I am gonna ramble some, so expect stuff that does not make much sense. When I came to live/study in the US years ago, I was introduced to the American Attitude. I call it a combination of “Everything which is not forbidden is allowed” and “If you try to forbid it, fuck you, now I want it more and you can’t stop me.”

For somebody raised and programmed under “everything which is not allowed is forbidden” and “You better ask permission first” this was a gigantic cultural shock but one that I adapted quickly as  Freedom is intoxicating. And this is also why I think I  understand what happened to Gun Culture and why Gun Control, as amazingly prepared and backed, has been taking it in the chin since the Assault Weapons Ban. And come to think about it, even before that with Florida’s Shall Carry Weapons Permit.

I made it know before that I consider Florida’s passage of the Shall Issue carry permits as the beginning of the new era of gun ownership. The second wave in the gun revolution came with the Assault Weapons Ban under the Clinton Regime. Both events did similar things: made regular people aware that there was something the government did not want you to have and pissed them off. Royally.

With the Concealed Weapons Permit, people started to ask to their legislators “How come I can’t get a permit like them Florida (rednecks/Cubans/crackers/Haitians/etc) have?”  And when the Powers told them they had something similar but not quite (May Issue at the whim of the local head LEO) people revolted, got to the legislature and changed the laws. A CWP was no longer a symbol of political status and access for a selected few and became the common achievement of the law-abiding. We went from maybe ten of thousands with some sort of permit maybe only valid in their county to close to 15 million nationwide right now and I am not including the states where a permit is no longer required (I’ve been told 13 now.) And did I forget to mention all 50 states have now some sort of CWP law in its laws? Open Carry is everywhere but in Five states (Four if the Florida Legislature gets its shit together this session) and hopefully we will be heading soon to Nationwide Reciprocity.

By happy coincidence, at the same time that Florida was fighting and getting its CWP, an Austrian widget-maker was starting to make inroads in the gun stores of the US with some weird gun made partially out of plastic. Some hysterical idiot claimed with deadly finality that these guns by a manufacturer named Gaston Glock were invisible to X-Rays and a new era in commercial flight hijackings was upon us. Congress moves swiftly to ban guns that were invisible to X-Rays, Glocks were mentioned over and over and the era of the Plastic Fantastic was born: They could not make enough of the darned things to satisfy the consumer’s demand.  And what is worse, soon other well-respected companies started to come out with their own Rubbermaid Guns and they were sold like Deep Fried Twinkies at the state fair. The Golden Era of the Handgun was upon us and we are still enjoying the heck out of it.

The Gun Control and the Left Wing did not comprehend why people were buying guns in droves and demanding their right to carry them. Very clearly they made the point that GUNS ARE BAD and ONLY BAD PEOPLE WANT THEM. And above all GUNS MUST BE FORBIDDEN TO SAVE THE CHILDREN because we the ELITE KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU AND YOUR KIDS. They never realized that what they did was piss people off and limelight something they were not aware of and made it desirable because Americans are ornery that way.  

“I can’t have a Glock? Gimme two, hell, gimme three plus 2 magazines and a thousand rounds of ammunition just to make you mad.” 

And the Gun Race was off.  same as it seems to have happened in 1934 and 1968, Congress could not screw the pooch for the People on sidearms even if they wanted it bad. In fact, they did just the opposite: They made them more appealing, they imposed a major burden on State legislatures who finally caved to the Evil Gun Lobby and made the guns so popular, stagnant Gun Manufacturers suddenly were starting to make money again and not just surviving. In fact, soon enough gun companies did not depend on government contracts for their survival but the inexorable laws of Supply and Demand told them where their butter was coming and would come from for decades: The People. Those who failed to see that lesson, soon enough paid dearly, just ask  British conglomerate Tomkins plc who bought Smith and Wesson for $122 million, failed to heed the desires of the public going instead with the Clinton administration and ended up losing their knickers by selling S&W for $15 million. 

Hard to imagine that Florida Man and Austrian Guy would create such a disruption in the plans of the Intelligentsia. But it gets better.

More in the next episode.