While upon surface observation, it sounded like a good story. An anti-gunner is going to experience the world of gun ownership. A "walk a month in their shoes," if you will.
Almost nothing could be further from the truth. I'd believe a Barack Obama birth certificate before I believed Ms. Yewman was going to have some sort of objective experience. This isn't "Black Like Me" territory. This is an exploitative viewpoint and filtered with the most negative connotation, twisted and spun like your favorite t-shirt in the washer.
Intelligent readers will see the article for what it is. Hyperbole, purposeful ignorance, and fear mongering. Readers who hang on every word will further ingrain wrong and misleading information in efforts to propagate more fear and ignorance.
So let's begin tearing into this poor excuse of an "exercise of rights."
First part. She's afraid of just carrying the gun in public. She establishes herself as a staunch anti-gun advocate, yet her she is, incredibly fearful of wearing a gun on her hip. Why is there any fear? Is she afraid of it accidentally going off when she stands up? It might magically shoot a coffee store patron?My hands are shaking; my adrenaline is surging.No, it’s not from the latte I just inhaled or because this is the first time in two years I’ve been in a Starbucks since declaring a boycott on its open-carry gun policy.What’s got me jittery this morning is the 9mm Glock that’s holstered on my hip. Me, lead gun policy protester at the 2010 Starbuck’s shareholder meeting. Me, a board member of the Brady Campaign. Me, the author of a book about the impact of gun violence,Beyond the Bullet.
Ok, so her second part here is laughable. She's already violated her rule number 4. Obviously she's not prepared to protect herself in public if she's incredibly nervous just hanging out at a coffee shop. The lack of preparedness goes on later in the article, and it just shows how much the author is irrationally portraying a new gun owner.Yes, I bought a handgun and will carry it everywhere I go over the next 30 days. I have four rules: Carry it with me at all times, follow the laws of my state, only do what is minimally required for permits, licensing, purchasing and carrying, and finally be prepared to use it for protecting myself at home or in public.Why? Following the Newtown massacre in December, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, told the country, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I wondered what would it be like to be that good guy with a gun? What would it be like to get that gun, live with that gun, be out and about with that gun. Finally, what happens when you don’t want that gun any more?
The permit process in Washington State varies from office to office. My Concealed Pistol License (CPL) took two weeks to process when I applied in 2006. I hear stories of some law enforcement (LE) offices taking the entire lawful window to issue the CPLs. Some LE offices issue them within 30 minutes. She does not identify the actual time it took for her license to be processed. Very misleading writing here, and an honest writer would have clarified the point.I decided to find out.Getting the permit to carry a concealed weapon was simple. I filled out a form, had my fingerprints taken for a background check and paid $56.50. No training required. It took far longer to get my dog a license.
Wow. A gun show and two dealers. This is a gun, lady. It's a few hundred dollar purchase. If you don't shop around when spending that type of money, congrats on having plenty of disposable income. However, I bet you put more thought and time into buying a pair of shoes online than you did this gun. If you're going to use it for personal defense, it might actually help if you know a little bit. Of course, she's just out to prove a point on how "easy" it is to purchase a gun and carry it around. She never really intends on using it for protection. It's a prop for a disingenuous article to further the negative message about guns.I started my 30-day gun trial with a little window-shopping. I visited a gun show and two gun dealers. I ended up buying a Glock 9mm handgun from Tony, a gun dealer four miles from my house. I settled on this model because it was a smallish gun and because Tony recommended it for my stated purposes of protecting myself and my home.It was obvious from the way I handled the gun that I knew nothing about firearms. Tony sold it to me anyway. The whole thing took 7 minutes. As a gratified consumer, I thought, “Well, that was easy.” Then the terrifying reality hit me, “Holy hell, that was EASY.” Too easy. I still knew nothing about firearms.
Ms. Yewman purchased a gun she'd never shot. She must just purchase jeans without trying them on. Or ignores the samples at Costco. And knowing she didn't know anything about guns, she neglected to ask the seller for assistance. It's not the salesperson's job to treat you like an idiot. Ms. Yewman, YOU have the responsibility to be informed what you're purchasing.
