It seems like once a week or so someone shows up here proclaiming their sheep dog status and sometimes telling the rest of us what cowards we are for not buying into the “sheep dog” ethos. I’ve even read posts that proclaim that we (permit holders) have a duty “lay down our lives” in defense of “the sheep”. It was also stated that if your family is left behind in poverty because of your actions they should collect their welfare and feel honored that you died a “sheep dog”
To be perfectly honest “sheep dogs” scare me, they strike me as the type of person that is carrying a gun just waiting for a chance to be “a hero”. It’s been my experience that people that want to be heroes tend to blow a situation out of proportion in their quest to fulfill the “sheep dog” role.
Any time I carry a gun (which is all the time) I am incurring the risk of liability and I am accepting full responsibility for my actions. Why would I want to add to that risk by deliberately interjecting myself into a situation that has nothing to do with me? Also how am I fulfilling my responsibility to protect my family by adding to their risk (of losing their primary provider) by so doing?
IMO anyone who grabs onto that title is looking for something outside themselves to add meaning to their life and (also IMO) they are looking in a very dangerous place
Grossman’s “Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves” was mainly directed at professional soldiers and police officers it was never intended to be a Raison d'être for concealed carry permit holders. It’s an analogy and like all analogies its flawed and you don’t have to take it too far to find the flaws.
Sheep are herd animals that are kept not out of the benevolent goodness of their owner’s heart but because they produce goods that benefit the owner and only the owner. Where do you think the term getting “fleeced” came from? Unproductive sheep are killed.
Sheepdogs are not part of the flock they are employed to impose the owner’s will on the sheep, by force if necessary. They guard the flock because it is of benefit to the owner and they have no qualms about herding the flock to a slaughterhouse if that is what the owner commands. Sheep dog is not an appellation I would care to have applied to me.
It has been my experience that those, in the permit holder community, who seek the title of sheepdog, tend to be authoritarians who use it as a means of self aggrandizement. They tend to derive their feelings of self worth from the position of quasi authority they assume their permit gives them. This is, of course, my opinion but I have also seen posters on gun boards state that our status as permit holders makes us defacto auxiliary police officers. As such I believe the sheepdog mythology is very, very dangerous to the gun owning community and I speak against it at every opportunity.
