Previous Post
Next Post

"Pro-gun activists" in Austin (courtesy nytimes.com)

TTAG reader JT clocked the New York Times article Two Ways of Dealing With Guns and writes:

I know you probably are on top of this, but the NYT is simply beside itself at Texas’ new open carry law. It would be comical if it wasn’t so outrageous. One thing struck me about this piece, though it’s not an unusual slant. It’s a way of characterizing the debate. I don’t know if they really believe that everyone in flyover country is just a mindless rube, or they intentionally mischaracterize the playing field. But they constantly refer to the status quo (the one they disagree with) as being somehow established by the gun industry, as opposed to the collective will of a nation. Here are two relevant quotes . . .

The contrasting developments in Texas and Seattle demonstrate politicians’ tug of war over gun rights and civilian safety, which the gun lobby has been manipulating by pushing through state laws that block local governments from enacting needed ordinances. The resulting crazy quilt of clashing interests demonstrates the need for federal laws, which, of course, have been rejected by a Congress captive to the gun industry’s agenda.

The effect of the industry’s power on local streets has the Houston police chief, Charles McClelland, worrying about how his officers will deal with openly armed citizens amid rising fears over mass shootings and terrorism. “How are they supposed to know who the good guy or the bad guy is with the gun?” he asks.

Needless to say, the Times’ editorial showed a picture of “white rednecks” and “celebrated” Texas’ new open carry provisions with this cheerful anecdote:

Texas had banned public packing of handguns after the Civil War. That was before the modern gun lobby worked to reverse gun safety laws to the point where variations of open carry now exist in 45 — that’s right, 45 — states. More and more, the open-carry movement is being used to make confrontational and intimidating protest statements.

The confusion for the public can be considerable. A woman called 911 in Colorado Springs in October when she saw a man toting a weapon in the street. She was told the gunman had that right under the open-carry law. The man began a shooting spree outside her door and randomly murdered three innocent people.

Well someone’s confused . . .

Previous Post
Next Post

86 COMMENTS

  1. Yes that’s right 45 states-deal with it azzwholes…and bend over as I do a full cavity search so you can party in Times Square.

    • The NY Slimes laments gun rights and extolls the virtues of Muslims. At the same time the intersection named after the newspaper is locked down — because NYC has no gun rights and a surfeit of Muslims.

      Go figure.

  2. Anything that gives The New York Slimes a bad case of agita is a glorious thing as far as I’m concerned. If that’s open carry, then make the most of it.

  3. I guess they glossed over the fact that open (and concealed) carry was prohibited to keep the blacks away from guns. Weird.

    • How are they supposed to deduce even that when they honestly believe the gun lobby and the NRA are actually behind the increased carry rates instead of citizen rights and concern?

      • Obviously the NRA pays me $25 a year to carry a handgun.*
        .
        .
        .
        .
        *Apparently what the NYT wants people to believe.

    • I don’t think the banning of open carry in Texas had anything to do with former slaves, but rather cowboys shooting at US troops, and as such was a creature of reconstruction rather than racism.

      • Thanks for telling the truth about guns. I understand that gun control has its roots in racism, but it adds to our credibility to be intellectually honest instead of yelling “racism!!” when it’s not.

        • “One of the noticeable goals was to ensure that black people did not shoot back to the guys in the white hoods,” said Clayton Cramer, an author and historian who has written extensively on the selective enforcement of early gun laws. “A great many of the southern states relied on the fact that they could enforce these laws fairly arbitrarily.”

      • cowboys shooting at US troops

        That was the case during Reconstruction. But when the troops left after Reconstruction (occupation, really; let’s not dress it up), gun control was all about black control and the Black Codes.

      • The very first gun control law enacted in Texas prohibited workers (i.e. freedmen who were slaves just a year before then) from carrying guns on plantations without the owner’s consent. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the intent of the law was.

    • >> open (and concealed) carry was prohibited to keep the blacks away from guns.

      True for open carry, which is why it was banned almost exclusively in former slave states. OTOH, concealed carry was banned in most states, because in 19th century culture it was seen as useless for a law-abiding citizen – the idea being that only a criminal would want to conceal a weapon to surprise the victim.

  4. >“How are they supposed to know who the good guy or the bad guy is with the gun?” he asks.

    The bad guys work for you, chief.

