Bringing the concealed weapon through the metal detector

Gee, I sort of bluffed my way through this one.  I was in San Francisco after all.  I don't think the guy knew what to do.  We went to a religious gathering and to my surprise there was a security person at the entrance manning a metal detector.  As I was walking up with my sister, her son, and my two grand kids I told sis that I was going to have to go back to the truck.  Why she asked?  I'm packing, why else? 

Then she said don't you have your permit?  Of course I do, it's required.  She said pull it out.  Why not?  So as we walked up to the metal detector the four of them walked in and I handed the guy my permit.  "What is this?"  "It's a permit to carry a weapon."  He looked confused.  I opened my pack and showed him my handgun.  "It's a permit to carry this.  This permit says I'm allowed to carry in a weapon and when I do I'm sure your metal detecting machine is going to go off.  I just want you to know that it's legal for me to bring this in."

What a bluff.  I was going in to private property.  It's up to that religious group as to whether they'd allow a gun in or not.  He wanted to see my driver's license.  I showed it to him. 

"Is it loaded?"  was his next question.  "Of course it is."  He said it would be ok to bring the weapon in as long as I unloaded it.  He'd be ok with it then.  Whatever.  I unloaded it.  Put the bullets in my pocket and walked in.  I then walked into the bathroom and loaded it back up.  Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to carry around an unloaded weapon.

I'm sure the security guy never came across a situation like that before.  In 2006, San Francisco had 8 concealed weapons permit holders.  EIGHT!  That's one per 100,000 residents.   I'm sure it's not any better now.  No wonder he was confused. 

We did have a good time while in San Francisco.  We rode the cable cars.  We even rode a bus that was so long it had accordion type bellows in the middle of it (you may be laughing at this but the grand kids have never been on a city bus, only a school bus).  We drove down Lombard street -the crookedest street in the world - in the morning and then at night walked back up it.  We ate Chinese dinner in China town, and not in a restaurant that was full of only tourists.  Half the customers were Chinese.  We went to Pier 39 and to the Golden Gate bridge, although we didn't cross it.  That was about all we had time for because parts of each of the three days were spent with tons of relatives. 

I love looking at people's bookshelves.  Even if you didn't know anything about my preparedness situation seeing my books on gardening, food storage, do-it-yourself repair manuals, animal husbandry, and some good fiction and non-fiction survival stories would be a bit of a clue that we at least think about it.  The relatives had lots of books but I didn't see even one that included any of these topics. 

Not that it would be something to bring up during our visit but the thought crossed my mind about what appeared to be their lack of preps.  Of course I didn't snoop through closets but there was no evidence of anything.  I did see open kitchen cabinets and other than the frozen waffle breakfast for 25 this morning there wasn't anything that looked long term or could feed their family of four for any length of time.  I figured that I had more food in my pickup than they had in their kitchen. 

The relative's house was a three story house with a very small back yard.  From their second and third stories you could see directly into nine other backyards.  There is no privacy there!  I don't know how city dwellers do it.  There were so many people and so much noise.  With the cars, buses, trolleys, and people, after being there for three days and two nights I'm glad to be back in my own quiet neighborhood where you don't hear anything at night except the coyotes howling.

Anyway we are out of the city and back home.  It's about 50 miles due east from the city back to the valley, then another 150 miles or so of farms and small to medium size cities.  Once we got to the great valley I asked boy what type of topographic landscape he liked best.  San Francisco, the big city park (the Presidio) with the trees, looking at the ocean, coming over the hills with the windmills, or the valley with the crops.  He chose the valley.  Good choice.