Mark Walters: What the Second Amendment Means to Me
I used to say that if a criminal ever decided to pick on me at any given moment, he had a 50/50 shot of running into an armed victim. That was because I had not yet made the decision to carry my firearm with me everywhere I went, every single day. Years earlier, and fresh out of college, I had purchased a handgun for self-defense after realizing that my first real job required me to spend time in seedy industrial areas of big, unfamiliar cities and towns in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. That was back in the mid-eighties, before the landmark 1987 Florida legislation that launched the modern- day CCW movement . Back in those days we never even gave a permit a thought. I did not know anything about a permit, only that I had a Second Amendment right to own and carry a gun. Young and just getting started in the real world, I bought what I could afford at the time—a small Raven Arms .25 caliber pistol. I carried that gun with me to work, keeping it in my overcoat pocket, my briefcase, or ...