Hope all y\u2019all\u2019s Christmases went well.\u00a0 Spent mine at home base, and was reminded how good it is to be among those people with solid core values who constitute what some call The Gun Culture. Christmas Eve was spent at a small dinner party with friends, among whom the armed far outnumbered the unarmed. Dress code was \u201cchilly weather casual,\u201d and when the coats came off it was apparent that the hosting residence would be the worst possible target for home invaders.<\/p>\n
Among just the ladies I counted an open-carried, engraved Smith & Wesson Performance Center 9mm, a 20-shot Springfield Armory XDm 9mm, and a snub-nose .38 or two. One sweet grandmother was carrying a Kel-Tec P3AT .380 automatic in the pocket of her jeans. The next morning, she would discover a more powerful +P-rated Smith & Wesson Model 642 Airweight .38 Special snubby under the Christmas tree, a gift from her loving husband of many years.<\/p>\n
Among the guys present, our host was open-carrying a fancy custom Browning Hi-Power 9mm. He was wearing it for sentimental reasons: it was the first gun his wife gave him after they were married. (Most of the time, he wears a Springfield XD chambered for .357 SIG, these days.) The oldest among us generally has a Charter Arms .38 in his pocket, and the second oldest was wearing a customized Colt Government Model he\u2019s had for some 35 years. There was a father-son pair carrying Glocks, chambered for .357 SIG and 9mm respectively. Two of us were wearing S&W Military & Police Compact autos discreetly concealed, one in 9mm and mine in .357. Another fella figured on an evening of peace on Earth and good will toward men, he could get by with just a five-shot S&W in his pocket. No one complained; some of the other guys were carrying the same guns for backup. One lone male was ostensibly unarmed, but we figured we had enough spares to cover for him\u2026<\/p>\n
What would the police have thought? Well, not counting off duty LE presence at the party, three uniformed officers showed up after their day shifts ended, to shoot on the adjacent privately-owned range to verify sights and \u201czero\u201d with their AR15s. All were wearing their duty sidearms, of course, and none blinked at the hardware on display at the party. Cops generally know who the good people are, as surely as they know who the bad guys are.<\/p>\n
Many of us at that party found guns under the Christmas tree the next morning. It\u2019s a gift that speaks of a giver who trusts the recipient, and that\u2019s not something that comes out of every beribboned package. From Ralphie\u2019s Red Ryder BB gun in the classic film \u201cA Christmas Story,\u201d to your own first .22 under the tree long ago, to which ones you received or gave this year\u2026please share with us YOUR \u201cChristmas Gun\u201d stories!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hope all y\u2019all\u2019s Christmases went well.\u00a0 Spent mine at home base, and was reminded how good it is to be among those people with solid core values who constitute what some call The Gun Culture. Christmas Eve was spent at a small dinner party with friends, among whom the armed far outnumbered the unarmed. Dress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}