Thanks for the vote of confidence, MitchSchaft. Would you mind relaying those remarks to my wife?
To revisit an issue: Back in '99, when I was a mere 65 yrs old, my wife was working one night and our daughter was gone somewhere else. I decided to go down to the local park to watch a baseball game. The game finally finished well after dark and I pushed my bike towards the street to head home.
All of a sudden, I was jerked into a patch of bushes and three young Hispanic Gentlemen proceeded to kick the livin' dog***** out of me. I was completely defensive, rolling into a ball and trying to protect myself as much as possible while screaming at the top of my lungs. One of the fine young fellows kept trying to grab me by the hair to pull my head up, but I was able to resist that.
After what seemed like several days, some of the ballplayers came running over with their bats, chasing my new acquaintances away. Someone brought a flashlight and we found my glasses, still intact, and one more little surprise-- an open knife! At least one of those guys wanted to cut my throat!
After that, I chose to stay home a lot, unconsciously choosing safety rather than freedom. But about a year later,_I bought a .380 pistol and began carrying it everywhere I went. As you may have figured out, I didn't bother the 'authorities' with all the paperwork they would have had to fill out to "grant"_me permission to carry concealed.
I don't know if I ever ran into those guys again or not. If I had, I wouldn't have been able to recognise them since about all I had seen of them originally was their shoes. But I started going out again.
Eventually though, my shirt rode up at the wrong time and one day, as I stood by my car waiting for my wife, I suddenly had three burly men dressed in blue pointing guns at me. They arrested me for carrying without a permit and eventually (9 hours later) released me.
When everything finally came to court, it was duly pointed out that my gun wasn't concealed-- they could see it-- and Oregon specifically states that a gun worn openly on the belt shall never be considered 'concealed'. But the City of Portland has a rule against carrying a loaded gun in public unless you're going to or coming from a shooting range. They got me on that one.
The judge asked my why I felt I needed to carry a gun, so I told him about my little frolic in the park. He listened and then sentenced me to a two-hour gun safety course and probation that would end when I had completed the safety course. Just as the judge was signing the papers, he asked me if I was going to go back to carrying a gun again. I looked him straight in the eye and told him simply that the police had kept my gun. He paused, looked down and said, "Yes."
I now have a court order in my possession stating that I AM allowed to possess firearms. So sometimes things do work out.
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