{"id":22354,"date":"2019-12-17T20:31:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T02:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=22354"},"modified":"2019-12-18T18:32:54","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:32:54","slug":"22354","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=22354","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody\u2019s Polite at the Shooting Range<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of talk about how civility has declined in America since Donald Trump took office.<\/p>\n

They are right, of course.<\/p>\n

I was driving in Los Angeles the other day, and people behaved like animals. The homeless people downtown looked quite sane compared with the lunatics in BMWs piloting their murderous machines like go-carts, driving with their knees while they text with one hand and sipped their frappa-latte with the other.<\/p>\n

Ijits of the highest order were driving on the shoulder and using turn lanes to go to the front, then cut people off at the last second, flipping them the bird as they did so. I thought I was in Mexico City or New Delhi \u2026 except for the flipping-off part. It would have been funny, had it not been so dangerous.<\/p>\n

It was so bad that\u2013when a fleeing robber crossed into oncoming traffic and nearly hit me head-on bypassing stopped cars at an intersection\u2013I wrote it off as just another LA psychopath trying to save ten seconds. Then five police cars came around the bend after him, and the helicopter with the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Americans are wound up and stressed out, sure; but civility was cratering long before Donald Trump took office. Many people took his election as a cue to turn the a**hole up to 11. Our loss of civility is a feature, not a bug.<\/p>\n

Speaking of a**holes: the\u00a0riots after the UK election<\/a>\u00a0inspired me to go get some pistol practice this morning in anticipation of our own 2020 extravaganza coming up soon.<\/p>\n

I went to the San Diego\u00a0GlockStore<\/a>\u00a0for a spring, then\u00a0The Gun Range<\/a>\u00a0for 30 minutes of practice. In both establishments, I noticed something:<\/p>\n

Everybody \u2026 was \u2026 polite. Everybody. Super polite.<\/p>\n

Patrons were courteous and patient with one another in the parking lot. Customers waited their turns and said \u201cplease,\u201d \u201cthank you,\u201d and \u201csir\/ma\u2019am.\u201d Nobody yelled at the (armed) employees to hurry up with their order. I felt as though I\u2019d stepped into a time warp.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like people were walking around in terror of one another, worried about dissing someone and getting capped. On the contrary, everyone seemed relaxed, comfortable, and friendly.<\/p>\n

All present seemed to understand one another, to know within those two micro-communities<\/p>\n

Around here, Words and Actions have Consequences<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody\u2019s Polite at the Shooting Range There\u2019s a lot of talk about how civility has declined in America since Donald Trump took office. They are right, of course. I was driving in Los Angeles the other day, and people behaved like animals. The homeless people downtown looked quite sane compared with the lunatics in BMWs … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22507,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22354\/revisions\/22507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}