I walked into a “Field & Stream” store today just to see what sort of stuff they had. I expected it to be akin to the “Cabellas” that populate Utah… outdoor supplies, sporting goods, guns, that sort of thing. It seemed to be mostly much the same but there was a difference that made me shake my head.
I quickly made my way to the firearms. There in the case was the Sig Sauer “Spartan” pistol shown below:
This is a 1911 with some cosmetic details, which I don’t care much about, and a rail for a laser, which would be a handy addition to a standard 1911. I’ve little use for expensive cosmetics on firearms; I’m perfectly happy with my pistols being utterly unadorned. But as with all things, “Because I Wanted It” is a necessary and sufficient explanation for why any American should buy*anything,* from a Furby to a Pound Puppy to a Rose Tico inaction figure to a dressed-up pistol to an M-60 machine gun to an over-sized smoke-belching six-wheel-drive pickup truck to a “Hillary For President” shirt.
But this one was humorously ironic in my view. On the side of the slide in raised (and I believe quite inaccurate) letters is King Leonidas’ famed line, “Molon Labe.” This is the ur-text of the anti-gun-grabber movement; the Spartan kings response to the Persian demand that he give up his weapons was “Come And Take Them.” This is an appropriate sentiment for the side of the gun, but where it was problematic was the store itself. The “Field & Stream” store is part of “Dick’s Sporting Goods,” a company that *used* to sell all manner of conventional normal firearms, but a few years ago knuckled under to the civilian disarmament thugs and removed all modern sporting rifles from their stores. Not a single AR-15 or M-1A or AK-47 or AK-74 to be found. Dick’s responce to “give up your guns” was “here ya go.”
It was easy to leave the store without having spent a dime.