I've been watching a lot of videos about The Tail of The Dragon in Tennessee on SR-129 near Deals Gap. I'm not afraid of the road itself. I figure I can always go slow enough to handle it. No. The fearful presence I speak of is the malevolent presence of the TNPD and BCSO. Their job seems to be to harass bikers and extort money from them.

Normally when I make a trip someplace, I carry a gun. I do this to protect myself against criminals. The problem is, it is generally illegal for me to do that. I won't go into the history of gun control in the USA. But I will say that the laws were originally created to prevent the freed slaves from owning firearms after the civil war. Anyway, with the attention that motorcycle riders get, I'm afraid of getting searched and busted for a felony possession of a firearm. The recent SCOTUS decision (District of Columbia vs Heller) has not changed anything other than forcing DC to at least have some sort of permit system.

Besides, a handgun is useless against rogue cops in a police state.

So when I'm down at the Dragon in August, I will be unarmed. The odds of police harassment vastly exceed the odds of needing a gun for self defense. If you think about it, that's kind of sick. The police are supposed to "protect and serve", not ticket and confiscate.

Even though I don't mean to, I probably sound a bit like a gun nut. The truth is, I don't get to shoot that much recreationally anymore and it is not normal for me to need a gun for self defense. I generally don't carry while riding anyway because in a crash I don't want some hunk of iron to need extraction from my body. I'm fairly realistic about the probability of various possible events within my ability to figure out which is the more likely.

It's possible that I am just letting myself fall victim to propaganda. I am somewhat gullible. Then again, I also have something of a strong anarchist streak. My view of government is that it exists to maintain our infrastructure and nothing else. Something is very wrong when a cop can give you an order and arrest you for not following it. Let's not forget who employs whom.

I suspect most people already have.