My friends, the Gun Digest folks, are debuting the second edition of my “Gun Digest Book of Concealed Carry,” and y’all can enter the lottery for a free copy: http://www.gundigest.com/gun-blogs/books/giveaway-win-concealed-carry-2nd-edition

Now, you may not like what I write, and if you got a free copy of one of my books might only use it to line the bottom of your birdcage.  But, ya know what?  If you click the link, you can just ignore me and the book and go directly to the comments, which present an absolutely fascinating spontaneous study of the mindset of armed citizens.  The core theme that runs through it is that the good people responding are pretty much unanimous that they don’t ever want to use it, but they’re damn glad that concealed handgun is there…just in case.

You know how the anti-gunners are always saying that firearms are merely phallic symbols? Well, if you’ve read my work in Backwoods Home Magazine, and elsewhere, you already know my response to that:

IF GUNS WERE PHALLIC SYMBOLS, NONE OF US GUYS WOULD EVER HAVE BOUGHT ONE WITH A TWO-INCH BARREL!

If someone really needs a sexually-related analogy for those of us who keep and carry firearms to protect ourselves and those within the mantle of our protection, they’d be better served to say that those guns are to all of us as Viagra and Cialis are to men in my age demographic.

We are the last ones who ever want to need to resort to them…

… but we find it very reassuring to know they’re there.

1 COMMENT

  2. Awesome, I didn’t know the 2nd edition was due out this soon. Thought it was Nov-Dec for some reason. Definitely picking this book up.

    “Combat Shooting with Massad Ayoob” complimented “Combat Handgunnery” and “Concealed Carry” quite well. I definitely found the software side of things helpful, in particular the “Mindset” chapter. I think a lot of us get too caught up on the hardware side that we often overlook the software element.

    Also the references to other notable resources both publications and instructors, can’t be overstated. With so many instructors out there it’s a challenge to separate the good from the bad. I’m embarrassed to say I dismissed Jeff Hall while skimming a Paladin-Press catalog, to my defense I skim that catalog with a bucket of salt and a tin-foil hat. I was already familiar with Bill Lewinksi’s work and glad to see his name mentioned.

    I’ll have to remember that line about guns being phallic symbols.

    Heh if it were true we’d all be carrying long barrelled SW 500s.

  4. RATS! I bought a copy your Concealed Carry book just a few weeks ago. If I had known a 2nd edition was coming out I would have waited. Oh well…. that’s the way the world goes around.

  7. @Hanza- If I had to hazard a guess, the second edition will compliment the first edition and not replace it. Not 100% sure but, besides college text books, new editions aren’t just a “updated with a few new pictures”.

  8. Speaking of phallic symbols: Many years ago a local radio talk show host, that was anti-gun, kept ragging his audience about those nasty Saturday Night Specials and how we had to get rid of them. Having heard the term phallic symbol as a derogatory term aimed at us gun owners I decided to turn the tables on him. I called in to the show, I was a regular caller, and asked if he had heard the news just released in a paper published by the American Psychiatrist Association. He fell for it and I proceeded to tell him and his audience that the Microphone was now considered to be a phallic symbol. He still didn’t get that the joke was on him. When he questioned the hypothesis, I responded by asking him if he ever noticed Rockers on stage and how they handle the microphone! Of course I was cut off, but that was in the days when they did not have a delay. So it was too late, he ranted and raved for about 10 minutes. I was persona non-grata for some time after that!

  9. What?!? Guns are not phallic symbols? Guess I better sell off my TC Encores with their 15″ bull barrels and get something more reasonable.

  12. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar but a good cigar is a smoke.

    Sure happy they aren’t phallic symbols since I prefer lighweight carbines with set triggers.

  13. I’m still reading your older classics. Just got done going through The Truth About Self Protection for the second time last week. Great stuff. Planning on picking up In The Gravest Extreme next. Will catch up one of these days.