The .30-30 self-defense thing you mentioned earlier reminded me-I’ve never had to use a gun in anger, but I used to have this black wino type living a few doors down from me in this string of apartments, and he’d always kinda irritate the young women in the 8-plex, and try to bum cigarettes and money, and one night (like 2 AM, when I was trying to sleep, kinda) I was kinda in my cups and he came a-knockin’, wanting to party. I walked up to the window beside my door with the .44 Super Blackhawk, which he saw, and he hurried on his way, even though I didn’t point it at him. A couple years before that, I lived across the hall from this chick whose boyfriend used to come over and yell at her, and one night he was beating on the door, trying to get in, and she wouldn’t let him, so I stood behind my door, and yelled “Cut that shit out!” and then worked the bolt on my empty Chinese SKS carbine. And y’know, he got quiet and slowly climbed the stairs and left the building. Wasn’t it Mencken who said that an armed society is a polite society?

The R Man