OK OC: All’s Quiet on the Midwestern Front

By Jim Duke

A month ago on November 1, a new law allowing the open carry of firearms in Oklahoma took effect. To the surprise of no one, in the days and weeks leading up to the change I heard just about every doomsday prediction imaginable regarding the new legislation. Sheriffs and liberal politicians saturated the airwaves with their propaganda about how Oklahoma would soon be a lot like the “Wild West.” Blood would flood the streets and that no one would be safe from the wackos that were bound to slither out of the woodwork to do violence on an unsuspecting populace. I even talked to a few people here and there who were drinking the Kool-Aid and just knew that we were in for full-blown Armageddon. Now that a month has passed, I’ve noted a shocking development: I haven’t seen a single, solitary gun. Not one . . .

I know there are people in Oklahoma who are open carrying because I read an Oklahoma gun forum and members will sometimes will post about their experiences. I just haven’t seen them for myself. When I leave the house I’m always on the lookout for someone with a gun on their hip, but they must be avoiding me because I can never seem to catch them in the act. What gives? Where are all the rabble rousers who are supposed to be out there rousing the rabble?

I have also been keeping one eye on the streets, checking to see that the gutters and sewer systems aren’t being overwhelmed by all of the blood that was predicted to be flowing by now. So far, all I’ve found are some water puddles, a tree limb or two and a crushed Red Bull can. I guess I can cancel that flak vest I ordered.

I listen to the news on my commute each morning and watch the local news most evenings and I’m always alert to anything related to shootings. While we still have our share of nut jobs out there shooting at each other just like we always will, I havn’t heard that a single incident has been attributed to the public’s new-found right to openly carry firearms. It appears that people who go through the trouble to become licensed to carry a gun actually tend to be responsible citizens. Who could have predicted that? And here I thought I was gonna get some juicy good Youtube videos out of this new law.

So what about all those anti-gun folks out there that made those apocalyptic predictions of blood and carnage? How could they have been so utterly wrong? Surely they were basing their predictions on sound statistical data based on what had happened in other states, right? I think not.

In fact, something like 44 states have open carry to some degree. That’s right, 44. You know what else? You know those wild prognostications the antis made if open carry was passed in Oklahoma? They haven’t come to pass anywhere. Not even a little bit. The fact is that all of the people who were against open carry in Oklahoma or any other state and offered their predictions of the doom and gloom lied.

They knew those things wouldn’t happen because there are just too many other states with open carry and it hadn’t happened anywhere. Those people knowingly and willingly lied because they couldn’t support their position with facts. Here is a news flash: if you can’t use available facts and data to support your argument, then your argument is wrong. You can have your own opinion, but you cannot have your own facts. Creating your own facts to try to win an argument is simply dishonest. If you’d like an example of that, watch MSNBC for five minutes.

You may also notice that the kerfuffle surrounding the new open carry law died down almost immediately after it went into effect. Believe me, if there was any truth at all to any of the things the OC opponents said to scare people into opposing it, we would be hearing about it constantly. They’d be gleefully rubbing our collective noses in our own failure. But the reality doesn’t quite support the narrative they presented to us. Not that the outcome is much of a surprise since all you had to do was employ a little rudimentary Google-fu to know exactly what would happen once OC became law the law of the land in The Sooner State.

So now I happily venture forth to begin each morning with my trusty (and concealed) .45 at my side, confident that my day will progress without incident. To my fellow carriers, I say, “Hello” and “Good to see ya”. And to the anti-gun people who opposed my right to carry and would happily strip me of my 2nd Amendment rights altogether, I offer a sincere “Nana nana boo boo, stick your head in doo doo.” Or something like that.

A version of this article originally appeared at unsolicitedbiasedopinion.blogspot.com