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Tomorrow I’ll be waking up early to join my old co-host Joe Mangiacotti on my old station WCRN 830 AM Worcester to talk about Mr. Cuomo of CNN’s incredible gaffe, although if time permits we might get a few other topics in.
You can listen to the show here.
There I was, running last minute errands like most of us do in Walmart. I had my two-year old son in a cart, and thankfully no masks to impede my breathing as I raced around grabbing last minute items for our weekend party. When I was satisfied that I had enough chips, salsa, sausages, and glow sticks for the six families visiting us that day, I dutifully lined up to have everything scanned.
That’s when I noticed the guy next to me with an open carry pistol. I couldn’t have felt safer.
I want to first note that it was a rather large pistol. My concealed carry pistol, a Kahr PM9, is small. It’s not even as big as my hand. I can put it in my pants pocket and you’d never notice it. Kahr ran with the “Slim is sexy” and “Thin is sexy” for their PM and P series pistols for a while. They are a great pistol if you need to get yourself out of a jam.
The Walmart guys pistol was not small. It was more along the size of a 1911. He did have a nice, very sturdy holster, so it wasn’t going to fall off. The guy had a second clip on his belt as well. I was trying not to stare, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to take a picture.
What I continue to find odd is that people are frightened by this guy. I much prefer that law abiding citizens wear their pistols in the open. For starters, if you walked into Walmart thinking you’re going to shoot the place and the people full of holes, and you start seeing guys and gals walking around with guns, you might think twice about that. Even better, in the time leading up to that, you might see enough weapons every time you go out that you stop even planning such a crime. Knowing that someone could stop you right away from achieving your goals, even if you didn’t care about your own life, might be enough to make you reconsider your decisions.
But further still, if there was an actual incident, I’d rather have the open carry guy there. I don’t know how good of a shot he is with the pistol, but even if he simply shoots back at a would-be criminal, that’s enough for me. Unless you’re in the military, police or a hardened gang member, you tend to run and hide when people shoot at you. Standing up while bullets fly by you is a chilling experience that causes impulse reactions unless you have experienced it multiple times. That would easily give me enough time to leave the store with my kid.
I’m also not worried about getting accidentally shot by this guy. His holster was solid, much better than my first holster (which ironically dumped my pistol on the floor once in a Walmart checkout line…thankfully, the clerk didn’t bat an eye!). The accident rate of pistol holders seems to be dropping steadily, thanks in large part to the availability of professionally run pistol orientation classes. It was significantly harder back in the day for a new shooter to get a class on using their weapon unless they had family members already versed in shooting. Now, nearly every large gun store offers classes that teach you everything from maintenance to the laws on protecting yourself from criminals. Even young people carrying on campus have significantly lower rates of mishaps than before.
We need more open carry to make us feel, and be, safer.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
What is it that they want?
Communion with its holy effects? Or do they want to be seen receiving Communion?
Do they want the Eucharist or the “white thing” that symbolizes affirmation?
Father Z ASK FATHER: In what scenario would you give Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried?
There is the sin of Pride and then there is the Ted Lieu Sin of PRIDE:
This is an example of what I like to call: “Catholics for Mortal Sin”. There are plenty of us who struggle with various sins which is why we need the sacrament of confession but it takes a certain type of catholic who loudly boasts of his sins and defies the church to do something about it.
As Fr. Z once put it
If they really get the Eucharist, with the full implications of receiving as Paul describes in 1 Cor 11:27 (“Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.”), and if they really get the Four Last Things, then … would they really want to put at risk their eternal salvation by sacrilegious reception?
If the priest at his parish really cares about Mr. Lieu’s soul (not to mention his own see EK 3: 17) he will talk to him about this and explain to him the danger he is putting himself in. Like a doctor who is caring for a patient he will give him the bad news rather than sugarcoat the risks.
But when it comes down to it, there is also good news in the form of the very best advice that he can get which comes from a fellow by the name of Joel and it repeated in every Catholic Church every year on Ash Wednesday:
Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the LORD, your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion! proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the people, notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom quit his room and the bride her chamber. Between the porch and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep, And say, “Spare, O LORD, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach, with the nations ruling over them! Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land and took pity on his people.
He has the rest of his life to take this advice, I’m sure that if he chooses not to he will be celebrated and feted and held up as an example of courage for the rest of his days…
…after that he’s on his own.
All I could think of when I saw this tweet from the Colorado Secretary of State banning audits of ballots in her state:
Was this exchange from the beginning of the 1940 Movie Go West, starring the Marx Brothers:
S. Quentin Quale (Groucho Marx): One ticket for the West, end of line.
Go West 1940
Ticket Clerk: Yes, sir. That’ll be $70, please.
S. Quentin Quale (Groucho Marx): There’s your $70. Don’t bother counting it.
Ticket Clerk: There’s only $60 here.
S. Quentin Quale (Groucho Marx): I told you not to count it.
Nothing says: “Our elections are open and honest.” like the secretary of state of is in charge of election integrity sounding like Groucho Marx trying to cheat a ticket clerk.
I’m old enough to remember when thieves were not so blatant but that’s the whole point to be blatant and open and dare people to do something about it.
It’s pretty bad, but then again that what the Soros left pays for, what’s even worse are the people of a state going along with it.
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