You may come to think this particular column is a cheap trick, though not the rock band of the same name.
Who wrote these lyrics? (Hint: It wasn’t Rick Nielsen.) “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run. You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table, there’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.”
You’re going to say Kenny Rogers, who made the song famous, but you’re only partly right. Check it out on Wikipedia.com—you’ll be surprised.
What brings this to mind is that the ex-girlfriend saw the outline of my Walther in an IWB holster and, in the discussion that followed, called me a gambler. It seemed romantic and exciting at the time, but she didn’t mean it in a flattering way (which is why she’s the ex, even though I’m partial to redheads—“gingers” in PC terminology). She meant that by carrying a gun I was gambling with her life and safety, as well as my own and that of others. She meant that I was choosing a risky path, by carrying, and that it was dangerous. She said that by carrying a gun, I was “part of the problem” rather than part of the solution, whatever that means.
Actually, I believe that permitted carry, backed up by training, occasional time at the range, a lightly-lubed gun, and an alert approach to self-defense is precisely the opposite of being a gambler. I think of concealed carry as an insurance policy, though—with respect to everyone out there who sells insurance—it would not have felt especially sexy if she had called me an insurance agent.
It is impossible to argue with someone who has a fortified position, who, regardless of any facts presented or diverse opinions, rejects everything you say. And so I began to consider the idea of gambling…which eventually led to the insurance agent comparison.
If I’m alert and notice a threat or a potential threat (knowing the difference is sometimes impossible because most predators attack, sensibly, from their point of view, from the rear), would I be a gambler if I took the ginger’s arm and guided her across the street or turned into an unexpected doorway or switched sides with her so that my strong side was free? Would I be a gambler if I took out homeowner’s or auto or life insurance? What about a regimen of prayer? Aren’t all of those things gambling, in a sense, because they all involve estimating and then acting on a perceived level of risk…even calling on a higher power for guidance?
If I am suddenly surrounded by a threatening pack of street punks while walking to my ginger’s favorite clam shack in Baltimore one evening, the wisest choice—the non-gambling alternative—may be to hand over my wallet and watch, her purse and our cell phones. If one of them grabs my handgun and I wrestle for it, someone is going to die. Anything can happen in that situation and that’s when you have to decide whether you are a gambler or not. These things happen very fast, very unexpectedly, and even the best exercise in situational awareness can’t prevent every baseball bat to the face.
My sense is that we are not gamblers. That if, in that one-in-a-million situation when we lose or have to surrender our protection on the street, we will do the smart thing. When you can run, you run. When you are in a safe place, you call 911. Then you tell the officers—and demand that they write it down so they can trace it when it shows up at a local pawn shop or murder scene—the make, model, and serial number of your weapon. Depending on your police force, you may or may not get the gun back. (In my experience, they won’t find it and even if they do, they won’t return it.)
The fact that we walk with a loaded gun for self-protection doesn’t make us gamblers. Our choices make us gamblers and those choices may not be a whole lot different whether we carry or we don’t. In an impossible situation, you do what you must to survive. That’s what an insurance agent would advise and, I think, that is what Kenny Rogers or even Cheap Trick would recommend, too. Because remember that at the end of the evening when the gambler in the song had swallowed a bit of whiskey and smoked a final cigarette on that train to nowhere, he broke even—and we want to do better than that because neither an insurance salesman nor a gambler will thrive by just breaking even.