  5. Well I sure am confused, the picture of the gun linked at the end of the story is a lever action (with a cowboy loop at that), but the text of the article stated a “military style” gun was used. I suppose at one time that was the type of gun used by the military. Like I said, I’m confused.

    • That’s what confuses me all the time… it’s hard for me to name a long gun that, in its basic form, has NOT been used by the military at some point.

      • Show people a Lee Enfield and blow their minds. High capacity military rifle with a detachable magazine masquerading as a “hunting” rifle.

        • I prefer Schmidt-Rubin 1889 for these purposes. Legally an antique rifle that can be shipped to your doorstep in most of the country, but not only has a detachable box magazine, but it also holds 12 rounds, which makes it “high-capacity” in several states. And with its straight-pull action, it can be cycled even faster than Enfield.

  6. Whaaaa, Whaaaa. The gun lobby did this to me, and the gun lobby did that to me. It’s like a 1st grade tattletale. I love that the New Your Times is playing victim now. Like I tell my players on the football field “No victim noises, it’s the sound of weakness.” Yup, it is.

    • The number of people who pay to be members of the NRA far exceeds the number of individuals who pay for a subscription to the NY Times. I wonder why they don’t point that out…

  7. seriously how many people still read the NY slime anymore? 10 – 20 ? there paper has been in decline for decades they will try anything to get sales up….NEXT!

    • They will do ANYTHING to get the sales up? Not convert to pro gun, they won’t!
      Perhaps nothing else is too low down for them, but their antigun stance is unchangable. They have decided to follow that ship right to the bottom, and good riddance.

  8. Houston police chief, Charles McClelland, worrying about how his officers will deal with openly armed citizens … “How are they supposed to know who the good guy or the bad guy is with the gun?”

    Easy: the good guy with the gun has their gun in a holster and is peacefully going about his or her business — the bad guy with the gun has their gun in their hand and is shooting innocent victims who are trying to run away.

    Monumentally important note: concealed carry doesn’t change this. Every single person in public could have a concealed handgun or even a concealed long gun if they are wearing a coat. Thus every single person in public could be one second away from criminally deploying a concealed firearm to harm as many innocent victims as possible. How do we tell the good guy with the potentially concealed firearm from the bad guy with the potentially concealed firearm? Answer: the same way that I described above regarding open carry. The “bad guy” is the person who is actively attacking innocent victims. Whether or not their weapon was visible before their attack is irrelevant. Whether or not their weapon is a firearm is irrelevant.

    • Undoubtedly, there will be cops (some, not all) who will resent the fact that citizens can openly carry weapons in public because they think open carrying is something only they should do. They’ll see the new law as affront to their status as police. This will happen because openly carrying a weapon is not only a constitutional right it is also a pretty dramatic expression of political power. Because of this, some police (not all) are going to have to rethink how they interact with the public. That’s not a bad thing at all.

      • … openly carrying a weapon is not only a constitutional right it is also a pretty dramatic expression of political power.

        For the win!

        * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
        TTAG Staff:

        You absolutely MUST make this a “Quote of the Day” article.

        Really. I insist.

        * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  9. Has the journalist ever left New York city? Here’s a shocker to him, I carry a gun and I’ve never been to New York nor met someone from New York city. Crazy huh? I also go to church and say ma’am too. Quit being a bunch of trendy-sexuals and grow up and be men.

  10. ‘The resulting crazy quilt of clashing… laws’

    I realize those three little dots completely alter the meaning and context of what the NYT was saying, but it actually cuts to the heart of the matter for those of us who chose to be the masters of our own destiny rather than trusting our lives to ‘civil servants’. I’m not the least bit concerned about my ability to hit my intended target under stress. Tactical issues are of no concern to me at all. What I am concerned about is accidentally running afoul of the local authorities and finding myself in prison for accidentally treading on forbidden ground with a gun. Allowing every podunk town to write their own firearms laws makes it virtually impossible to safely (with regards to the law) carry a firearm. Either the NYT knows this and are truly evil people, or they don’t, in which case why would you pay any attention to the ignorant on important political issues?

    • Isn’t this an argument for uniform federal legislation, such as the Times suggests? I mean, I agree with state-wide pre-emption, but national pre-emption may be a dangerous place to go, depending on who controls the Congress and the White House.

      • We already have federal legislation that very clearly covers this, it’s just ignored by state governments and federal courts. It’s unmistakably plain language, too – it’s only 27 words long, and it ends with “shall not be infringed.”

