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Like most of you, I’ve had a lot of annoying conversations with hoplophobes. People who’d love nothing more than to see the government ban all guns from all civilians, and take them away from those who already have them. Remembering all the anti-gun “arguments” is like trying to recall what I had for lunch two months ago, but I remember the “good” ones . . .

I remember a family member telling me that “guns make people violent and I never want to be around a gun, ever.”

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. What are the odds she’d been standing in line at the grocery store next to a person legally concealing a firearm? Out of sight, out of mind? Or what I don’t know can’t hurt me. Both are dangerously delusional, given that legal gun owners are hardly the only ones who carry concealed.

Of course, another family member immediately pointed out that I had a concealed carry permit. I was probably carrying a gun right then and there. My anti-gun relative gasped and put her hands to her face. “Well, I hope your gun isn’t loaded, Sara!” I said “Of course it’s loaded! An unloaded gun is a club.” I didn’t want to scare her, but I’d reached my hoplophobic limit.

On another occasion, I had to tell an anti-gun cousin that shootings are the fault of the person that pulls the trigger. Like so many anti-gunners, she refused to confront the facts. “I don’t know the solution. I only know guns are the problem.”

Sometimes I feel like breaking out in song. All we are saying … is give guns a chance. But those of us who exercise our gun rights must remember that some of our fellow citizens are incapable of even entertaining the idea of keeping and bearing arms.

Which is why I rued the day California removed our right to open carry long arms. And wish California would restore our right to openly carry all firearms. Because seeing is believing.

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91 COMMENTS

  1. Aye, this is the objective of those democrats who half-heartedly support concealed carry; they know their constituency is barely sentient. If they could SEE the truth, every day, they would lose forever the dummies that keep voting for them.

  2. Yeah I’d love to open-carry in Illinois…what is the point of this? California(to me) is worse than my crappy state…

    • nj is worst about guns. no carry of any kind. they get aroundvthe constitution on the topic by required ” a good reason” to get a permit. just for a hand gun you a permit for each one. if it sold, you need a new one. cant by more then in 30days but permits only last 90days. takes months to get them in the first place.. 7days wait… i wish. it takes months.

      if you need one for defense, you would be dead before permit is approved. plus background check, plus the “permit” (the pink copy on near tissue paper) must be on your person even at a range or during transport.

      • “plus the “permit” (the pink copy on near tissue paper) must be on your person even at a range or during transport.”

        no it doesn’t.

  3. “Because seeing is believing.”

    Or Not.

    Galileo faced the Inquisition for following the dictates of reason and evidence.Us humans collectively treasure and love our illusions, and will defend them occasionally to the death before seeing reason.

    Much like how humanity once believed the Sun revolved around the Earth, hoplophobia will be just another social fail our grandkids will laugh at in the decades and centuries to come.

    The year 2158:
    “Did people REALLY believe gun laws stopped crime?”

    “Yeah, my history professors full of crap. No way were people THAT stupid. Pass the plasma rifle bro.”

    • If Earth is your reference point, then the sun is indeed moving around the Earth.

      The reason that people tell us the Earth moves around the sun is because the equations that describe and predict that motion are a LOT simpler.

      • Yes, reference frames and all that, but geocentrism held that the sun and the planets and the stars all revolved around the earth, which doesn’t match observed reality, even if the earth is held to be a fixed reference frame.

        • What didn’t match observed reality was huge objects such as stars and planets moving so easily. Made perfect sense that the Earth, which was something huge, stood (mostly) still while everything in the sky orbited around it. They had no reason to believe that the stars or even the sun were that far away from where they stood, or what sort of scale they were in comparison to the Earth itself.

        • “which doesn’t match observed reality”

          It did for 1500 years from Ptolemy to post-Copernicus (ie, Brahe).

          The point is that data matters. In Ptolemy’s time, earth-centric was correct for the data at hand.

          Consensus something settled science something….

