A great read! A few excerpts..
....I got my gun license a year and a half ago after I was relieved of my wallet at gunpoint at my front door by a man who threatened to come back for me if I cancelled my ATM and credit cards.
Since he was clearly comfortable dropping by the house unannounced, police told me to take the threat seriously by carrying a gun myself.
I've had handguns for target shooting since I was a kid, but never carried one for self-defense. After the robbery, I applied for a permit so I could carry a gun without breaking the law. And even before the license arrived, I started to carry my gun from my driveway to my front door, which is legal; I was scared the guy would keep his promise and come back for me....
....After work that day, I grabbed my Beretta 92FS (a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun I bought for target shooting when I was in college because I thought it looked cool on the Lethal Weapon movie poster) and headed to Christos.
Even though I knew the place would be filled with people openly carrying guns, and that the restaurant welcomed them, I still walked in sheepishly with my gun hidden inside my computer bag. Until I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn't believe it was socially acceptable to openly carry a pistol into a restaurant.
The scene inside amazed me – 40 or 50 people, mostly men, casually socializing in a public restaurant and every one of them had firearms.
I didn't walk in expecting the Wild West, but I definitely expected more of a macho, sausage-party vibe than was apparent. As it turned out, I've been to bar trivia nights that were more menacing.....
.....It took me a while to build up the courage to openly carry a gun in public. It's difficult to shake off years of social conditioning and, honestly, if I hadn't been writing this story, I probably wouldn't have done it.
I started my counterconditioning by dining alone, with my gun very much concealed. I picked a cheap Asian restaurant near my house so if someone got upset with me for carrying a gun, it wouldn't matter that I'd be too embarrassed to ever return there again.
Still, it made me sick to slip my Smith & Wesson .38 special revolver into my pocket and walk into the restaurant. Even though it was legal and nobody even knew the gun was there, I had knots in my stomach like I was doing something terrible. The feeling didn't go away, even after I got home. In retrospect it may have been the chicken I ate.
A few days later, I pushed myself a little further.
I holstered the .38 on my belt, but wore an untucked shirt to cover it. I thought the outline of the gun was obvious through the shirt, but evidently it wasn't. I interviewed several people at Vinocity in Kirkwood about guns in restaurants, and not one of them commented on the bulge under my shirt.
John Turpin, the owner, said he's not really fretting about people bringing weapons into his restaurant because, short of putting a metal detector at the door, he has no way of keeping guns out.
"There could be four guns in here right now for all I know," he said to me. The restaurant is dark with reddish lighting, so Turpin probably didn't notice my face turn red with shame. He was talking to me about guns, and had no idea I was carrying one. I felt like such an asshole.
I chickened out of taking Zaylvia Carmichael to Chuck E. Cheese with our guns.
When I mentioned the plan to a friend who is usually supportive of my stupid ideas, he sounded appalled. He didn't elaborate, but he's the father of two small kids. I suspect the thought of two yutzes pushing social boundaries by carrying pistols into Chuck E. Cheese contravened his sense of decency.
So instead of choosing an inappropriate place for dinner, Carmichael and I chose an ironically appropriate place: a LongHorn Steakhouse.
....
....At 8 a.m. on a Thursday, I clipped my Beretta to my belt at the Edgewood-Candler Park station. I had decided to carry the Beretta because it's about 2.5 times the size of my .38 revolver. You can't help but see it.
With my Breeze Card in hand – and my gun permit and driver's license in my left pocket, intentionally opposite the holster in case I had to produce them for MARTA police – I took the escalator into the station.
I passed four people along the way.
No reaction.
At the passenger gate, I passed a woman who appeared to be in a MARTA uniform.
"Good morning," she said, without glancing at my gun.
I waited on the platform, with a dozen or so people, and even stood in the middle of the crowd so the most people could see me.
Nothing.
I'd been as conspicuous as possible and nobody reacted. Nobody acted as though they felt threatened by this stranger with a gun on his waist. It changed my perception of how the public views guns, even in the liberal core of the metro area. I got the same reaction on MARTA as I did in Cobb County, as I did shopping in Target or walking my dogs in Decatur – no reaction......
Audio at website;
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/gun_toting_in_georgia/Content?oid=528311EDIT: Evidently the writer, did not run into "Billbuckhead" LOL!