Sheepdogs and wolves
by David Atkins
The Washington Post profiles Rob Farago, gun fundamentalist and owner of one of the top gun blogs in the world. He and his mentor Mr. Kenik have a philosophy of "situational awareness":
A couple of hours later, the two men dig into dinner at a swank Italian restaurant, both of them choosing chairs that let them face the entrance.
“Look at the way Robert and I are facing,” Kenik says. “Crime happens everywhere. There’s no place to feel safe.”
“That’s your opinion,” Farago says, distancing himself a bit.
“It’s in the back of my mind,” Kenik says...
Exiting the restaurant, he poses a question: What business in this little commercial area would criminals most likely target? The jewelry store, obviously. That’s situational awareness.
Standing on the patio at Starbucks, he tells a story. A while back, he was right in this spot when the alarm went off across the street at the Bank of America branch office. Amazingly, people ignored it. They kept walking up to the bank to use the ATM. They didn’t seem to register the alarm at all.
Farago reckoned that, if a gunman emerged from the bank, he’d take cover inside the Starbucks, putting a brick wall between himself and the shooter.
“If I have incoming fire, I’ve got a plan ready to go,” he says.
There was no gunman. Just a false alarm.
But that’s not the point. The point is that Farago was alert to the potential danger in the world. He was prepared to defend himself, if absolutely necessary, with his Glock. Even though, so far in his incarnation as a gun guy, he’s never had any reason.
These are scared little men who live in a fantasy land of movie villains and armed thugs that has no bearing on the reality most of us live in.
Their justification for owning instruments of mass death?
“We have sheep and we have sheepdogs. Robert and I are sheepdogs,” Kenik says. “Getting rid of the sheepdogs will not get rid of the wolves.”
No, Mr. Farago. You're not a sheepdog. You're a wolf. A scared little wolf perpetuating horrific gun violence--more than 1500 gun deaths since Newtown alone. Not that Mr. Farago cares about gun death:
Over a sushi lunch, Farago addresses the fact that so many people turn guns on themselves.
“Why should society be organized to stop those suicides?” he says. “Do we as a society intervene to prevent people from hurting themselves? Freedom isn’t free. People are going to die. People die all the time.”
A wolf in sheepdog's clothing. Contemptible and deserving of society's righteous opprobrium.
.