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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla
Outstanding, and neato mosquito. If you're going to use arms, you should use them with skill and with diligence. Robert Heinlein once wrote...
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Yes, we're both Heinlien fans, and know that quote and several similar others. (Like "Always keep your clothes and your weapons where you can find them in the dark.". His views on the subject were quite clear.
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Originally Posted by RAH
My great-great-great-grandfather Lawrence Heinlein died prematurely at the age of ninety-seven, through having carelessly left his cabin one winter morning without his gun—and found a buck deer on the ice of his pond. Lack of his gun did not stop my triple-great-grandfather; this skinful of meat must not be allowed to escape. He went out on the ice and bulldogged the buck, quite successfully.
But in throwing the deer my ancestor slipped on the ice, went down, and a point of the buck's rack stabbed between his ribs and pierced his heart.
No doubt it taught him a lesson—it certainly taught me one. So far I've beaten the odds three times: continued to live when the official prognosis called for something less active. So I intend to be careful—not chopped down in my prime the way my ancestor was. I shan't bulldog any buck deer, or cross against the lights, or reach barehanded into dark places favored by black widow spiders, or—most especially!—leave my quarters without being adequately armed.
Perhaps the warmest pleasure in life is the knowledge that one has no enemies. The easiest way to achieve this is by outliving them.
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It's not widely known that he got into quite a struggle with the woman who editied the Scribners juvenile series over the use of firearms in "Rocket Ship Gallileo"; some of the corresponance appears in "Grumbles from the Grave", the posthumous collection of his letters published by his widow.
Thanks for the invitation; I've been to CA but go there as infrequently as possible.