Quote of the Day
Why should we mandate that everyone be armed?
Read this: https://www.instagram.com/p/DccOck9mNc1/?stkn=d3ZwanRvM3g1MTZx
…then apply it to incentives to commit crime. Disarming everyone will only make committing crime safer and will increase crime and anti-social behavior. Make everyone carry condition 1, and we’ll reduce ADs and NDs as well.
Mike H.
September 6, 2026
Via email from Mike.
The following are the primary points of the Instagram post:
Excellent observations.
Now go do you part.
See the wonderful graphic novel “Roswell, Texas” by L. Neil Smith and Scott Bieser. It is an alternate history tale, where Texas remained independent, and it has a mandatory carry law. Or rather, you must unless you obtain a “license not to carry”.
As a step in that direction, I propose that an openly carried loaded sidearm be made a part of the military uniform, both dress and utility. You’d need a specific and temporary situation to remove it (climbing into the engine bay of a fighter for maintenance, in an MRI room, going into surgery, in the sterile area of a courtroom, etc) and then you put it back.
That will provide the US population with a constant stream of people used to being constantly armed. In some cases, they may have a similar reaction to being disarmed as to being late. That would create pressure to first make a national concealed carry license-equivalent for veterans and active duty, then a big push against all the gun-free-zones and other stupid restrictions as being anti-veteran.
When I mention this, I usually get a roar of objection from other veterans who remember some real goofs in the military that they wouldn’t trust to be armed. To that I say: If they can’t be trusted with arms, they shouldn’t be in military uniform. Not budging on that.
Then they object to the logistics of supplying a sidearm to everyone. That makes no sense. The US military is first and foremost a bureaucracy, second a logistical engine that was Fedex in green/khaki before Fedex, and thirdly by a long stretch a warfighting organization. They can figure out how to get enough sidearms. I suggest: expand the enlisted’s uniform allowance so they BUY their own sidearm, and the military has an inexpensive one on offer that just so happens to match an E-1’s bootcamp graduation uniform bonus. Officers just buy their own. Get a different one, get an upgraded one, have a different one for dress versus field, but it’s yours and you’re out of uniform if it’s not on you. Just have it use a standard magazine, like 9mm PMAGs.
Then I get an objection to where are they going to find the time to constantly train all these people. To which I can only look at them incredulously and say: Don’t. I’ve seen plenty of military training sessions for the genpop and broadly, it’s a couple good bits of info in a big waste of time formulated by some Good Idea Fairy in the Pentagon. Instead, put IDPA/IPSC rankings on their EPR/OPR, and have a steady supply of 9mm at the separate practical shooting range. They already had a basic pistol orientation in bootcamp/ROTC camp/academy. Now let them show up in their own time to learn, or not, get ranked, or not. Making it count for promotion, it makes a good differentiator for motivation and effort towards getting promoted, as well as objectively being a valuable and quantifiable military skill. IMPORTANT: Do not let the military make a special unique IDPA/IPSC alternative. The on-base range needs to be open to spouses, older children and civilian employees. The military doesn’t need a reason to think they’re special; they need a reason to know they’re good, and it can be quite motivating when they get smoked at competition by the accountants or the LT’s wife.
“What about NDs?” they mew. Until they get IDPA MM or IPSC C ranking, they get issued a red anodized, serialized 9mm extra-loud blank. That goes in the chamber. It better be turned back in, unfired, unless there was a really good reason. Otherwise, treat it at minimum like evidence of personal irresponsibility, same as a drunk driving incident. Like I said above: can’t be trusted with a sidearm, can’t be in the military. If they were screwing around, may be time for a Big Chicken Dinner before they do something that will really be a problem. Better than carrying on an empty chamber.
Now for a somewhat somber, bittersweet take on the Second Amendment.
The “sweet” part comes from the fact that thirty years ago, it looked like guns would be essentially illegal by the second decade of the third millennium. Instead, we have completely turned that around. More than half the states don’t even require a permit to carry concealed, and the Supreme Court has surprised us by saying that the Constitution meant what it said in clear English. The “keep” part was in question in the Nineties; now the SC has come out supporting the “bear” part with Bruen.
The “bitter” part is that so far, it seems far short of the revolutionary effect I was hoping for. We have a solid and growing RKBA; the problem is that, in practice, it mostly has meant that we can hunt and shoot tiny holes in paper.
We like to say that Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to his duck blind. Yet in a world where the streets are controlled by Third World invaders; where a defense attorney can dox a juror who tried to get justice for three children who were murdered slowly and painfully by their mother; where a woman from Ukraine can be murdered on a subway in cold blood; where a young man can be murdered for his political beliefs and have an entire political party holding a national party to celebrate his murder; and where evil is triumphant in every respect other than the Second Amendment, gun owners mainly have gotten the right to hunt ducks.
There should be hundreds, if not thousands of dead villains annually, mostly self defense cases (why the carefully recorded videos of leftists attacking petite women and occasionally even children, but never an entirely legal successful defense of those victims using third-of-a-mile-per-second slugs) but probably a few that just took things too far and pissed off the wrong good person.
Back when I rode motorcycles, if I was going for a casual ride, like to the store, or work, I would wear denim pants normally. Even for a ride along the coast or crest. Usually had a leather jacket, for wind protection. But, sometimes I also wore leather pants, and I quickly realized that when I was fully suited up, I tended to ride a bit harder, such as faster cornering, later braking, because I felt safer. Some of my leathers also had plastic armor for impact and/or road rash protection.
So, I tended to push my safety limits because I felt safer.
Eventually I took up roadracing on the big competition tracks, which turned out to be the biggest improvement in my safety when street riding. Really! Road riding got really boring, as trying to run a race pace on the street is really stupid, and slower was boring and much safer.
I highly recommend that people take performance driving classes, usually held on tracks. Learning to control a vehicle at the limits of handling is how you get safer when an ugly surprise turns up during your commute to work or on your vacation drive. BTW, every race track has a training class business located there. The track needs to generate income during the week between races. Some classes teach you in your car, and some use high performance cars for learning the limits.
Taking your newly licensed kids for a class or two would be highly beneficial! Cheaper than funeral costs…
I learned to drive in small Japanese cars. My first two cars were Geo Metros. Pretty much a powered roller-skate, and under-powered one at that, almost always the smallest thing on the road with four wheels. If there was an accident, it would get squished like a bug first. You learn to keep your head on a swivel, keep your distance, drive cautiously. Have not ever been in an accident that was my fault, though I did have two of those Metros totaled around me. Everyone should learn to drive that way, IMHO. Learn scared, stay safe.
I think understanding incentives in many other aspects of life is a good idea too, and “safety-ism” is a root cause of many of our social dysfunctions today.