TexasCHLforum.com

I am a very new member here and if this post is not helpful to the discussion please delete.

As a young kid in the Houston area guns were no big deal. Of course it could be because of the area I grew up in.

Pickups in the parking lot at school had the required gun rack with a rifle and shotgun in it. There was no school shootings or thefts of weapons. These were High Schools in the Spring Branch area.

I left for the military and returned nearly twenty five years later to what appeared to me a foreign landscape. No gun racks, people apprehensive at the site of firearm. Whether it was a civilian or an LEO.

It seems some ill wind or pestilence had descended upon the area. The apprehension in the populace was no different, from my view, than what I have seen at times when we entered towns and villages in the 3rd world nations I have traveled to.

How things changed in such a short time period.

One side of my family tree was tobacco farmers in Kentucky. There was always the family story about hemp growing in the tobacco rows. They never knew it was illegal until the Federal man told them. When told they quit allowing it to grow and quit using it for medicinal purposes. This was my Grandparents and Uncles. This happened before WWII.

I my growing years marijuana was illegal and 18 yr olds could drink and vote. I did drink, I did vote, and I have never had anything to do with marijuana. Except when on joint exercises where we helped locate it to be destroyed.

My how the winds are changing. Marijuana seems socially acceptable, some places legal, and nobody gets nervous about it. Similar to the viewpoints on weapons in public when I was young.

I have read up on the activities to get concealed carry and then the next step of MPA. It seems that this is becoming successful in quelling the unreasonable fear (my opinion) weapons in public.

The methodical re-introduction of responsible ownership and use of weapons to the American public. Just as the pro-marijuana group has been pushing since the 60's. I am sure many of the members here can remember the backlash their cause suffered in the 60's and early 70's from the general public with some of the "in you face" escapades.

In a hearts and minds campaign you do not stand a chance in winning the non-aggressor village by rolling up with your tanks through their compound walls and stationing armed control points at every corner. You scare the bejeezers out of woman and children. The woman bend the ears on men something terrible and every village member eyes you with suspicion. Fear will turn to scorn and contempt. This will eventually turn to hostile feeling and then hostile responses.

I was raised in a family that held two strong beliefs and these I have passed on to my children:

1. Freedom is a responsibility. The more responsible one is the more Freedoms on has.
2. Your rights extend only as far as to when they intrude on anothers rights.