      • Actually the entire universe revolves around me. I just happen to inhabit planet Earth. In fact, even when I “walk” I don’t go anywhere. The entirety of creation moves beneath me until where I wish to be arrives. Unfortunately that complicates the math even more, so I’ll forgive you if you want to keep it simple.

    • Um actually he didn’t get in trouble for the heliocentric theories. They just used that as an argument to ruin him after he started trying to interpret the Bible for himself.

      But your point is taken.

      • He would have even gotten away with that if he hadn’t thrown in with the Franciscan’s and honked of the Jesuits. He picked the wrong group for having the Pope’s ear.

    • Galileo didn’t get in trouble because of the helio centric theory, the theory was considered by both the universities and the church to be superior to the geocentric theory but it lacked concrete proof, the church’s position was that both should be taught as plausible theories. Galileo taught and wrote as if he had concrete proof and publicly insulted in writing any one who called him on it including church astronomers who held the helio centric view the last straw was when the pope asked him in a private letter to stop he wrote a book in Italian mocking the pope and calling him a simpleton. Galileo got in trouble for being an ass to everyone not for being a heritic, his sentence matched his offense, he was confided to his home which he was already due to being old and in failing health and told that he could no longer publish any more books on the subject.

      • That punishment most certainly does not match the “offense”. Being kind of a jerk and making people feel bad doesn’t merit being placed under house arrest and having your right to free expression taken away.

    • In Sacramento, people are arrested and thrown in prison for exhibiting common sense. It’s a badge of honor to be an idiot, you get two badges if you’re a Democrat named Kevin deLeon and a squeaky chew toy.

  4. I remember a family member telling me that “guns make people violent and I never want to be around a gun, ever.”

    I guess that explains why there are so many shootouts in police stations every day. (/sarc)

    • So do I. Have open carried almost daily, carried daily. I have only noticed one other person open carrying. I walked into a small town gun shop recently the clerk was probably just 18 and he thanked me, he said I was the second person that carried into the shop that day and he wanted me to know he appreciated seeing people not afraid to exercise the right.

  5. Jeff Cooper in his book Art Of The Rifle calls some people “Over educated and over civilised.” I married into a family with some of those people.

  6. California banned the open carry of handguns in 2012 after an invasion of open carry advocates. Mind you, this was an absolutely mindless and stupid law. Apparently unbeknownst to the teaming masses in the state’s congested urban corridors, Governor Reagan signed a law in 1968 banning the open carry of loaded firearms (passed with due haste after an armed but peaceful rally by the Black Panthers at the Capitol). Which means that all of those open carry advocates were carrying unloaded guns.

    Did this matter? Not one whit. If five people showed up at a Starbucks or at the Boardwalk sporting exposed handguns, someone would inevitably dial 911, screaming incoherently that there was a MWG!!!OMG its a MWG!!! HE’S GONNA SHOOT SOMEBODY! OMG!OMG! I’M SOOOO SCARED! And inevitably the police would send in its overreaction squad, who would roll up in five or six cruisers, jump out of their cars, often with guns drawn, demanding ID, demanding to know why people were carrying, and performing “(e)” checks to determine if handguns were indeed unloaded (then failing to return firearms until the incident was cleared). These of course made the local news, and the morning paper would be filed with anti-gun editorials castigating the open carry advocates as a menace to society. The Legislature (which leans so far left it is apt to fall into the Pacific) was not one to let a good crisis go to waste, and with alacrity and abandon quickly passed a ban on the open carry of handguns. The following year, a mere whisper that open carry advocates might start carrying rifles instead, caused the legislature to quickly close this loop hole.

    The fact is, Sara, that the majority of Californians (not all by any means, but a large majority) think exactly like your hoplophobic relatives. Even empty guns are dangerous and will turn sweet little children into horrible killing machines. Which is to me at least why we will never see legalized open carry again.

