Allow me to go on a limb here for a minute: I think the media is wildly out of touch — I know, I'm crazy.
You see, my guess is that you see guns as something to treat with respect — to use responsibly, to provide peace of mind. But the media typically lives in Manhattan or Washington, D.C., where acquiring a gun is about as difficult, you know, as me passing up some frosting-covered, cream-filled, chocolate-dipped baked good.
To the media, guns are evil and the people who have them are threats.
Listen to this clip from an interview I had with Sen. John Thune. It starts out with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEW YORK CITY MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Criminals will be able to obtain concealed carry permits and walk the streets carrying handguns. They will be able to walk into bars and restaurants with guns. They will be able to go to the movies with guns. And there will be nothing that our police officers can do about it.
BECK: I went to the movie this weekend, with a gun. And surprise, surprise, I didn't kill anybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
How can people just be at the movies there with a gun? And restaurants? Apparently, that made people crazy. My favorite was from The Huffington Post, who headlined their story "Glenn Beck's Startling Boast" — because apparently, I was in a movie theater with a gun.
I guess I'm suffering from sort of overwhelming paranoia: "Look at Glenn Beck — he's such a crazy person. He thinks movies are dangerous." Who knows when that Transformer might attack me?
I must admit when I first did see "The Bourne Identity," I emptied my gun at the movie screen and apologized to the theater for that. I was just trying to help Jason Bourne escape, you know, from the giant 30-foot head that was on the screen.
I didn't know. Sorry.
Once again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding by the media of what guns really are. For a lot of people in America with concealed carry permits, guns are something that you don't just lock into a safe and pull out when you hear glass breaking at 3 a.m.
You conceal them and you carry them — thus concealed carry. You don't just bring your gun into situations that you think, "You know, honey, I think I'm going to bring my gun. It might get dangerous today." You don't know that: 99.9 percent of the time I drive, I don't need my driver's license, but I bring it with me every time, just in case I need it.
Sure, the movies don't seem dangerous, but neither did the English class at Virginia Tech. Neither did an Immigration Service Center in Binghamton, New York. There could have been no other situation that seemed safer on the surface than the moment right after recess at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
You see, when I leave my house in the morning, I take all of my rights with me. The media certainly understands, you know, rights when you're talking about freedom of the press. Of course, freedom of speech they don't always get, but freedom of the press they do. Somehow, they also completely forget about amendment number two.
Now, all you gun owners. There is a "G-Force" commercial that could air at any time. Try not to shoot directly at the TV screen. The guinea pigs aren't really spies.
Calm down.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox