A wide cross section of Rome’s population shops at Walmart. There are white people, black people, Hispanic people and oriental people. There are people who are probably on the lower economic rungs, and there are those on the upper rungs. There are newborn babies, taken care of by their parents, of course, and some so aged that they should be taken care of by their children, or maybe even their grandchildren. I’m afraid that our steady exposure to all these different segments of society has turned me into a racist.
I’m afraid of old, white men.
I shouldn’t be afraid of old, white men. It’s wrong to judge every one of them just because of the actions of a few. After all, I am an old, white man. It’s just that some old, white men make me uncomfortable, uneasy, almost afraid. It’s the ones who are wearing pistols on their hips. We have seen at least four men carrying pistols in Walmart in the last couple of months, and three were old, white men. Now I notice old, white men in the store. I check them out. I look them up and down. I look for that gun riding up on their high-waisted pants. If I see one in the frozen foods aisle, I feel an urge to back away slowly and carefully and then dive into the ethnic food aisle. Leah wants to confront them, to ask them just why they’re carrying. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. Even a little lady like Leah might seem menacing to a scared, old, white man carrying a loaded pistol; who knows?
I don’t have anything against guns. I have been around them all my life and still have some. I like things that make loud noises, and I like knocking tin cans off rocks at 50 paces. (“Tin cans” – I told you I’m old.) And I have nothing against old, white men. Usually the greatest danger they pose is that they will bore you with stories of their glory days, just like I do. But these particular old, white men are different, and I’m afraid the set of old, white men who carry pistols is going to intersect at Walmart with another set of people.
Most Walmart customers, like most people in general, are friendly and polite. They say “Sorry” when they cut you off with their buggies, and they thank you if you hand them a can from a high shelf. But one night we saw the other kind. He was a large, white man who was very angry that someone had cut in front of him in line. He was loud, belligerent and profane, and he kept it up long after any normal person would have stopped in embarrassment. It got so bad that the manager told the man to take it outside. I’m just afraid that one day, the scared, old, white man with a gun is going to meet the aggressively loud, spoiling-for-a-fight, angry man at the checkout, and someone is going to pay for Georgia’s carry-anywhere law.
I don’t want to be there, and I especially don’t want Leah to be there.
I just wonder why I have to worry about that in a supposedly civilized country.
I have much the same level of both tolerance and degree of concern over guns. I also have a problem with self-designated authority figures who carry guns in public places to impose their paranoid delusions – your example was a good one.
My only recommendation is to vote with your feet. Call ahead to ascertain policy of Wal Mart, or any other place you visit – stores, restaurants, etc., and then make sure they know your feelings about it. Ask them if they have a notice at the entrance that guns are not welcome. I’m pretty sure any private venue can stipulate they don’t want guns on the premises. They may not be able to charge someone with unlawfully carrying a gun, but my understanding is that they can charge them with criminal trespass (this is from a short course we took two years ago, as firefighters).
In the longer term, letting your local, state, and national level reps know how you feel is a drop in the bucket, but the only one that is going to help in a state like Georgia.
It’s an experiment we’re conducting that is only going to lead to unhappy results.
Wow, Mark, I had no idea that there was an open-carry law in Georgia. I can’t imagine what that must be like to walk into a store and see people carrying guns. Scares the hell out of me just thinking about it. I’m not a gun person, although the one time I shot at a target with a friend who was a gun person, he said I was a pretty good shot! There’s just something about the need to carry a weapon when going shopping (or anywhere) that seems a little paranoid and crazy, but also a little aggressive and itching for a fight. Spooky.
According to Wikipedia:
“Forty four states’ constitutions recognize and secure the right to keep and bear arms in some form, and none of those prohibit the open carrying of firearms.”
Georgia is very much not unusual. (So long as it’s white people carrying guns. We now have a pretty clear picture of what happens otherwise.)
Wayne — We have been so discouraged about our own representatives that we took to donating to candidates in other states that had a better chance of winning and were far more likely to represent our views. I think you’re right about open carry. As I understand it, there are essentially no places in the state where you can get arrested for carrying a firearm, even controlled areas, as long as you leave if you are challenged.
Robin — I agree, carrying a gun in the open seems to convey the message that the person is paranoid and itching for a fight. I doubt that’s the intended message.