    • I’m from Seattle, so I know all about liberal, but the three years I lived in San Francisco were just about unbearable.

      What really got to me was what big ninnies everybody was. They were all afraid of their own shadows. I worked with some people in Oakland, and one of the people there had a play showing in SF. The level of anxiety about walking a few blocks in downtown on a weekday afternoon was beyond absurd. It was like we were leaving the Green Zone.

      It’s no surprise to me that California is the center of the “for the children” industry. Those people can’t go two minutes without clutching their pearls.

    • Your story only proves why California is the poorest example to “lead” the rest of the nation, yet so many, such as in education, look to CA for example.

  7. Sara, paragraph 3, you say out of sight, out of mind! That say’s it all!
    Of course, everyone should do whatever they are comfortable with.

  8. “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”

    — Benjamin Franklin

    I think ol’ Ben must have known a few hoplophobes.

    • Ralph: Did you hear about when Benjamin was trying to fly a kite, in the back yard, and couldn’t get it to stay up!
      His wife comes out and say’s “Ben, what you need is a piece of tail!”
      Ben say’s, that’s what I told you last night, and you told me to go fly a kite!

    • Personally, I think ole Ben had it backwards. People are born stupid, we learn as we age. Ignorance is a choice. I can deal with stupid. It’s the choice to remain ignorant I can’t deal with.

    • Good luck to you Michael. I hope you prevail. Open carry in the State of Commifornia would probably result in mass hysteria though. After all, any state that derives a large amount of it’s income selling fantasies (movies) probably has a lot of citizens that don’t really believe in the reality that “guns are NOT the problem. It is the idiots and bad guys pulling the triggers that are the problem”. That would be FAR too simple for their little minds to absorb.

    • The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the bearing of arms means display or open carry hence we have Constitutional open carry in Virginia. A good case can be made that the Second Amendment makes Open Carry a national right particularly since Madison wrote the language in both Constitutions.

    • Charles NIchols has been trying to do that, but has been stayed on his appeal of a denial of his motion for preliminary injunction pending Peruta. Peruta (used to) hold that the right is to carry, and the State can elect if it prefers open or concealed. Certainly in the 19th Century, open carry was preferred in some states, but the experience of the open carrier movement in California was that open carry draws cops like flies to a pile of fresh manure.Further, the decisions cited in the Heller decision affirmed that the Second Amendment was not violated by banning concealed carry if open carry is allowed, again confirming that to carry is the right, whether open or concealed or both, but that one may be banned if the other is allowed. If the Ninth Circuit en banc panel confirms that there is a right to carry, and gives the state the choice of which to allow, I suspect that it might be more readily persuaded to adopt shall issue rather than open carry, as openly carried firearms (except while hunting) are generally considered threatening in the urban areas of this state.

      • I suspect that it might be more readily persuaded to adopt shall issue rather than open carry

        I think you missed something. It is the right to bear arms. As we saw in Ohio, that means a state can ban or license one but must leave the other untouched. “Shall issue” won’t work if the other is licensed or banned. Under the model, a state could have the following combinations:

        OC unlicense/CC unlicense
        OC unlicense/CC licensed
        OC licensed/ CC unlicense
        OC unlicensed/CC banned
        OC banned/CC unlicensed

        What would not be permissible is:

        OC banned/CC banned
        OC licensed/CC banned
        OC banned/CC licensed
        OC licensed/CC licensed

        • FYI, in Indiana, all carry of handguns is criminal. A license, which is silent on manner and therefore covers both CC and OC, is merely an affirmative defense to that crime.

          So, both CC and OC are licensed – and even with the license, any form of carry is still a criminal act.

        • @Chip Bennitt: Thanks. I was pointing out that, under the model he was looking towards, “shall issue” for OC only with no other alternative, wouldn’t fly. Of course, in reality there are states that license both and ban both. Ultimately, as Charles Nichols commented, openly bearing of arms is what the Court is considering the right and concealed can be licensed or banned. That’s how Ohio has viewed it.

