Yeah, Been There, Done That

Joan Peterson, our favorite Brady Board Member, brings up the topic of concealing while bowling. Been there, done that.

Would you expect that there would be people at the local bowling alley carrying guns for self protection? I mean, what could possibly go wrong? There’s a lot of moving around when you bowl and a lot of families with kids at a bowling alley, depending on the time of day. Also, most often, beer and other alcohol is served at most bowling alleys.

Personally, I don’t drink when I bowl. Bitter will tell you that I take my bowling very seriously. It’s a family thing. I learned to bowl from my mother and grandmother. I even have a big trophy in my living room I won with my mother. I think I cracked 200 in the only game I’ve ever bowled with Bitter, and I hadn’t bowled for a while. I sometimes miss it, but just don’t have the time. But I have been bowling several times since I started carrying, and I don’t find it to be a particular challenge.

Either way, the story Joan links to tells the tale of a man who hit his pocket revolver with a bowling ball in it went off. To our opponents, guns are just bad, you see. There’s no way to do anything with them that’s responsible, especially not carry them. If you carry a gun you are being reckless. That’s just all there is to it. They regularly point to “trained” people who also do stupid things. What they don’t accept, and will never accept, is that there are people on this planet to revel in ignorance, and that no amount of training will relieve them of. To our opponents that means no one should carry, but how is that any way to run a free society? By that standard, we should absolutely, positively never give anyone a license to operate a motor vehicle on public roads. Just today, Bitter and I were on our way to a meeting, and noticed a guy swerving wildly on the road. I figured it might be a drunk, but upon very cautiously passing him, we noticed he was reading a magazine — literally staring down at a magazine he had propped open on the steering wheel. At that point we both were so very glad that our state legislators, in their infinite wisdom, chose to protect the public from the dangers of texting while driving. What Joan Peterson wants is the same kind of “every problem is a nail that requires the hammer of legislation,” that lead to our legislators trying to outlaw a symptom of “some people are morons and there’s just not a whole hell of a lot you can do about it.”

16 thoughts on “Yeah, Been There, Done That”

  1. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? There’s a lot of moving around when you bowl and a lot of families with kids at a bowling alley, depending on the time of day.

    Hey, know what else involves a lot of moving around in the presence of families with kids? Working a rope line. I’ll make Peterson a deal – if she can get the Secret Service to give up theirs, I’ll consider giving up mine.

  2. Bear in mind as well that Joan’s people cannot bowl without irony. Identifying firearms with persons who bowl is yet another example of her habit of “othering.”

    1. Much of Gun Control is driven by class bigotry. Since the antis aren’t anti gun in as much as they are anti the wrong classes having guns.

      Also if Joan gets so worried about guns where people can move, minors are present, and acholol is avaliable, well… that explains why she’s agaisnt commoners having guns -well- anywhere.

      And interesting to note that the antis have seemed to move back to their bread and butter of screaming about carry and self defense.

      1. With all due deference to the late Col. Cooper, I’ve long been of the opinion that oikophobia rather than hoplophobia was the true source of these people’s pathology.

        It explains their aversion not only to America’s long tradition of civilian firearms ownership, but also all the other ways in which the “anti-gun subculture” contrasts gun culture (both 1.0 and 2.0): chronic Europe-Is-Always-Right-ism, love of central planning, reflexive opposition to any hint of Judeo-Christian philosophy, loathing of Veterans and the military, etc.

  3. I had a regular commute of @70 miles each way, mostly on interstates. Since I don’t like music of any kind, nor do I like listening to radio talkers, I would buy the NY Times and read that on my way into work. Two years of this, 5 times a week.
    I drove out to Kansas last week, taking I-70 from Baltimore to west of Topeka and down to Wichita. To pass the time on the road, I brought a study of the Byzantine navy, The Age of the Dromon. No problems with reading it while on the road. Most of the time I was keeping up with the traffic. When I go back next week, I’m going to try to finish Roman Rule in Asia Minor.
    I’m careful while driving and reading, just as most gun owners are responsible. I don’t read and drive when my wife is with me, and I’ve been doing this since I started working in 1984.

  4. Has she been to a bowling alley. At least where I live, they are major hubs for gang and drug activity.

    That’s one reason I don’t go to them.

    The other is I just don’t care for bowling. Oh, does that mean I should start demanding we ban bowling allies?

  5. “Oh, does that mean I should start demanding we ban bowling allies?”

    The allies of bowling? Darts and pool?

  6. I too used to bowl quite alot, went a couple weeks ago with my 2 daughters, had a free bowling night paid for by my oldest’s workplace.
    Carrying my 1911, no problems other than I sucked at hitting the pins…….

    Best game was 130’s I think…….

  7. Actually, I was out bowling with a friend and his brother more than three decades ago, when his brother’s Chief’s Special goes sliding down the entire length of the lane and came to a rest against a pin.

    His brother was a Sheriff’s Deputy and the gun was his off-duty piece.

  8. There’s a lot of moving around when you bowl and a lot of families with kids at a bowling alley, depending on the time of day. Also, most often, beer and other alcohol is served at most bowling alleys.

    Yes, there is beer served there. And a gun might be in the same building. That makes it deadlydeathdrunkgun.

    And kids! Kids exist there! Near a potential gun!

    I assume she will therefore assert that Police must disarm themselves before entering a place where beer is served and children might be present – because guns in places like that are bad.

    Seriously, what the hell is wrong with her?

    1. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with her?

      I think we’ll understand gravity before we answer this.

  9. ” literally staring down at a magazine he had propped open on the steering wheel.”

    WTF.

    That’s asking for a Darwin award.

    1. Other than an old style SAA with all 6 cylinders loaded?

      Have no clue otherwise.

  10. How the heck do you hit your pocket with a bowling ball? Freakishly short arms? I ask as a guy who bowls in a couple leagues a week.

    (in Cambridge, MA, and yes we do have bowlers who carry)

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