      • Technically, there already is National pre-emption. “The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” We just need a judiciary with the balls to limit its own power and admit that the Constitution limits Government, it does not “grant” rights to people.

        • The constitution “grants” rights, and, via the formation of government therein, allows for rights to be revoked…you cannot have both ways. Agree or not, Scotus, which is just as integral to the constitution as the bill of rights and amendments, has held rights are not absolute, such as cases of crimes against the nation, and crimes against society (felony).

        • JimmyJonga:
          “the Constitution and what it does. You are likely to be told it grants Americans their rights and assures democratic elections and fair trials, or something along those lines.” – http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/few-reminders-constitutionally-challenged

          Can you find any wording to that effect in the law? Not what some other guy somewhere said on TV…. actually find it IN THE LAW?
          One thing you have correct, if the document grants it, then other documents can take it away. Thankfully, the Constitution GRANTS nothing, only LIMITS the government. Too bad our grandfathers allowed those limits to become of no force. Now free men will have to fight just to exist, yet again.

        • The constitution “grants” rights, and, via the formation of government therein, allows for rights to be revoked…you cannot have both ways. Agree or not, Scotus, which is just as integral to the constitution as the bill of rights and amendments, has held rights are not absolute, such as cases of crimes against the nation, and crimes against society (felony).

          That is incorrect. The Constitution is clearly structured to explicate the power of the federal gov’t. It has more to do with the gov’t’s rights than the citizens’. The Bill of Rights is, in similar fashion, a list of specific rights that the gov’t is forbidden from infringing upon.

        • A lot of this has been covered, and don’t feel bad Jjimmyjonga, this is the fault of our education system and media. Our government is unique in that when it was formed, the people retained all rights EXCEPT those EXPLICITLY granted to the Government for the purpose of protecting individual rights and freedoms. The Supreme Court, Media, Government, and Education System wants you to believe that no right is “absolute.” However, in order to buy that, you have to grant Government ABSOLUTE rights and power. See, what they did there? The Supreme Court says the second amendment can’t be absolute. But the second amendment is not a right, it is a restriction on Government in regards to the right of the people. If a restriction is not absolute, what does it restrict?

          Again its easy to believe the lie, because no other government in the world works this way. Those governments all spawned from dictators or monarchies and as they evolved, these figureheads granted rights back to their subjects in order to keep them content and avoid the eventual fate of all dictators. But, when George Washington and the continental army marched in to Philadelphia after King George relinquished power of the Americas, George Washington did not take power. He gave the power to the people. These people then attempted to set up an anarchist form of Government. This system did not work, so they spent a few years concocting the government we have today. There is none other like it in the world. It is not a democracy. The majority does not rule. The Constitution rules.

        • Just a small point, JQP… Only living things can have rights. Governments do not have rights, they only have privileges granted to them. That is why governments cannot confer rights on anyone. They cannot give what they do not possess. Nothing is inalienable to government. The People give and the people can take away.

        • The constitution “grants” rights, and, via the formation of government therein, allows for rights to be revoked…you cannot have both ways. Agree or not, Scotus, which is just as integral to the constitution as the bill of rights and amendments, has held rights are not absolute, such as cases of crimes against the nation, and crimes against society (felony).

          It is true that a lot of rights are not absolute, but a right not being absolute doesn’t mean that proponents of limiting the right get to justify limiting it in every single way they can come up with and so long as they leave you with one very limited means of exercising the right, claim they are protecting it. If Democrats treated the Second Amendment the way they treat the rest of the Bill of Rights, gun ownership, if not mandatory, would be guaranteed by a federal program to provide everyone with a free gun who couldn’t afford one.

      • If you could trust the federal government (or whatever kind of government eventually deposes it), a national carry permit with immunity to state and local laws would be pretty awesome. The only down side (besides being an ‘infringement’) is that would give the federal government a list of gun owners from which to confiscate. However. there are a number of things that the federal government could do that would not be a threat to our rights. National reciprocity for instance. Repeal the federal gun free zone act. Allow carry in federal buildings. They can extort states into raising the drinking age by threatening to cut of their highway money, they could easily do the same when it comes to the Second Amendment. If they wanted to.

        • “If you could trust the federal government (or whatever kind of government eventually deposes it), a national carry permit with immunity to state and local laws would be pretty awesome”

          Seems like federal agents from a multitude of agencies already have that national carry permit, don’t they? It may include carrying on airplanes, don’t you think? Was that agreed to by each state individually (I don’t know!), or did the feds just arbitrarily take that power?

