Conversations With Cab Drivers
Now look, I’ve been in plenty of London black cabs, with many examples of the worst type of driver that the vehicles are occasionally notorious for. I’ve heard the railing against immigrants, the barely disguised racism and the political views that make Thatcher look like the very model of liberal democracy.
But in the US you get a wholly different kind of discussion from your yellow cabbie. Witness the trip I took on Wednesday when, mere seconds into the journey, and apropos of absolutely nothing, the driver suddenly starts giving me a verbal tour of his gun collection. In the space of a twenty minute journey I heard more about Glocks and Smith and Wessons than I frankly had any desire ever to know. I honestly thought he was about to pull out one or two he drove around with to show me what he was talking about.
He also told me about how the Second Amendment (that’s the one about having the right to bear arms) was only lacking a minor tweak, which is that people should be required to keep their arms in proper gun safes. You know, so that all the semi-automatic weapons the average household needs don’t fall into thw wrong hands.
Actually a very nice guy. But fucking scary.