A Lifestyle Worth Living

I have talked about how concealed carry needs to be a lifestyle, both on this blog and recently on the Defenders USA podcast.

However, the fact the matter is that concealed carry as a lifestyle won’t become popular until society itself tells us that it’s okay to live that lifestyle. For example, for most of the 20th century, not smoking was, weird. It was not normal. Then came “Cancer by the Carton,” and the wheel started to turn until now, not smoking is the norm (although vaping is starting to bring it back, sort of).

Or fitness. Being in shape was not a thing, or rather, the definition of “shape” changed significantly. Look at the Campbell’s Soup kids pictured in the header image: They have round face and rolly-poly body shapes because for literally thousands of years of human civilization, only well-off people had enough food to be fat, so being fat was a sign of a life well-lived. On top of that, sugar companies told us that it was fat that made us overweight, not sugar, and we believed them. There was Jack LaLanne out there, telling us to lift and do cardio and ignore the sugar and eat natural foods, but nobody believed him.

Turns out he was right.

We haven’t even begun to reach the part of the lifestyle journey where we as a society have decided that armed self-defense is a good and proper thing to do. Carrying a defensive firearm is still perceived as a bit weird, even though 13 million do it, about as many people who play softball.

However things are changing. Look at how the ATF Director was welcomed at the most recent Gun Rights Policy Conference. Rather than try to stamp out firearms ownership altogether, the current leadership of the ATF is trying to make owning guns normal, and that is stupendously cool.

More, please.