UTC Whole Foods, UTC Elijah's Deli, Filter Coffeehouse North Park

I had the honor of being the guest speaker at the monthly Libertarian Supper Club meeting at Elijahs, but as I arrived 15 minutes early and it was rush hour, I decided to wander into the Whole Foods located in the same strip mall to see if the all-natural melons look any better than the artificially enhanced ones. They don't, but knowing that they're natural makes all the difference. But that is neither here nor there, as I actually bought a bag of apples and departed. Oh, I was carrying my Glock 17C and 25 rounds and strangely I left the store with the same number of bullets as I went in with. Something must be wrong with my gun. Mental note: contact the folks at Glock and ask them when gun is going to develop a mind of its own. Or maybe that was a factory option that I inadvertently declined....

I stopped back at my truck to drop off said apples, then walked across the lot to Elijah's. Then a funny thing happened. I was crossing the last traffic lane in the parking lot, using the crosswalk like the safety-conscious freak I am, and a guy approaching from my strong side wasn't paying attention and darned near ran me over. He stopped in time as I was coiling to leap out of the way, and he made the "sorry, sorry"motion with his upraised hands. Just as I was thinking, "Great, supposedly I'm some sort of walking hazard because I have a weapon, and this clown has been LICENSED and is still dangerous," I saw his eyes lock on my gun and get VERY wide.

He then went on his way, blowing the myth that "people with guns are susceptible to road rage shootouts" clean outta the water.

I kept walking.

Entering Elijah's was no big deal, no one noticed or cared, and I spent the next 2.5 hours describing to a great group of people the size, color, construction, texture and frequency of all hoops you have to jump through to exercise a right that "shall not be infringed."

What a joke.

I'm loosely a part of a politics and religion discussion group that meets at the Filter Coffeehouse in North Park. Mind you, the group is heavily tilted to the big-government nanny-state liberal socialist side, but why preach to the choir? Get out there and find some people you might be able to enlighten!

This was the first time I wore my gun, though.

The topic was "is this the death of laissez-faire markets?" and my contention was that we haven't had anything resembling free markets since 1913. Regardless, all the sheep are parroting what they hear on the news, specifically that the economic difficulties we're experiencing are due to a "failure of capitalism".

Hilarious.

Oh, my gun didn't shoot anyone there either. No one noticed that I was carrying and if they did, they didn't care.

So at this point, you can add Whole Foods, Elijah's, and Filter Coffeehouse to the list of places where you won't necessarily be wholly at the mercy of an armed interloper in a "gun-free" zone.