And regarding the rights of Washington State citizens, open carry is permitted (with some common restrictions), and a CPL allows a buyer to bypass the background check, since one is done when the CPL is issued. It was easy because she spent the time earlier to get a CPL. If she did not have a CPL, the process would have been longer.
This is where all people familiar with guns lose it. Retarded is too good of a word to waste on Ms. Yewman. Fed by fear and Hollywood's "reality," Ms. Yewman is afraid of a gun right out of the box. Obviously she doesn't have the intellectual fortitude to realize guns require ammo. Otherwise it's just a paperweight. She is purposefully being an idiot customer. If she was really this dense, how did she ever figure out how to do laundry? Change mixing utensils on a KitchenAid mixer?Tony told me a Glock doesn’t have an external safety feature, so when I got home and opened the box and saw the magazine in the gun I freaked. I was too scared to try and eject it as thoughts flooded my mind of me accidentally shooting the gun and a bullet hitting my son in the house or rupturing the gas tank of my car, followed by an earth-shaking explosion. This was the first time my hands shook from the adrenaline surge and the first time I questioned the wisdom of this 30-day experiment.I needed help. I drove to where a police officer had pulled over another driver. Now, writing this, I realize that rolling up on an on-duty cop with a handgun in tow might not have been fully thought through.I told him I just bought a gun, had no clue how to use it. I asked him to make sure there were no bullets in the magazine or chamber. He took the magazine out and cleared the chamber. He assured me it was empty and showed me how to look. Then he told me how great the gun was and how he had one just like it.
She proceeds to panic and rolls up on a police officer, asking him how to use a handgun? Did this earth-shattering realization come to her just then, after the purchase? No, she's intentionally promoting her ignorant gun buyer persona. Too bad there's not places she could go to get experience handling firearms so she would have, at minimum, a cursory knowledge of guns. Or, even better, a digital database of information accessible almost anywhere, where she can type in her question and get millions of possible answers. If only that existed.
The cop is right, even if the author is being intentional. Too bad we can't make being an idiot illegal.The cop thought I was an idiot and suggested I take a class. But up to that point I’d done nothing wrong, nothing illegal.So here I sit at Starbucks, and the irony couldn’t be thicker. On March 12, 2010, I was surrounded by big hairy men with guns on their hips, yelling at me as I led a protest against Starbuck’s gun policy. Today, I’m surrounded by five-year-old boys sitting with their moms at the next table. Now I’m the one with a gun on her hip. The gun makes me more fearful than I could have imagined.In some way, I feel a certain vindication. I was right to protest Starbucks policy. Today, they have a woman with absolutely no firearms training and a Glock on her hip sitting within arm’s reach of small children, her hands shaking and adrenaline surging.
Ms. Yewman returns to the present, comparing her past experience in very derogatory, sexist commentary. And continues her fear mongering because she can't fathom the possibility that a gun is an inanimate object that requires an intentional, human act to function. Not to mention, in her entire narrative, she never mentions buying ammo or loading a magazine. For all we know, she's wearing an unloaded gun. Again, a clear violation of her own rules.
On a larger scale, a gun is a tool for self protection (modeling after the author's initial purpose of having this gun). Like any tool, you need to use it and learn how it works. No one is born with the innate sense of hammering. How many thumbs have we crushed? No one instantly picks up a paintbrush and completes the Mona Lisa. The author's explicit denial of personal responsibility and purchasing diligence is absurd, and anyone who promotes this article as a worthwhile experience in exercising the Second Amendment need to see it for what it really is: excusing responsibility.
The irrational argument Ms. Yewman is advocating is an empty, desperate plea that lacks any sort of personal responsibility and thought. Which is the crux of the anti-gun rhetoric. It's not just the act of disarming people. It's the furthering of an agenda to remove personal responsibility and accountability from the people, and making the government create laws to manage our behavior. Liberty? Individual rights? Ms. Yewman's so intent on exercising her First Amendment to villify the Second, she's skipped over the very tenets of our nation's founding purpose.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