  11. The Seattle Times seems to be on a single-handed mission to make the NYTimes look like the NRA blog. Every day there is at least one, usually two, anti-gun stories or editorials.

    I’m a political junkie by education and profession. And I’ve never seen the level of active media manipulation of facts that I see today.

  12. When will these dumbasses get it? If you don’t like something, for f**ks sake, don’t look, touch, smell, or listen to it. So if you’re a sissy who pees your pants whenever you see a gun, run home and cry over a bowl of ice cream.

  13. Hey you dumbasses in new York we can open carry in ohio , been doing it for years! And guess what new York times we don’t need a permit.

    • Since at least 1851. In fact, many of us carried concealed prior to 2005. Gasp! I never had a problem until about 1999; been carrying a gun my whole adult life. I never personally saw it used as a primary charge. We need to eliminate CHL in Ohio. It is only been 10 years since licensing was enacted. That decade has proven licensing is unnecessary here. If we Ohioans wait much longer, we may never regain the exercise of our right to bear arms concealed in Ohio.

  14. The NYT is absolutely atrocious as a publication in terms of the lies and distortions they engage in with regards to guns and gun rights. Either they are willfully ignorant or outright lying, but either one is bad. Just recently, they had an article touting the long refuted”40% of all guns are sold without background checks” line and a bunch of other nonsense that I can’t remember off the top of my head.

    This article is just the latest where they continue to conflate the gun rights lobby with being some industrial lobby of the supposed all-powerful gun industry. They can’t fathom that it is actually just a grassroots civil rights lobby. They spoke of the “gun menace” in the article. Guns are not a menace. Violent crime is. The idea of guns themselves being the menace is the old public health canard.

  15. What, there’s no crying of the eminent “blood in the streets” or “wild west shootouts?” They’re slipping it seems.

  16. This part is interesting:

    “The contrasting developments in Texas and Seattle demonstrate politicians’ tug of war over gun rights … The resulting crazy quilt of clashing interests demonstrates the need for federal laws”

    So, different interests competing in the arena of ideas is bad, and different jurisdictions deciding differently is bad, and the only recipe for dealing with all this bad is doing more thing federally – “dealing with” meaning shutting people up, and imposing one-size policies everywhere.

    So, explain to me again what’s wrong with diversity and the political process? Really, if you live in NYC what skin is it off your nose what they do in Texas? And whatever your interest, isn’t theirs greater, since we’re talking about, you know, what they do. I do think draconian gun banning in NYC, and as NYC has chosen to extend over the rest of the state (and over the rest of the state’s objections) is more than dumb. But getting all wound up because people in Texas choose differently seems dumber.

    What really galls, one suspects, is that they have as yet been unable to impose their preference on the folks in Texas as they did to the remainder of NY State. Every county legislature outside “downstate” voted to oppose, reject, disagree with the SAFE act within weeks of its “passage.” All of them. So, no, this isn’t a NY State thing. This is a down-state imposing on places they don’t live and never go. Maybe if they elect a President Cuomo they can get a similar quasi-legal fig leaf(*) over their draconian ambitions … oh, wait. Nevermind.

    (*) The SAFE act was “passed” via procedural shenanigans, specifically “fast tracking” by the governor declaring it an emergency measure, because, you know, they just invented gun powder a couple years ago, so Something Had To Be Done Right Now.

    The governor’s staffer getting shot as collateral damage from drug-related gunplay occurred thereafter, not as one might imagine before the law was “passed.”

    • So, different interests competing in the arena of ideas is bad, and different jurisdictions deciding differently is bad … “dealing with” meaning shutting people up, and imposing one-size policies everywhere.

      Yes! That is the view of Progressives. Whatever they espouse is good and everything and everyone else is bad — and therefore should be silenced, suppressed, imprisoned, killed, or whatever else Progressives decide is “appropriate” for dissenters.

      This is what we are facing. Progressives do not come to the table in good faith. They come to the table to subjugate people who disagree.

  17. “How are they supposed to know who the good guy or the bad guy is with the gun?”

    The bad guy is the one knocking over the 7-Eleven, Chief Dipshit.

    • Q – “How are they supposed to know who the good guy or the bad guy is with the gun?”

      A – “The man began a shooting spree outside her door and randomly murdered three innocent people.”

      There’s a clue.

