Today I brought a couple rifles back to the Seattle area for cleaning and preparation for Boomershoot. I call my place “The Clock Tower”.
As I was climbing the stairs with my cased rifles and openly carried pistol on my hip I wondered what the response would be if someone in this liberal enclave saw me as I was lugging the precision rifles up the stairs. Should I hurry inside to reduce the time they have to figure out the contents of the cases? Should I stop and chat with them and invite them to the range or maybe even Boomershoot?
In either case will the friendly neighborhood SWAT team pay me a visit early tomorrow morning?
Somehow I doubt people lugging books or political signs up the stairs worry about the quite the same things I do. As long as people carrying books or guns into their home worry about the police breaking down their doors in the early morning hours we have more work to do.
Sigh! And I’m old enough to have brought .22 Target Rifles into the High School when our Club returned from Matches, and no one blinked. If they tried that today…..
I am ashamed to say that I once told a neighbor’s student that my locked double rifle case that was being lugged down the stairs was “just some tools”, when asked what instrument I played. I also would go clean my guns on the roof, and was always afraid that one of the other apartment dwellers would come up for some sun and find me. Of course, this was in Oakland, CA, and I was within 1000′ of a school, so even though I was in compliance with the law, who knows what kind of response LE would have given me had somebody decided to ask them if this was legal or not.
I have resolved not to do this ever again. It really is like coming out of the closet!
On the other hand, that experience made me realize that people who aren’t familiar with firearms will just think that you were lugging a pair of guitars or something. So you are probably not nearly as provocative as you think you are, Joe. 🙂