Thursday, December 3, 2009

Bankers With Guns

I had to check it out for myself. A blogger whose stuff I frequently read posted something the other day about upper-echelon types at Goldmine Sachs - I know, it’s really Goldman Sachs Group Inc. - arming themselves with handguns.

Could it be that the barons of Wall Street are actually scared of a popular uprising against them, after they looted us, fleeced our Treasury, grabbed the bailout money, and still go around handing out obscene bonuses to themselves?

You bet.

Alice Schroeder, a respected financial author and journalist who does a blog for Bloomberg.com, found out that senior execs at Goldmine Sachs are applying in droves to the NYPD for permits to carry pistols. Schroeder discovered that one of her friends had just written her first-ever reference for a gun permit, and it was for a Goldmine Sachs banker.

The NYPD would confirm only that many of the top dogs at Goldmine do have pistol permits, but declined to name names, and said a large number of pistol permits for Goldmine execs were pending.

Our worst nightmare - city-slicker bankers with guns!!!

A few days ago, just before the start of the annual gun deer season, I wrote a rant about, among other things, the true hunter’s nemesis - a city-slicker from Chicago, invited up to Wisconsin by a client for the thrill of the hunt, armed to the teeth with a high-powered rifle and enough ammo to sink a ship, and absolutely NO training or experience with firearms.

Bankers with pistols is a horrible scenario. According to the FBI, of shootings involving a handgun, most happen at a range of seven feet. And you’d be AMAZED at how many people MISS a target seven feet away. And at how many people freeze at the moment of confrontation.

My younger brother, who got the same excellent firearms training that I did from our late father, a highly-decorated WW2 combat infantry veteran, got his start in the world of high finance working for a Denver bank keeping their high-rollers happy. He’d take the rich guys elk or bear hunting, and more than once had to step in and make the killshot when the client was paralyzed with fear.

He got to be good friends with a lot of rich people by keeping his mouth shut about what actually happened.

Any experienced hunter, whether they’re carrying a .243 or .308 Winchester or a Browning .30-06, basic Marlin or top-of-the-line Weatherby, can drop a deer with one shot easily at a hundred yards, and likely can make one shot count even at the 200-300 yard range.

But a banker - in the city or at home in the Hamptons with a 9mm Glock he’s never fired? Or maybe cranked off a few rounds at a practice range or at some weekend commando class, paid for by the company?

Be afraid, be very afraid.


3 comments:

  1. By the way, if your attacker is wielding a knife and is less than seven YARDS away before you pull your piece, you're dead.

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  2. What's likely to happen is that one of these white-shoe wusses is going to encounter a genuine pistolero and, if he doesn't do something stupid like going for his piece, he'll survive to file a police report about his stolen gun.

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  3. It was recently pointed out to me that all of the Wall Street people in the news, the bankers of failing banks, the AIG greed mongers, were not only wrong, but male. This was applied in general to men in government that thought that business would behave as good citizens and balance out business and social needs for the good of all. That some of the whistle blowers were reportedly women was also mentioned. The speaker's conclusion was that it was testosterone that was behind it all.
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