  18. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about we have had open carry and no license required concealed carry here in AZ for years and there’s no piles of dead children, no hourly shoot outs, and the blood running in the streets is non existent.

      • Exactly. The appeal is always to “common sense”, as if there were no examples to learn from. Just look at the wild assumptions of danger simply addressing TX open carry beginning, as the *46th* state to have such a law, most not requiring a license or training, and where has the problem been? There has been none. But absolutely nobody mentioned that during the debate and passage of OC in TX.

        • I know I have repeatedly stated something similar to the following, both here and other places, but I belive that it has a place in this context. My youngest daughter and I were watching an episode of All in the Family tonight. Part of the episode involved Archie wanting to buy a gun because of an increase in burglaries in the neighborhood. Much of the same anti-gun propaganda was being used in the 1970s. It has long since been debunked, however, the antis still trot it out verbatim and get away with it. In any discussion, if we make one error or, heaven forbid, stretch the truth, the speaker is crucified and the entire premise of his argument is declared invalid. How, how, how in the hell can any real discussion or debate happen with such lopsided standards. By everyday people seeing other everyday people in everyday places doing everyday things while armed, even the 35 year old lies have no power. I don’t think we can win this thing through discussion with the rules of the game being what they have been for over 40 years, but I do think we stand a chance of winning through example.

  19. They want guns out of sight and out of mind so they can then lie and say that those bearing arms are small numbers and some aberration in society. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the game. Their propaganda won’t work unless they wall you away in some metaphoric ghetto, away from public consciousness.

    If you are somewhere that you can open carry, I encourage you to do so as often as you are able.

  20. If they couldn’t blame the “faceless, evil, alien geometry mass” of the gun industry, they would have to concede and admit that a majority of Americans DON’T want their overreaching iknowwhatsgoodforyou feel good nannying; which would make them finally have to admit that it is really THEIR opinion that you or I shouldn’t have a gun because only they are trustworthy enough and everyone else is too dangerous to be trusted.

    • judging from the comments antis leave on articles like these, I think they legitimately believe that ninety-something percent of Americans want an AWB and UBC and we are all screaming to congress to do something about it while unspeakable carnage unfolds all around us. They believe that the only reason the they don’t pass is because the NRA busts open its money bags and makes it rain on the senate floor. It’s quite bizarre. These people should travel more.

      • My guess is that among non-owners, well above half, maybe 90%, don’t care at all about gun control. It just does not affect their lives, one way or another. The nutbar antis are mostly just that, nutbars, except for a tiny percentage who think they can get some votes by lying about the issue.

  21. Many New Yawkers have Summer homes and ski homes in Vermont.
    Few, if any, know that Vermont has permitless open carry and concealed carry.
    Somehow they’ve visited Vermont for years and survived this experience,
    but now they hear about this much more restrictive system in Tejas and their hair catches on fire.

    • And yet, they continue to believe they are just SO smart, and SO sophisticated. They must consume the majority of the world’s drugs.

  22. “The resulting crazy quilt of clashing interests demonstrates the need for federal laws, which, of course, have been rejected by a Congress captive to the gun industry’s agenda.”

    Ahhh………that’s cute. When it’s contrasting approaches to firearms freedom at the state level, it’s a “crazy quilt” in need of a uniform, federal solution. Interesting.

    Yet, when it was a just one state with a court ruling, not even a duly constituted law or public referendum, permitting so-called “gay marriage”, the New York Times’ response was “Keep going, you’re making progress!” So other state supreme courts rammed through pro-gay rulings, while other states passed laws or referenda affirming the definition of marriage, ultimately creating what some might characterize as a crazy quilt of clashing interests. When the federal government responded with the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, did the New York Times celebrate that bill which Clinton signed into law as having liberated Congress from the clutches of the gay industry? Nope.

    They called for federal non-enforcement of that law. They even pushed for further action at the state level. In 2015, the New York Times was extolling the successes in advancing counterfeit marriage at the state level and praising the enhanced penalties in state laws for supposedly discriminating against such partnerships. Curious, that.

    The point here is, regardless of your views on marriage or even on firearms, you should not accept the New York Times’ argument on its face. For one, not even the NYT’s accepts it. They only selectively apply it. If you believe in principles, then they should not be situational and infinitely elastic. There shouldn’t be one approach you celebrate as virtuous when it works in your favor on one issue, but denigrate as vile when it works against you on another.

