Confused critic. (Exercising the Right).(Brief Article)

Denver Rocky Mountain News columnist and gun critic Bill Johnson recently described his reaction to what he initially believed was a potentially life-threatening situation at a local mini-mart.

At around 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning, he and a friend were on their way to hunt geese when they stopped at the store for a cup of coffee. Moments later, a small man dressed all in black and armed with what Johnson initially believed was a shotgun, actually a long plastic pipe, came in and announced a robbery.

"I'm figuring I'm about to be shot. For being a witness," Johnson recalled. "How I longed for my own birdgun sitting unloaded and cased in my car. Had I been armed, I'd have for certain shot this little man.

"I know this now. Yes, yours truly, who for years has so publicly railed against the evil that guns do, how they are such an abomination in a decent society.

"God help me, I wanted a gun."

When he and his friend realized that the "shotgun" was only a pipe, and prepared to rush ...