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So how better, on a Fox News business show, to make a point about the benefits of concealed carry than to have the gun-loving guest brandish a Colt 1911 .45, “a gun that I carry every day.” For the sissies, he displayed another “little 5-shot .38 revolver” – Smith & Wesson, of course – that he just carries it in a “little ankle holster.”

Mr. Wyatt explained that a license to carry a gun means you can carry it in the public, to “go to the mall when you’re Christmas shopping.” Sure, don’t we all need to pack heat when we visit our local Toys ‘R Us?

Wyatt assured his willing host that guns “are not dangerous,” and it’s a breeze taking your gun on a plane – just stash the little sucker in a hard-sided locking case and they’ll throw it right in the cargo. “You get the gun . . . you’re good to go, ready to protect yourself.”

Considering that he was brandishing what was most likely a loaded weapon on national t.v., it’s probably slightly reassuring that Wyatt assured the audience that he’s free to use a gun to protect himself or anyone else he deems needs protecting, but “you shoot ‘em to stop the threat . . . we don’t shoot to kill . . . .”

The skinny little dude with the lame western vest who managed to swagger sitting down and clearly fancies himself a powerhouse when he’s packing lectured the viewers on what he no doubt dreams of, a return of the Wild, Wild West: “Having a gun doesn’t make you a gun-fighter, having the ability and knowledge and training to use a gun makes you a gun-fighter . . . Most people won’t attack me because they look at me and say, I don’t know what it is about this guy, but I don’t want any of that trouble.”

Yes, crazy packin’ vigilantes aren’t highly popular, except to other vigilantes.

Given this guest’s propensity for envisioning himself as a modern day Charles Bronson in Death Wish Umpteenmillion, it was fairly clear that his, well, passion for guns was more about jacking up his own tough-guy persona than it was protecting anybody or anything – and packing concealed isn’t a formula for lower crime rates anyway.

Let’s take Alaska, where a permit isn’t required for concealed carry – the crime rate within the past few years was higher than in Illinois, which is the only state that has no provision at all for citizens to carry concealed. The District of Columbia doesn’t allow concealed carry, and yet it has the nation’s highest rate of violent crime.  Michigan, which issued tens of thousands of concealed carry permits, denies that concealed carry has any effect whatsoever on crime.

And a fairly smart guy, John Donohue III, a Yale University law professor and economist, has countered gun advocates’ arguments about the link between concealed carry and a reduction in crime rates and concluded that laws allowing concealed carry have no influence on the crime rate and, in fact, may lead to increases in aggravated assaults. “My general sense is,” Donohue noted, “The best we can say today with the most recent data is that the impact of these right-to-carry laws is not great. But what effect there is seems to be harmful. … I probably published two or three articles in the last year that showed the reduction of 3 or 4 percent is completely wrong . . .  In such a big country, you can find anecdotes for anything.  The bottom line seems to be, even if there are benefits at times, there are certainly costs. The one thing to remember is, we are such a gun-saturated society . . . .”

But don’t let facts, Bolling, get in the way of a really good pander to the really twisted gun-lovers and Second Amendment remedy seekers that comprise the Fox News viewing audience.  Seeing shows like this, it’s no damned wonder that Fox News viewers are the most uninformed on the planet.

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