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With one notable exception, most of my friends would be mildly surprised if I weren't carrying. I think they would worry about my sense of self-respect.

Regarding booze, one has to be careful. I insist on my right to have a beer any time I want. It happens that I want a beer about once every three or four years.

For most LTC'ers, I imagine there is a hard-wired respect for firearms that would survive quite a severe degree of intoxication. Crime statistics bear that out, but booze and guns shouldn't mix.

It's not recommendable for a couple of reasons. Safe gun handling requires more than four big rules genetically encoded. It requires level-headed situational awareness. It would be hard to get drunk enough to mishandle a gun on a range. A little schnockered and trying to escape a stalker in an abandoned warehouse, that's going to be different.

Maybe more important, now is not the right time in history to commingle guns and social sipping. Easy for me to be an armed teetotaler, since I drink so seldom. Not so easy, though, to convince a demanding parental unit that a drink does not equal intoxicated, even if they don't think twice about getting behind the wheel after a wine tasting.

I would feel safe with a beer under the same belt carrying my pea-shooter. But would that be ammo for somebody else's protest?

My decision, submitted for your approval or to be dismissed, is I don't mix guns and beer.