Posted on 08/29/2012 8:05:31 AM PDT by marktwain
On my way to work, there are a few side streets I can take should the roads back up a bit. My detour takes me through some neighborhoods you’re more likely to see in old episodes of Cops than Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
A gentleman was walking his dog this morning, carrying an aluminum baseball bat. It was clear he wasn’t heading over to Jose Conseco’s house to practice and the way he was holding it at the low-ready indicated he intended to use it immediately if needed. As a bat, it was too short to act as a cane, and unless his dog was just extremely stubborn and needed ‘encouragement’ it was clear he meant it as a defensive weapon.
Regardless of what time of day you head through this neighborhood, you’ll see several prime examples of the species baggius pantus (including the ever so present subspecies aurum toofium) milling around. Baggius pantus are well known for their career choices as Wealth Redistribution Specialists and I understood why Mr. Dog Walker felt he may need to have a bat in case any of said associates decided to have an impromptu sales pitch.
What’s interesting to me is that there was no mistaking the bat’s use for anything other than a weapon. It was a clear sign that Mr. Dog Walker was saying “Leave me alone or I’ll bash in your head”. Hence, he was openly carrying. I support his right to do so and should he have wanted to protect himself with a knife, a sword, or a gun, I see no reason to deny him the right to use a more effective tool (while a bat makes a handy bludgeon, it still requires close distance and considerable strength to wield).
The anti’s out there would have preferred this man be at the mercy of of thugs and thieves than have a better chance.
Tools are tools. They carry no will or intent in and of themselves. Disparaging, dissuading, or outlawing their use only has the purpose of maintaining control. Period.
I often see little old ladies carrying a stick while walking their dogs.
I remember being sent a copy of a ‘letter to the editor’ years ago from New York Times about bat-day at a Yankee’s game and all the ‘armed’ people drinking excessively.
It was tongue in cheek best I recall, but got the point across.
I live out in the country in a little republican ghetto in Western NY and carry a bat when taking my daily walk but it is for the few morons who refuse to keep their precious dogs on a leash and I have on occasion needed some protection from those dogs who most definitely need to be restrained.
Baggius pantium and Aurum toofium are more afraid of the dog then the owner. That won’t stop them from catcalling from the other side of the street, about why he has a bat.
Baggius pantium et al have grown up all their lives with bluff and challenge and rarely do they let a challenge go unanswered. It’s part of their culture. If they percieve that the owner has a weak dog, they will bring a pitbull or a rottie around to attack the dog and/or it’s owner. If the owner has a pit, they will ask if he wants to fight it or breed it. They don’t see them as faithful companions, but just tools to further their vicious and avaricious lives.
If this guy had walked down the street with an AR 15 around his shoulders, they would have just called someone on their government issued cricket phone to bring “da chopper” (street for semi automatic rifle or in rare cases fully automatic rifle). It’s all about oneupmanship with them, usually predicated by a loud “aww hell naw!!!”.
Best just to live away from them.
And Roy Underhill of the Woodwright’s Shop walks around carrying an ax; what’s your point?
A tool is just a tool.
My neighbor is an attractive middle-aged lady who frequently walks her dogs late at night in not particularly good areas.
I asked her if she ever felt nervous and she said not.
Of course, this may have something to do with her two dogs being rotties, one of them the largest I’ve ever seen.
Good solution, because unlike a cane, bat, or other weapon, her dogs cannot be taken away and used against her.
Wurlitzer,
Ya lost me at “republican ghetto in Western NY “?
What, a republican enclave in N.Y.? Land of the stoopid lib?
It seems to me that a good alternative open carry would be a Japanese 21” blade wakazashi sword in a hip scabbard. Rather light and fast, it is not as unwieldy or cumbersome as a full sword, yet give a good range defense for close quarters action for both stab and slash.
http://www.coldsteel.com/japanwarrior.html
A good complement to gun conceal carry.
It is also short enough for behind the arm concealment, which is a great trick for quick use.
Yeah go figure, by dumb luck I located one of the few pockets of Republicans in NYS, albeit many are RINOs
One of my few regrets in life is passing up an original handmade version (damascas type blade and all) with scabbard that I discovered at a small New Hampshire gun store about 1980. It was pure beauty in a blade, and about the sharpest thing I have ever seen. I am sure it was a war trophy.
They were only asking $250, which would be about $1000 in today’s dollars, but I was a poor graduate student on US individual ready reserve temporary duty trying to make a few extra bucks... and I simply did not have the money available...
Tragically, because of the elder Assad, the exact techniques to the making of Damascus steel have been lost. Several families in Damascus had kept the secret of its manufacture, but eventually they all died off in recent years, taking their techniques with them.
Even they had never been able to find out why, at irregular intervals, a particular blade was truly extraordinary. But the secret was that in the technique, every now and then, they would get a concentration of fullerene carbon, the odd, soccer ball shaped carbon molecules, in a particular piece of steel.
Fullerene occurs naturally, as a small percentage of ordinary soot. And once it had been discovered as a discreet molecular form, today we quickly figured out how to separate and concentrate it from soot.
This means that with some learned metallurgy, there is now the potential to make knife and sword blades of extraordinary quality, even better than the finest Damascus steel or samurai sword (which it has been discovered, was slightly over-folded in its manufacture).
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