Oh, come ON.
You know, I get that I will not like every story that every publication puts out. That is a given, considering taste and all. Even a publication that has the good sense to publish one of my own stories will have a clunker on occasion.
But I just had the misfortune of listening to a story that is so over-the-top egregiously paranoid that it reads like a parody of itself. It's one of those hand-waving "oh my God, what if those gun nuts got their way and everyone had to carry a *gasp, huff, case of the vapors* weapon" stories. And it's written by someone who has apparently never even talked to a concealed-carry permit holder, who thinks if carrying a gun became "ordinary," we would suddenly forget that a gun is a deadly weapon that you can kill someone with if you handle it carelessly.
As every. Single. Idiot. In this story. Proceeds to do. With predictable results, because DUH.
Okay, look. I live in a state that has issued over a million concealed-carry permits. Granted, some of those are for folks who don't live here. But this is a state with a population of a little over two million people. We also have open carry, which means that you don't even need a permit to carry a gun in a hip holster where everyone can see it, so long as it's two actions from firing.
And hey, stunningly enough, it's not the Wild West around here. (Even the Wild West wasn't, not really. An armed society is a polite society.) I don't know anyone who treats their guns with the casual disdain the utter morons in this story do. We treat them like the deadly weapons they fucking are, because we are not fucking stupid. They're not water pistols, for God's sake.
So, please. If you want to write a "cautionary tale" about how GUNS ARE BAD OMG, at least do a modicum of research before you start your self-righteous lecture so that I don't get a headache from rolling my eyes that hard.
But I just had the misfortune of listening to a story that is so over-the-top egregiously paranoid that it reads like a parody of itself. It's one of those hand-waving "oh my God, what if those gun nuts got their way and everyone had to carry a *gasp, huff, case of the vapors* weapon" stories. And it's written by someone who has apparently never even talked to a concealed-carry permit holder, who thinks if carrying a gun became "ordinary," we would suddenly forget that a gun is a deadly weapon that you can kill someone with if you handle it carelessly.
As every. Single. Idiot. In this story. Proceeds to do. With predictable results, because DUH.
Okay, look. I live in a state that has issued over a million concealed-carry permits. Granted, some of those are for folks who don't live here. But this is a state with a population of a little over two million people. We also have open carry, which means that you don't even need a permit to carry a gun in a hip holster where everyone can see it, so long as it's two actions from firing.
And hey, stunningly enough, it's not the Wild West around here. (Even the Wild West wasn't, not really. An armed society is a polite society.) I don't know anyone who treats their guns with the casual disdain the utter morons in this story do. We treat them like the deadly weapons they fucking are, because we are not fucking stupid. They're not water pistols, for God's sake.
So, please. If you want to write a "cautionary tale" about how GUNS ARE BAD OMG, at least do a modicum of research before you start your self-righteous lecture so that I don't get a headache from rolling my eyes that hard.