Unless you were already treading down the career path of Anglo-American jurisprudence, you probably didn’t give much thought to American law beyond speed limits, drinking ages, and (perhaps) age of consent for romantic entanglements. But once you strap on a hunk of iron and get through the preliminaries of how to use it, your thoughts inevitably turn to when, and that leads you to becoming a student of the law.
More precisely, it leads you to a spaghetti bowl of code, 20,000+ laws, court cases, regulations, rules, and municipal ordinances, spread across fifty states and a few assorted districts and colonies, much of which is contradictory across jurisdictions, and in some cases contradictory within itself, too.
While I find it hard to endorse the jacked-up firearms regime that exists in my current home, the Wolverine State, at least they have the decency to supply you with a copy of the applicable state laws when they give you your concealed pistol license here. And you’d better read them — nay, not just read, but understand them — because an honest mistake that physically hurts no one can send you to prison on a felony.
Once you get beyond the black letter law, however, the average gun owner enters a Romulan Neutral Zone of “no gun” policies by private entities, judgment calls made by local constabularies or even “Pinks” hired by large corporations. Run afoul of those and you may not lose your freedom, but may experience a variety of negative social consequences starting with public embarrassment (if not for you, then perhaps for your spouse and children,) up to and including termination from your job. Not to mention spending the next few months hoping that your next interviewer is sympathetic to you and the notion of private gun ownership, too, and willing to tamp down objections to your employment based on the fact that you were fired by your previous employer for having a gun at work.
And if you ever have to fire in a personal defense situation? Even if you were completely justified? Prepare for a living hell of love gone sour, suspicion, and bad debt. (Apologies to The Clarks.)
All of the above is true, and I think most gun owners — at least the good guys who carry guns every day — are conscious of all (or most) of the above on some level.
When I think of this, I get a wan smile when I hear someone say that the reason they own or carry a gun is because, “It’s my right.” With all due respect, if that’s your position, I think you’ve put the cart before the horse.
I don’t think it is. I think a lot of the rights talk is empty. Yes, yes, if you’re making a public act of political protest, fine. But for me, the fact that it’s a (kinda, sorta, not really) constitutionally-protected “right” greases the wheels for something many of us were going to do anyway.
There are a lot of reasons to carry a firearm, but make no mistake, it isn’t an easy decision. Further, it’s one that you have to consciously make every time you take one out of the armory and strap it to your hip, because there’s no room for unconsciousness when it comes to carrying a gun.
The reason I carry a firearm is simple:
Because I want to go home safe to my family (and protect them when I’m around). I want to be able to meet deadly force from a miscreant with deadly force.
That’s it. If I’m in a situation where I have certitude that I won’t be attacked, I won’t bother with the effort. If I have to go through a security screening to get to a certain place, depending on the context, I will either submit and disarm or else I’ll stay home.
That depends on the context. Airports tend to fall in the former; sports arenas the latter. Every place else? Well, your ‘no gun’ policy is cute and all, but if you don’t have a mechanism in place to catch me going in, you’re not catching anyone else, either. Try harder next time.
Am I carrying because it’s my right? No. No more so than I drive a car and go to work every day because it’s my right. I have an end I’m working toward with that, and driving a car is just the means. Same reason I have a gun with me. The right part? It just greases the wheels, makes it a little more likely that society won’t hassle me about it.
Call me pedantic if you want, but I state the above because I want perfect clarity with others and with myself as to what I do and why. For my own benefit, mostly. Misdirection and lying to themselves have sent more good men up a certain creek without a mental paddle than all the bad women and good booze in history. And as we fight those who would leave us defenseless simply because they don’t like the social class we run in, clarity to ourselves has to come first. Otherwise we’ll be just as lost as they are.
That’s all. For now.
“…you probably didn’t give much thought to American law beyond speed limits, drinking ages, and (perhaps) age of consent for romantic entanglements.”
Not any more (Thank God for statute of limitations!!!).
*Very* good to see you back, Johannes. You have been missed.
“The reason I carry a firearm is simple:
Because I want to go home safe to my family (and protect them when I’m around). I want to be able to meet deadly force from a miscreant with deadly force.”
Damn straight. There is additional good news for gun rights –
“Exclusive: Democrats lose ground with millennials – Reuters/Ipsos poll”
“The online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall. And they increasingly say the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-millennials/democrats-lose-ground-with-millennials-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN1I10YH
“That’s all. For now.”
I, for one, will await your return to these hallowed halls with baited breath.
(Baited with what, you really don’t wanna know, since the cat expired…)
Quick show of hands from you Texas residents out there: how many of you have simply blown right past a 30.06, 30.07 sign while carrying? Don’t sound off of your screen name is your real one.
