CANADA: TOO SCARY FOR SOME PEOPLE
Aug. 13th, 2012 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogBy now you’ve heard the one about the off-duty Kalamazoo policeman vacationing in Calgary who wished he’d brought his gun with him to protect himself from Canadian rodeo promoters.
With a set-up like that, who needs a punchline?
Anyway, Walt Wawra is currently undergoing his 15 minutes of Interweb fame after writing the Calgary Herald about his terrifying experience of being asked by twopunks men if he’d been to the Stampede (as in the Calgary Stampede, which is basically a big annual rodeo). Wawra apparently assumed this was a prelude to a mugging, and lamented over the fact that if he’d only been allowed to bring his gun into Canada, he’d be able to shoot those fuckers defend himself.
There’s some debate over just what the two guys were really doing. Calgary Cultural Ambassador Jenn Lutz says they were promoters handing out free tix to the Stampede. The media relations manager for the Stampede says they don’t promote the Stampede that way. And of course, without being there, it’s hard to know if the two guys were genuinely being scary or just over-enthusiastic.
Still, it’s worth passing on the story because it illustrates clearly that the current conservative meme that people should be free to carry guns with them anywhere and everywhere at all times in the name of protecting themselves is, at its core, one big Fear trip.
As long-time readers might know, I don’t support outlawing guns in the US. But I am wary of people who argue that they want to be able to carry guns everywhere because they want to feel safe. Safe from who? Street punks? Al Qaeda? James Holmes? Gays? Mexicans? Rodeo promoters? Barack Obama?
Wawra’s “OMG I have no gun” mentality tells me that he treats his gun like a security blanket. He feels safer with it, and is convinced he is in greater danger without it, even in what most people would consider a relatively benign situation.
I realize it may just be a consequence of him being a police officer, which must make even the best cops feel like moving targets whether they’re armed or not. But my point still stands – if guns make you feel safer, that means yr living in fear. Which is justifiable in high-crime neighborhoods and war zones. In Nose Hill on vacation, not so much.
Man up,
This is dF
With a set-up like that, who needs a punchline?
Anyway, Walt Wawra is currently undergoing his 15 minutes of Interweb fame after writing the Calgary Herald about his terrifying experience of being asked by two
There’s some debate over just what the two guys were really doing. Calgary Cultural Ambassador Jenn Lutz says they were promoters handing out free tix to the Stampede. The media relations manager for the Stampede says they don’t promote the Stampede that way. And of course, without being there, it’s hard to know if the two guys were genuinely being scary or just over-enthusiastic.
Still, it’s worth passing on the story because it illustrates clearly that the current conservative meme that people should be free to carry guns with them anywhere and everywhere at all times in the name of protecting themselves is, at its core, one big Fear trip.
As long-time readers might know, I don’t support outlawing guns in the US. But I am wary of people who argue that they want to be able to carry guns everywhere because they want to feel safe. Safe from who? Street punks? Al Qaeda? James Holmes? Gays? Mexicans? Rodeo promoters? Barack Obama?
Wawra’s “OMG I have no gun” mentality tells me that he treats his gun like a security blanket. He feels safer with it, and is convinced he is in greater danger without it, even in what most people would consider a relatively benign situation.
I realize it may just be a consequence of him being a police officer, which must make even the best cops feel like moving targets whether they’re armed or not. But my point still stands – if guns make you feel safer, that means yr living in fear. Which is justifiable in high-crime neighborhoods and war zones. In Nose Hill on vacation, not so much.
Man up,
This is dF
