Ten Cat gun story

I've heard that Chicago water is pretty good.  I think it has won some contests.  Now that I think of it, I never noticed any odd taste in Chicago, Champaign, Herrin, Berkeley, or Austin.   I have noticed that some places I've visited had hard water, you just couldn't get that full head of bubbles on your shampoo and it felt like it never quite got all rinsed out.  They used to have wells in the Forest Preserves that had very strong mineral tastes, but as kids we loved it.

Here's a Ten Cat story.  I was talking to Joe, one of the regulars.  He doesn't get into politics but I assume his are blue, like most people in the bar, like most people in Chicago.  I have friends who are liberal but live in red states and they sometimes have to hold their tongues, so it's nice living in a state that agrees with your politics.

Anyway this Joe, I've known him for years, seems like a regular guy, but then during our conversation it turns out that he is a concealed carrier.  He wasn't carrying at the time, I don't know if you can conceal carry (is that the term, so less evocative than pack heat) in a bar in Illinois.  I think there are certain places where you are not supposed to pack heat (couldn't help myself), but I don't know which ones they are, I think that keeps changing with the politics. 

One thing I did learn, a lot of places I go have those decals with a gun with a line through it, and i always thought they were some kind of protest, but apparently if you are packing heat, you can't go there.  I don't know if anybody can tell, or if anybody packing heat would bother to obey them, but I guess if something should happen and the cops arrived and patted you down you could be in some kind of trouble.

Joe does something with high tech printers and sometimes he goes into some dicey neighborhoods with expensive equipment and that's why he packs heat, just on the job I got the impression and even then, just when he goes into those neighborhoods.  I didn't get around to asking him if he had some special training, I was kind of shocked.

Packing heat, is relatively new in Chicago, I think less than a year or two.  I asked him if he had ever been threatened before or since and he said no.  If I was going to rob somebody, seems to me I would shoot first and my victim's gun would stay in the holster.  Or maybe I would be more gentlemanly and get the drop on him.  Likely he is not going to do any quick draw shit, and likely if he did, he would lose.  If I knew he was packing I would probably be more trigger happy of any suspicious moves on his part.  I guess what I am thinking is it's only in very specific situations that packing heat is going to do you any good and they are possibly outweighed by those where it might put you at greater risk.

I thought back to the one instance when packing heat might have done something for me in the thirty years since I've moved back to Chicago, and that was when I got mugged by Cermak and Pulaski.  If I was packing and they weren't packing I would have been an advantage.  I had plenty of time to note their approach and I could've whipped out the big iron on my hip and said "Scatter varmints," and that sixty or so bucks would have remained in my wallet.  If they were armed the situation gets considerably worse for me, being as how I am outnumbered (there were three of them).  Probably my best move is to drop it, and then I lose both my gun and my wallet and I think my peril is increased because once guns are unholstered they are closer to being fired. 

Well there are a number of possibilities, some in which packing heat helps me and some where it doesn't and a lot where it doesn't make any difference.  I went over these a little bit, but I didn't want to get into a big argument.  It seemed like the deciding factor was it just made Joe feel better.

I did tell my mugging story, what I did was pull my wallet out of my back pocket and hold it out and I didn't even look their way lest they knew that I could identify them.  A little after that I heard the story of a Champaign buddy who had been mugged, but he had fought back, he got beat up pretty bad, I believe there was a broken jaw, but he kept his wallet, and I thought gee, maybe I should have been like him, but then I remembered that broken jaw.  I would much rather just lose sixty bucks.

My mantra was, I told Joe, moving back to my barstool, "Take my money.  Don't hurt me." 

The guy on the next barstool, big guy, I don't know him well, but from eavesdropping his conversations I get the impression he is a cop. piped up, "That's the right attitude."  I guess it's easier on cops when there are fewer shootouts.

Iowa caucus tonight.  I know it doesn't mean all that much, but I love the game.