🤠
Non-Texan, but I decline to acknowledge or deny I have ever done as you have implied…
*cough* 🙂
I’m a Texan. We have not the most but pretty darned near the most permissive carry rights in the nation.
However, I’m honorable. And, I never carry where prohibited because I feel it’s part of the implicit / explicit bargain I made with this great and gracious state to be able to carry a personal protection firearm in public.
I never cheat on a bargain made. To hold up my end of an agreement I’d rather lose thousands of dollars than cheat. Again, it’s about being an honorable man.
I’m surprised that this question is even asked on TTAG. But then, not all of you are Texans.
A good answer with your Real Name login so now we have it in writing…
Now get on with your alias login and answer again…
🤠
I’ve done it once by accident, I was talking with and looking at a employee who was walking on my left as we entered the store and didn’t see the sign on the right side of the door.
No one said anything while I was in the store and I didn’t notice it until I was done and walking out.
“I never cheat on a bargain made.” you sir, presumably, are good people. alas, i often find myself in the company of chest thumping virtue declarers. more likely as not it gets pointed out that “we’ll tell you who’s a cheat and who is honorable.”
i didn’t bargain with any one. been carrying for decades before we were ~allowed~.
Didn’t we go through this with Robert’s favorite yuppified SJW eatery?
If they post the signs, keep your firearms and especially your wallet out of there.
If you’re Robert’s age and insist on dating SJW sorority sluts from UT-Austin, well…
The bargain was made by others, you may disagree with it and carry anyway. Many in “shall(not) issue” states and counties also carry(at least when in crime areas), because they do not agree to this bargain. While I am not one of them(I do not visit these areas). I do not shop at the mall or the indoor swap meet, I do not own own property in the hood(where I might have to go collect rent), I do not go downtown (where I may have to walk by the hood rats and homeless). I do not even go to Walmart, where there are sketchy people.
I don’t have to, I am retired. I do, however have loaded firearms close by at home, even though they are locked up.
I am not believing that you would assume that a good sjw would be a slut, sir. It is well known that female college students never consent to sex.;-)
It’s easy enough for me to avoid the majority of places that are posted. However, all of the major hospital systems in my area are almost universally posted. So, if I have to visit one of them (if I’m just visiting, not if I’m there for a procedure), I carry right past the signs. Most of the time, they’re not even going to notice the difference, and if I have to use it, God forbid, I’ll deal with the consequences. In short, whatever pearl-clutching reasoning they have to feel the need to post a sign doesn’t trump my right to self-defense. That right comes from a higher authority than some pencil-necked, SJW-ing hospital bureaucrat.
I’m a Texan and I carry cause I rather have it and not need it. than need it than not have it!
Not to be a pedant (ok, if I’m honest, its 100% because I’m a pedant), but its bated breath (sometimes written as ‘bated breath) not baited breath. Comes from the word “abated”, as in stopped or held or reduced. It’s basically an old-timey way of saying you’re holding your breath in anticipation.
While I certainly have spent a lot of time, money and effort to protect our rights, I too carry because I want me and mine to be safe, not out of political/social ideology.
I too have the attitude if you can’t catch me walking in armed, screw it.
Im a Texan and do watch for the signs. Depends on circumstances on whether I comply (doctors office has both, and odds are, some clothes are coming off, so obviously thats one I adhear to.) Problem here is so many establishments dont post the appropriate signage – they make there own.
Rad….. I’m a fellow Texan and got all the training and got almost thru the application and decided it wasn’t for me to do all this crap and send in my check to beg for a permission slip to exercise a constitutional right that I already have. This permit is another form of registration for the next liberal governor [ god forbid] to use to demand a confiscation of firearms after rescinding the permits. Just my opinion. We have a good gov. and lt. gov. now though.
TBH, I don’t even bother looking for signs. I know I can’t carry in the federal buildings I frequent, so I make other arrangements.
My doctor Specializes in senior citizens only.
Doubt anyone is packing. At 67 I’m probably the youngest patient there.
If I go to Walgreens to pick up medication I do carry in a Sneaky Pete holster due to drug addicted could decide to rob a RX .
There is no sign forbidding it, used to have a sign allowing LTC but guess they decided to let bad actors to guess
“Call me pedantic if you want, but I state the above because I want perfect clarity with others and with myself as to what I do and why. For my own benefit, mostly. Misdirection and lying to themselves have sent more good men up a certain creek without a mental paddle than all the bad women and good booze in history. And as we fight those who would leave us defenseless simply because they don’t like the social class we run in, clarity to ourselves has to come first. Otherwise we’ll be just as lost as they are.”
