published: 2025-07-16
It is easier to carry a gun than a dog. One is warm, breathing, loyal. The other—cold, precise, indifferent. But it’s the dog that draws notice. The lease forbids him. Neighbours complain. Paperwork is required to make him legitimate. The gun needs no such validation. It moves without noise, recognition, or complaint. All it needs is silence—and a red box.
A Milwaukee flat pack with foam inserts. Room for a pistol. Room for a mag. Room for a spare. Obviously, for range days.
I walk past cameras and locked doors, through gated communities and service corridors—not as a man, but as a technician. My vest is the badge. My drill is the excuse. My silence is my credential. The state does not see me. The platform does not know me. The gate does not challenge me. I am permitted not because I am harmless, but because I appear useful.
We speak of safety, compliance, and regulation, but what we enforce is optics. A dog on a leash is disruptive. A toolbag in hand is productive. Trust is theater.
My dog, Knee, is not paperwork. He is not a telehealth claim or a bureaucratic exception. He is not a refund request or a mood stabilizer. He is a presence, a perimeter, a sentinel. What separates an emotional support animal from a K-9 unit, or a military dog from the one who shares my bed and watches over me, is not function but designation. Not skill but recognition. Not instinct but paperwork.
Knee takes charge of all government property in view. He challenges all unauthorised movements. He steadies my pace. He stands watches. He does not need to be commanded because he was never deputized. He was assigned—by me.
A gun cannot love you. A gate cannot see you. But the dog does. And that, too, is a threat—to a world that only trusts what it can badge, barcode, or bill.
So conceal this:
One round. One chamber. One shot.