Back when I was getting interested in guns I visited a Baltimore, MD, gun store popular with the police. I tried to be careful while handling several handguns which the counter man was gracious enough to let me fondle. He did warn me once politely that I was pointing the muzzle at a group of customers across the store and that customers tended to get nervous about that. I apologized.
Then about a minute later I did it again, with another handgun. This time he politely told me that the nervous customers were armed police detectives with loaded handguns, and that it was not a good idea to make them nervous. This second time I apologized a lot more.
There is some truth to that old Heinlein saying about politeness in an armed society.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Back when I was getting interested in guns I visited a Baltimore, MD, gun store popular with the police. I tried to be careful while handling several handguns which the counter man was gracious enough to let me fondle. He did warn me once politely that I was pointing the muzzle at a group of customers across the store and that customers tended to get nervous about that. I apologized.
Then about a minute later I did it again, with another handgun. This time he politely told me that the nervous customers were armed police detectives with loaded handguns, and that it was not a good idea to make them nervous. This second time I apologized a lot more.
There is some truth to that old Heinlein saying about politeness in an armed society.