Janet's thread

I’ve been thinking about posting this for some time.  I am horrified by the overall attitude of the pro-gun people here in the U.S.  I see signs in the local elementary school that my grandchildren attend.  Guns and pot-bellied pigs are not allowed.  I see signs in my neighborhood coffee shops saying leave your guns outside.  This is just bizarre.  But after all I am now living in a “frontier” state.  Very different from staid old New England or Ireland or Africa or Asia or the Caribbean.

But what has really triggered (pun not intended) is the sighting of a man openly carrying a gun in the local grocery store.  He was wearing a Vietnam Veteran cap and looked quite capable of using his weapon.  I was just plain startled and didn’t know whether to be scared or not.  Why was he carrying that gun so openly??  All this happened very quickly – the store was crowded – I went in one direction – OUT – he was walking in the other direction.  And I’ve been unsettled by this ever since.  So far as I could find out, it was perfectly legal for him to be carrying this gun – WHY?  This is suburban Seattle – no longer the Wild West frontier.  Or maybe it is.  I don’t know.