    This is precisely how liberals view the Constitution itself and all of governance: fluid, free form, “living, breathing document”, make-it-up-as-we-go-along. The liberal approach replaces constitutional structure with executive whim. I believe in checks and balances, not “a phone and a pen”, and you should, too.

  23. “War on Guns” seems appropriate to me, because the left seems far more interested in banning or restricting guns (preferably the kinds least used in crimes) than it does in reducing violent crime.

    Stop & Frisk is the best way to reduce violent (gun) crime. It’s a local approach that gives local rewards and doesn’t require un-Constitutional federal laws. It works regardless of whether or not the next municipality over has “lax” gun laws. It works regardless of how available guns are to criminals. S&F means your local cops make a point of stopping and searching people (hoodlums if “racial profiling” is tolerated, everyone if not) and confiscating the illegal guns.

    I suppose the fact that it works, and provides a superior alternative to national, anti-Constitutional gun laws, is why leftists hate it.

    Sort of like why they hate adoption for making abortion look bad and obviating 99% of the “problems” that abortion “solves,” with the notable exception of “pregnancy makes me look fat.”

    • Somebody hates adoption? I hadn’t heard of that, although I once disliked it rather much. That was decades ago, when the bride and I considered adopting a second child, and so looked into the possibility, and were told that first we had to become churchgoing Catholics, then swear in writing to raise the adopted child as a Catholic, there was more but we had left by then. Maybe it has changed, I doubt it. That is why some of our friends have gone overseas to adopt foreign-born children. But you keep telling us how adoption is an answer to something.

  24. The NYT’s has become a rag on the same level as Rolling Stone. If they were not an old Paper and based in a large city no one would read. A newsprint bias magazine with very little integrity.

  25. Not really a fan of open carry. Does seem to say “look at me! I’m armed and badass!” Also gives a potential threat the knowledge on who to take out first. That being said, pretty surprised this has been such a big stink in Texas of all places.

    • Your “potential threat” normally goes to a gun-free zone, where nobody would be OCing. And that threat is pretty stupid, as well, does not plan on opposition, since our media says resistance is futile. But that choice should be up to the person who actually carries, not some dickless government, or to an anonymous input on a blog.

      • I never said the government should regulate open carry at all. Nor did I say so “anonymously.” Just my opinion that it’s inferior to carrying concealed primarily because it draws attention to you. I really don’t care to have that attention. Negative or otherwise

    • Not really a fan of open carry. Does seem to say “look at me! I’m armed and badass!”

      I think of carry laws more in terms of criminalization by other means, and vehicles for selective enforcement.

      Say it’s legal to own and use a gun. OK, fine, but here come the draconian rules about making sure it’s never seen. Your skirt shirt blows up(*), and now you are a felon. Reach the wrong way so your gun prints on your sweaty t-shirt, and now you are a felon.

      How about you went, or are going hunting. Wanna grab a cup of coffee on the way home, or out? Well, CEO-rich-guy can declare Starbucks “gun free” and that may be his business. BUT, if “open carry” is illegal, you have to leave your gun in the car, so it can get jacked, because to bring it in with you would be “open carry.”

      Some hunters with their long guns slug over their backs as they grab some caffeine seems to me … kinda normal, in rural areas, and unremarkable. I recall my high school comrade Ross, who was gifted with a chrome 357 one year, as backup when he went bear hunting with his bow. Ross wants to grab a cup of coffee en route, I expect it would be easiest to just leave the pistol in the shoulder rig where he carried it when hunting. (Rigged that way because reasons. A guy who fills his dear and bear tags, 5+ years running, with a bow can rig things however he wants, and I’ll assume he’s right.)

      I don’t think it’s so much about “Look at me!” by the tacti-cool, but fighting creeping denormalization, by the advocates pursuing legislation by other means. *Banning* open carry makes the presence of guns an unusual act. That is, of course, other than the tacti-cool myrmidons of the anointed elected overlords, muzzle-sweeping the proles with their full-autos. That’s OK.

      (*) NOT sexist. Lazarus Long, the Heinlein character was (in)famous for preferring a kilt, under which were strapped a blaster (pistol), and knife.

      I recall no comment in the books on the esthetics of his legs. I must presume, given the appreciative descriptions of several of his female relatives, that LL’s gams were pretty good.

      Maybe everybody should wear a skirt, with a pistol strapped to their thigh underneath. “Semi-open carry” in breezy conditions?

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here