The Magic Gun

About ten days ago, some nut with a handgun went around the Texas State Capitol and fired off five shots into the air. Alert state troopers grabbed him and hauled him off. Two days later, he was executed. (No, that’s a joke. Even in Texas executions don’t really happen that fast. It will be scheduled sometime in March.) Naturally, everyone started questioning safety around the Capitol and many (left-wing, Obama-loving) citizens proposed that metal detectors be put in place at all entrances. It worked so well at San Francisco City Hall.

But our beloved governor is opposed to that idea because state offices should be open to all; it’s state records that need to be hidden. Besides, with our concealed handgun laws, we have enough armed citizens to police any place, like oh, let’s say, Fort Hood. Plus how will our state senators and representatives get into their offices with their concealed guns? (The idea of a shootout between legislators on the chamber floor makes me all giddy!) One current GOP governor candidate carries a concealed handgun at all times except when in the grocery store. Perhaps she’s nervous that she has a trigger finger and maybe someone with 14 items in the express line might just set her off.

And in a nutshell, that’s the gun culture of Texas. Guns don’t kill people. Only people with concealed weapons kill people, and the victims were probably asking for it.

Flash back several months to the shopping center location of our restaurant. We will call this restaurant Better Eats because it is still open and making money. Late on a Saturday night, some crooks managed to get into the shopping center courtyard where they proceeded to smash the windows of a few stores and make off with the cash registers. Obviously Better Eats got the first blame probably because we were the only owners not on site at the time of the investigation. The shop owner detectives theorized that the criminals shimmied up our outdoor walk-in cooler to get access to the shopping center. Never mind that it would have been easier to scale the fence or use a ladder to climb over the roof.

The next order of business was how to prevent this from happening again. The first idea was that we should all arm ourselves. That does solve most problems in Texas, but there is the expense of the handgun and you should really spend a little bit of money learning how to shoot and practicing. But most of us have watched enough John Wayne and Rambo movies to understand how easy it is.

The Marxist, Obama-loving, pinko owner of a new age shop suggested there were easier and cheaper means of prevention. We could just put up a sign that the place is under surveillance. That was laughed off because crooks can’t read or they don’t care about surveillance. Why not a real surveillance system then? Because guns are cheaper.

Comrade Lenin, the new age shop owner, was not making much headway. He then pointed out that all of the cash registers that were stolen were in plain view of the bashed-in windows. Stores where the cash register could not be seen were not broken into. Perhaps everyone should move their cash registers out of site of the windows, he suggested. The response? Cash registers are heavy! It’s so much trouble!

But you have to buy a new one anyway, he argued, so why don’t you put it in another location?

“I’m not letting crooks tell me what to do! We cannot let them win!” the shop owners argued

Comrade Lenin threw his hands in the air and gave up. The consensus: all shop owners should be armed. One shop owner even mentioned that she was also adding alarms so that if someone broke in, the security company would call her before the police, thereby giving her a chance to come down and put a bullet through someone’s head.

Hence, the magic gun which works so well for the good guys in the movies--and not as much for the bad guys--has solved another problem. I guess we won’t see the other shop owners much in our restaurant since it’s illegal to pack heat where alcohol is served. But when shop[lift]ing in Texas, when you see the sign that says, “shoplifters will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” you’d better think long and hard before you slip something into your pocket.