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Personal Judgement
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

If you make enough midnight runs to the store or ATM you are inviting trouble. That still doesn't change the need to run these errands. Some risks, like drunk or sleepy drivers only require alertness and the judgement to know whether to speed up, slow down, or swerve right or left. Hopefully you are awake enough (and sober enough) to have these qualities.

Then there's the occasional person who feels you are merely the guardian of his property and wishes to forcibly reclaim it. Recently I acquired a small 9mm pistol to keeping in mind the need to protect myself in my vehicle. I chose the weapon I did based on my limited shooting experience and skills (and even more limited time to practice.). I also considered the probability that I would be shooting with my weak hand, which is arthritic and has carpal tunnel syndrome. I also considered that anything bigger would be extremely loud in a car and how this would effect my shooting on follow up shots.

I'm sure some bureaucrat somewhere would have been happy to stick me with a .38 Special revolver (which is that much less gun than 9x19 mm,just less enough not to risk my life on) or a .45 Long Colt or ACP (which I'd have trouble handling with my weak hand.). Which is why I'm not real happy about gun control supporters who are now clamoring for "reasonable regulation" now that Heller is the law of the land. These guys are trying to pretend that safe in some office they can tell me what gun i need at two in the morning making an emergency run to the ATM or 7-11 and that same gun is what an abused woman trying to keep her abuser from coming into her house needs, as does some rancher who has to worry about wild dogs and pumas getting into his livestock.

I'm probably not voting for Obama. Nevertheless he had it half right when he said the defensive weapon needs of people in the sticks is different from those of people in the inner city. The fact is each one of us has different defensive needs, and each one of us should be free to pick the weapon we want to bet our lives, liberty, and property on. After all it's we who have to weigh our circumstances.

I'm sure many readers of TLE have bought guns and other tools based on what they perceived their needs to be. You may have picked items that an expert (or "expert") would disparage. Yet the choice should be ultimately ours, as we are the ones who will have to live with the consequences.

Perhaps that is the secret of gun control's appeal to so many otherwise decent folk. They don't want to admit that people belong to themselves, and must therefor be left free to pick their own books, clothing, food or tools and weapons, not merely use the ones assigned them by their masters.

Only one question remains, are they wannabe masters, or merely slaves afraid to shed their chains?

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