From O-Town to Q-Town and Points North

(Click image to enlarge)

Gun Shy was getting a bit bored, so I decided to do a little pre Fourth of July road trip. As the readers who are Floridians know, when you live in Florida, you have two choices when traveling to other states by car. You can go West or North. Every time I point my vehicle North, I start to think about the freedom that we still have here in the Sunshine State when it comes to firearms, because I have to give my routing for the trip a little additional fore thought because of the gun anal states that I may encounter in my travels such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and now it looks like we can add Delaware to the list. Oh…and let’s not forget the Washington D.C, area. Anyhow, I headed out on my road trip to see how everything was going for points North of the Sunshine State. The picture above is from the entrance to Quantico Marine base in Quantico Virginia. It was great to see the flag flying there at the gate, which to me represents freedom, but more than that, the monument commemorates the courage of the young Marines and their commitment to freedom not just for Americans, but for all people that they may be called to defend.

As Winston Churchill once stated:

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

I drove into to “Q Town” because I had to pick up a few items there. I got a chance to talk with a few of the young Marines I met who were polite, focused, well disciplined, and looking as sharp as ever. I must admit that it renewed my hope in this current generation. From there I was off to points North, and at that time, I got an instant memory refresher of just how brutal the traffic was from there to just outside the beltway of Washington D.C., and it made me thankful that I didn’t have to make that commute every day.

One thing I would like to note, was the number of people I saw practicing open carry of a firearm in Virginia. I went to a range there, and a young man pulled up on his brand new Harley with a sidearm displayed openly on his hip. I struck up a conversation with the young man, and he told me he had just gotten back from deployment, and his scooter and his guns (he had a few more in his back pack) were purchased with the money he had saved while deployed. I also ran into another man with a revolver holstered on his hip. It appears that Virginia is a state with true “common sense” gun laws. It should be noted that there were plenty of gun stores, and ammo was abundant everywhere I went in Virginia.

The next installment of this article will be about my trip to New Jersey and what I found there. The readers may be surprised.