I was talking with a friend recently, and we got to discussing the merits of various firearms. When I showed him the revolver that I was carrying that day, he expressed surprise that I would have a gun with me all the time.
He asked if that didn’t mean that I was ‘living in fear’. So I asked him if he had a fire extinguisher in his home. He said yes, of course. I asked if that meant that he was living in fear. Or was he just recognizing that if something unlikely but potentially terrible occurs, it’s good to be able to deal with it on your own until help arrives?
He got the point. Sometimes it can be that simple.
(Some people, when asked why they carry a gun, reply that it’s because they can’t carry a police officer.)
I’m a firm believer that it matters what you call things. Kurt Vonnegut Jr, no fan of guns, admitted that they were in fact Virtue Compelling Devices — if someone is doing something bad, you can usually compel him to stop just by pointing a gun at him; and if he still isn’t convinced, you can use the gun to make him stop.
(In case it wasn’t clear, this is why police officers carry them.)
It’s a descriptive name, and I’ve used it in the past, but it stumbles rather than rolls off the tongue, and the acronym VCD doesn’t get the point across without further explanation, which kind of spoils the intended effect.
But now I think there’s a better name that I’m going to be using to refer to my firearms, especially the ones that I carry regularly: Crime Extinguishers.