The fun of it all...

Observations.

Being a gun owner, user, and teacher for the last 40 years has led to some startling conclusions, not the least of which is the immutable fact that incredibly stupid people are part of the club.

Enter the enormously obese, and/or incredibly dumb looking and/or butt-ugly concealed carry novice. People in this category, think West Virginia, are accustomed to folks looking at them strangely, so accustomed that they've ignored the wide-eyed glances for a very long time.

Then they strap on a concealed weapon. Now, such dolts have the advantage over normal dolts, in that their physical deformities will ALWAYS mask the slight bulge, or print of a firearm, but NOW they are paying attention once again. Paying attention to the stares of incredulity, and assuming that they are being 'made'. For years I had not the heart to call this to their attention, and to be honest I still do not, but it gets harder and harder with each passing goober.

The 300 lb, 5 foot nothing sideshow of a human being slips a mini Kel-Tec into an inside-the-waistband holster, and never using the corner of his eye... because peripheral vision is not only impossible to spell but hard to pronounce...stares back at the unfortunate bystander who has just witnessed his arrival, and ALWAYS, take-it-to-the-bank ALWAYS knows in his heart of hearts that he's been identified as someone carrying a firearm.

(Now, this does not effect Larry the Lothario, because he presumes that the stares are coming from admirer's, when in reality it is he who is being made, and not Ronnie the Round.)

Ronnie then hastens to a gun board and breathtakingly announces that he's BEEN MADE, and beseeches the participants to help him hide his gun to prevent this from ever happening again. Ronnie tries holster after holster, position after position, GUN after GUN, but to no avail.

He's a printer, that's that, and by now has developed the pat-twitch that marks him as a carrier to anyone REALLY looking. Pat, tap, feel. Adjust belt, holster, gun. Repeat. Little children and wary mothers spot him for a pervert. Men take him for a self-groper, the kind akin to the baseball player who grabs his crotch in front of a national television audience. Wizened gun owners shake their heads and wonder if that 2nd Amendment deal is really worth being associated with this sort of people.

A sidebar to Ronnie's discombobulation is the fact that he's long since dispensed with carrying a round in the chamber because all of his constant fussing has made him wary of accidentally pulling the trigger. He layers his clothing, you know you've seen him, the heavily perspiring, red faced, pudge waddle that's wearing a longsleeve sweatshirt in August. In Miami. He layers to prevent the stares, but, gasp, there always seem to be more than ever, and the layers are now so thick that extricating the weapon in an emergency has long since become a virtual impossibility.

"Yeah, I used to carry," Ronnie then says, "But it became such a hassle that I hadda give it up. Too many busybodies always making me, and I might just as well have carried a sign that said SHOOT ME FIRST I HAVE A GUN."

And that's when the rest of us exhale, because the gene pool has just been chlorinated. Ronnie is back to being the victim he was meant to be, and all is right with the world.