He was joking, of course. But that was a turning point, and pretty rapidly the right to carry became the duty to carry. Going to see Granny? Grab the Glock. Grocery run? Grab the Glock. Gassing up the car? Grab the Glock. Going to the yarn store? Maybe just the .380 for that one. You know, in the movies, when the Seals are in the helicopter and are about to land and run out and fuck shit up? There's that scene, every time, where they're all checking to make sure they're locked and loaded. That's what it's like to run an errand with my parents. They're not any more worried about being mugged than they were before they started packing, but now, you see: Now they're prepared. I called them up recently, the Sunday check-in. Know what they were doing? Shopping for gear to put in a gunshot first-aid kit. Two kits, actually: one for each car. Prepared.

A little while ago, they took a four-day class with a guy who travels the country teaching armed self-defense workshops. Dude looks like he eats a bowl of broken glass for breakfast and washes it down with a shot of rattlesnake venom. My folks told me what they were up to, and I thought: Shit. They're going to vigilante camp. I went through my mental Rolodex of defense attorneys I used to know from my days as a reporter in Omaha: Who would I call when Mom was facing a second-degree-murder beef? After all, the coursework is a mix of classroom lecture—rules of engagement, threat recognition, legal stuff—and live-fire training where you learn things like how to draw from concealment, how to shoot left- and right-handed and from cover, how to quickly reload (think about that for a second: reload), and then how to deal with the cops when they show up. (Hint: Don't lie.) You learn when it's okay to pull the trigger. Turns out there's a pretty high standard for when you can take someone down. Ask yourself: Is this person going to kill me? For real, though. Not like, there's a menacing figure in a leather jacket walking toward you. You can't shoot that guy. Not even if he comes up to you and says, "Gimme all your money." Keep your finger off the trigger. He takes a swing? Pretty much, you still can't blast him. My mom—intelligent, responsible lady—did not know when she could and could not shoot someone. She told me she was a menace to society before the class and that it was a miracle she wasn't in prison. And here's the thing: Neither she nor my dad _want _to shoot anyone. They're about as dangerous as a pair of napping kittens. I think a lot of it was simply a matter of a couple of empty nesters looking for something to do once their asshole kids were out of the house. But those perfunctory safety classes they had to take to get their permits did not prepare them for the reality of what it means to walk around strapped. So, yeah, I'm glad my folks went to gun camp, and I don't really worry about them these days. What I do worry about is that crank out there who managed to limp over the very low hurdle that stood between him and his permit and is cruising the streets with a pistol full of hollow-points jammed in his waistband, being righteous and uneducated and looking for a reason. That guy's a problem. Something like 6 million people with concealed-carry permits, how many are that guy?