun came away from its holster.
At the same time, the danger was real. This big kid could have been warned several yimes and still ended up hurting my son. And unless the whole family descended on me while I whacked the kid in the mouth, again, a gun would be useless.
It's strange. I realized that carrying a concealed weapon doesn't solve every problem. At least not if I want to stay out of prison and not get sued. All I could really do today was gather up my family and leave.
And I also got to seriously thinking about how my wife (whom I love dearly and we have a phenomenal and awesome marriage - let there be no doubt or question about that) is basically a sheep. She chooses not to believe that bad things can happen. She wants our boy to grow up adorable and happy, and I have decided to raise him as if he were John Connor, and I'll train him to lead the human resistance against the machines after judgement day. I've asked her if she'd be willing to grab my Beretta if someone broke in while I wasn't home and she basically said "no". I like to believe her motherly instincts would take over and she'd do whatever needed to be done to protect our family, but for now, I'm IT. I read threads about guys buying guns for their wives and I chuckle at the thought in my home.
Bottom line: I'm taking on a huge responsibility here. I have to be smart. I have to know when to use my gun and when not to because a mistake on either side of that dilemma can rob my family of ME. I have to control my emotions and my fears. I have to be protective without being the aggressor. I have to be wary of escalation. i have to set up defenses for my family even when i'm not around.
There's a lot going on. There's a lot to know. I just have to make sure I'm ready for how serious this all is. I have no doubt that if necessary I'll give my life or take someone else's to defend my family. But I think the best thing to do is make sure that to whatever extent possible, I keep my family out of harm's way in the first place.
The moral of our story: Avoidance should be the first method of self-defense.
Thanks for reading.
Dan
If my wife read that someone had to advise me that it's OK to judge a book by its cover, she'd laugh. I'm the first person to walk into a room and point to someone and say "that's the bad guy." I'm just trying to become less judgemental. What's the quote? "I want to be the person my dog believes me to be."
