"Yes. It's like people who don't vote "
I like this response. This is one of our most important rights ... and obligations ... as free citizens. The power of this was recently illustrated, in a somewhat 'unpleasantly surprising' fashion, to many liberals around many of the individual states, and in the nation as a whole. Every vote can count. (Hopefully only once, but you get what I mean
)
If you choose not to use yours wisely, each and every time a vote occurs, and to best effect according to your personal beliefs, you have very little justification to complain about the state of affairs.
If you don't like things the way they are, focus on helping advocate a change in the laws via the voting process, on local and state levels. Find the folks who are like-minded, and get out the vote. That's what liberals have often effectively done, you know. Politicians often seem to promote laws seemingly popular with the majority of their constituents.
If you live somewhere where the majority of the population disagrees with your feeling of how some of the laws ought to be written ... and you believe you'll always be in the minority ... and you have a passionate belief, or beliefs, that's contrary to what the majority of other voters are always going to believe, and therefore allow to be made into law ... then you have the
right to move to another area where your beliefs and values are more popular with the majority of citizens.
I will say that when I was young, and saw that there was absolutely no chance of me getting a CCW in CA, and saw the hoops my father had to jump through to get his, and then get it renewed each time ... as well as the way he was treated by some folks in the issuing agency ... I was also a bit 'resentful' and 'frustrated'. Then, after I later became a cop, and carried a weapon off duty everywhere, because I could ... no matter how uncomfortable it may have been in many circumstances, or really necessary, for that matter ... I got it out of my system. I don't always carry a weapon off duty. Sometimes, sure ... some days, weeks and months I may even go armed off duty most of the time. Sometimes hardly at all at other times. It depends. My choice.
But you know what bothers me? The folks who have the lawful ability to carry a concealed handgun, either CCW or off duty cops, who don't think it's ever necessary to practice with their weapon(s), or perhaps receive some additional training ... only visit a range to shoot their weapon(s) when absolutely required for qualification purposes, and are satisfied with achieving the minimal qualifying score ... don't use a proper & safe method of carrying their weapon(s) ... don't bother to periodically clean or properly maintain their weapon(s) ... don't bother to learn how some types of ammunition may be different than some other ammunition, and consider how that may affect their specific personal perceived defensive needs ... feel it's perfectly fine to buy some bag of unknown reloaded ammunition from some guy at a gunshow table, or from a friend of a friend of a friend, who just learned to reload,and use that in their carry weapon(s) because it costs too much to buy 'new' ammunition ... say they only really carry their weapons so they can 'scare' bad guys off if they're ever attacked ... don't bother to gain a thorough understanding of the laws governing the use of deadly force (more CCW folks than cops), as well as regarding the safe storage of firearms in households which may contain minors ... and so on, and so on ...
Kind of like the folks who think they've learned everything they'll ever need to know about safe and responsible driving and vehicle ownership just because they passed some simple tests down at their DMV.
Everyone's entitled to an opinion ...
