GUNS Magazine Our tax dollars at work

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Will’s pockets: deep-carry guns like the SIG SAUER P365 (above, left) and
the Springfield Armory
Hellcat (above, right) put serious 9mm firepower
in an easy-to-hide and carry package.

The year was 1994, and I was in a restroom at a shopping mall in Dothan, Alabama. My wife, young son, and I had just enjoyed a day on the beach and were headed back home to Fort Rucker. As I stood at the urinal doing what guys do, I heard a mighty commotion develop behind me.

The restroom soon filled with boisterous, foul-mouthed hooligans. Before I could really process what was happening, one of them punched me sharply between the shoulder blades. This was about to get interesting.

I put myself back together and slid my hand into my right front pocket, slipping the latch on the butterfly knife that was my constant companion. As I turned around I was startled to see a dozen rough-looking gang members arranged in a semicircle facing me now quiet as the grave. It was then it struck me I was about to die in the men’s room of a shopping mall in Dothan, Alabama.

I was indeed a trained soldier and fit. However, there were a dozen of them and they looked deadly serious. I figured with my knife I could take maybe two presuming they didn’t have guns. However, I just didn’t see a happy ending while trying to best a dozen gangbangers singlehandedly.

I just did what I always do when life looks bleak — I said a little quiet prayer, readied my knife for deployment and walked straight toward the largest of the lot. I had to turn sideways to squeeze between the big guy and his adjacent miscreant, but they never took their collective eyes off the urinal. It was weird. I figure Divine Providence yet again saved my carcass from a gory demise. No kidding.

As I exited the restroom, there innocently waited my precious wife with my son. An older gentleman who was obviously more turf-savvy than I stopped the next guy heading into the john and announced there was a gang meeting going on in there. As I did not care for feeling helpless amidst such stuff, I bundled up my family and headed directly to the local county seat to apply for my first concealed carry permit.

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This stainless Walther PPK/S in .380ACP was Will’s first “serious” concealed
carry gun. It’s heavy, but Will notes, “Packing that thing, I was pretty darn cool!”

The Application

Concealed carry was not the rarefied industry it is now. In Alabama in the early ’90s, to receive a concealed carry permit you reported to the local Sheriff’s Office, filled out a form, paid $15, and left everything overnight. The night crew did a background check and you could pick up the completed writ the following day.

The form was simple but it did include spaces for three references replete with addresses and phone numbers. As I had come straight from my near-death experience and this was the era before cell phones I didn’t have addresses and phone numbers handy.

When queried on this subject, the sweet lady behind the desk said, “Son, you can put Mickey Mouse on that form if you want. I’m not calling any of them anyway.”

Thusly emboldened I hallucinated up some faux demographic data and drove the half hour back home.

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This $50 .25 ACP FIE Titan, a gift from his wife, was Will’s first concealed
carry pistol. It was all he could afford and he’s not certain the folding knife
might not have been the more effective weapon.

A Model Public Servant

The following day I made the half-hour trek back to the Sheriff’s Office only to find they had gotten busy the night before and had not had time to do background checks. Clearly disappointed given the drive and my hectic schedule, the lady behind the desk sized me up and said, “Aw, hell. You look like an honest guy.” She then signed the card and passed it to me.

I thanked her profusely. However, I then expressed my incredulity she would so flippantly grant me permission to carry a concealed weapon. Her response reflects the most profound wisdom I have ever heard from any government employee ranging from my local garbage man up to the President.

She asked me if I had ever been arrested and I said no. She asked if I had ever been frisked by the cops and I likewise answered in the negative. She then went on to explain I could have carried a concealed weapon from the first day of Kindergarten until the present and nobody ever would have known. She said the fact I was standing there meant I needed it. I have not ventured out in public without a firearm since then.

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Will notes — not ironically — the places with all the anarchy are not
those where concealed carry of firearms is ubiquitous. Photo: Amber Kipp

Ruminations

Sixteen states including my own currently allow permit-less constitutional carry of a firearm. Of those 16, exactly none of them are embroiled in the kind of urban chaos and anarchy consuming places like Chicago, New York, Seattle and Portland. Something tells me there’s a correlation there someplace. Methinks perhaps it’s time to put the lady from the Alabama Sheriff’s Office in charge.

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