THE REAL PROBLEM IS THAT THE LAWFUL HAVEN’T SUBSEQUENTLY PLANTED ENOUGH OF THE F-TARDS OUT THERE PUSHING SOME “IDEAL” OVER IMMEDIATE RECONCILIATION OF A POTENTIAL OF ‘CAPITAL THREAT’, WHEN THE STANDARD SHOULD BE A POTENTIAL OF THREAT TO YOUR “PEACE AND QUIET”.
Carry then because you Fing FEEL LIKE IT. If you let someone else decide what’s best on THE BIGGER ISSUE which is
S O C I E T A L .A G R E E M E N T
Then you are F’d to an exponent, that I can’t type here due to lack of room.
All law rests (lightly) TIP-TOE on Societal Agreement, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
ABOLISH ALL LAW, AND YOU WON’T HAVE A ‘PEACEFUL’ SECOND TO WRITE A NEW ONE, IF YOU DON’T HAVE SOCIETAL AGREEMENT. (loosely paraphrased, J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012).
SOCIETAL AGREEMENT DOESN’T STAND WHEN PEOPLE IMPUNE, IMPUGN, AND IMPINGE UPON IT IN AN ATTEMPT TO HAVE THE PARTIES TO SOCIETAL AGREEMENT (instead) UPHOLD SOME FORM OF LAW THAT DOES NOT, IN TURN (AND ANTECEDENTLY) SUPPORT SOCIETAL AGREEMENT.
All those trying to shove ‘weapons’ possession and carry into such a defined “box”, need to go away, in the same way that ‘carry insurance’ and pedigree-only ‘concealed carry’ “trainers” do .
Again and still, F em all.
” “It’s my right.” ” ???
Sure as shit is.
I concur. It’s quite simple. It is my right, and I’m harming no one. If anything I’m strengthening society and being able to defend (should the need arise) against those who choose to break it.
NOBODY can say how long America will last. Keep your guns for the end of America. Your RTKABA will outlive all of these assholes who stand against it, and their ability to regulate anything will sunset an infinite amount of time before your RTKABA does.
And if I have to come up with the “right reason” to my RTKABA or cc, to the OP clown or those like him, then I gotta waste a whole fuckload of time, and probably even lose some weight, going around and ensuring that a lot of people exert themselves in sufficient manner when they are finally made to fuck off.
coming from a country where it has been removed as a right almost completely in the mind of the law if you can get your gun out get it loaded and shoot the criminal then you could have escaped. this is complete and utter BS as by that time you are as good as dead if they have any serious ill will against you. we have a good dog who i have no doubt would seriously hurt someone that tried to attack us. however in doing so those intent on serious harm would kill him but it may also give us time to launch a counter attack. rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6. i may not be able to get to my guns in time but i will use whatever means necessary to stop someone trying to harm me or mine. saying that i have lots of scrap steel in the back yard because of my hobbies involve making things that we can use in day to day life. bow down to a criminal….. even if that criminal is in uniform….. not F’ing likely
i also strongly believe that the removal of the right to self defence with firearms in this country was an act of high treason and sad to say just one of a very long list of acts of high treason going right back to the end of WWI with the signing of the treaty of Versailles which brought us into the league of nations and maybe even going back prior to federation
A lot of people here are missing the central point of the article- it’s not really a “right” if you can’t actually exercise it at work (where you spend 1/3 of your life), where you shop, where you play on vacation (state/federal land) , etc. 80% of Arizona is owned by the state/feebs/tribes. Nearly all of that land that’s within a reasonable distance of Phoenix is off limits to target shooting.
allowing the private sector to legislate by simply posting a sticker & simultaneously allowing the government to exempt itself from “allowing “ you to exercise that “right” on public property (courthouses, schools, hospitals, airports) means the “right” is really a farce.
No.
You can ALWAYS rescind or give-up a right. You do it in the Military all the time.
You just have to keep everyone on notice that you reserve the right to surprise them one day.
“The reason I carry a firearm is simple: Because I want to go home safe to my family (and protect them when I’m around). I want to be able to meet deadly force from a miscreant with deadly force.”
So in the end, you ARE carrying because it’s your right. Because what you’ve mentioned in this article is the most fundamental right of all, without which everything else pales into insignificance. We should all thank God (or whatever powers we believe in) that the Constitution of the United States, at least in theory, protects it for us.
TTAG:
How about posting a link to the pro-2nd Amendment shirts displayed/featured in articles?
I’m tired of having to squint, search endlessly, and sometimes the group’s name is obscured