        • @John in Ohio: honestly, it kind of blew me away when I moved back here, and realized that, by statute, Indiana considers anyone who exercises a natural, constitutionally protected right to be a criminal – and only by obtaining a permission slip does one have an affirmative defense for acting criminally.

          That means that, if a police officer sees someone carrying openly, the officer is witnessing a crime – whether or not the person has an LTCH (license to carry handgun). That means that the police officer, by statute, has reasonable suspicion to detain every single person carrying a handgun – because the carrying of a handgun in Indiana is never lawful.

          Now, the permission slip is easy to get, has a lifetime option, and for anyone who has the permission slip, Indiana’s laws are actually fantastic. But underlying it all is an absurd, unconstitutional abomination of a statute.

          The push for constitutional carry during this session was nice to see; but I would be just as happy to change the statutes by removing the assumption of criminality for the exercise of a natural right – at least as a first step. If I can have any impact, that’s what I’ll work for, at least.

        • @Chip Bennett: That and CHL duty to notify are why when we get to an event, alot of us stow our concealed carry firearms. If we aren’t carrying under the license, we don’t have to notify and law enforcement has no RAS. You are right, getting rid of that assumption under the law in Indiana ought to be a big priority.

          One of the nice things about long gun OC in Ohio at an event is that they cannot even try to claim one is concealing a handgun even partially if they aren’t carrying one.

      • States do not get to prefer concealed carry over Open Carry under the Second Amendment. That argument has been made and lost in every Federal Circuit. The two cases that the US Supreme Court cited in District of Columbia v. Heller in which it said perfectly captured the meaning of the right to keep and bear arms explicitly held that Open Carry is the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution and held that concealed carry is not a right.

        Two Federal judges, in the 9th Circuit of course, bought the snake oil argument that a state can prefer concealed carry over Open Carry. At least 15 of their fellow judges threw out their decision.

        Putting aside Federal and state binding precedents, including binding precedents in California, upholding prohibitions on concealed carry because concealed carry is cowardly, criminal and does not give fair notice to the public that a person is armed, the State of California filed a brief opposing the decision of the two Peruta v. San Diego judges who said that California prefers concealed carry over Open Carry.

        The only lawyers who will be arguing before the en banc oral arguments in Peruta v. San Diego / Richards v. Prieto that California can ban Open Carry and that California prefers concealed carry are the lawyers from the NRA and the SAF.

        And for the record, the appeal of my preliminary injunction is moot. Although it was stayed by an assistant clerk at the request of the NRA, over the objection of both me and the Attorney General, I am now appealing the final judgment of the District Court judge which was issued over a year ago. Do try and keep up with current events.

      • Charles Nichols is suing in pro per.“The adage that ‘a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client’ is the product of years of experience by seasoned litigators.” (Kay v. Ehrler, 499 U.S. 432, 438) Nevertheless, many of Nichols’ arguments are sound, if awkwardly made. Thus he correctly stresses the Heller ruling’s reliance on the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling in Nunn v. State, 1Ga. 243, 251 (1846), which construed the Second Amendment as protecting the “natural right of self-defence” and therefore struck down a ban on carrying pistols openly, as well as the Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling in State v. Chandler, 5La. Ann. 489, 490 (1850), which upheld the right of citizens to carry arms openly: “This is the right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and which is calculated to incite men to a manly and noble defence of themselves, if necessary, and of their country, without any tendency to secret advantages and unmanly assassinations.”

        Jonathan Meltzer concludes the above referenced article by discussing the ways whereby the Supreme Court could affirm a personal right to self-defense without constitutionalizing open carry. He ends on the following note:

        “For the right to carry, the most consequential choice the Court made in Heller was to place such a strong emphasis on nineteenth-century case law. These cases do indeed seem to require an individual right, as Heller stated. But they also protect only open carry, and for reasons tied to cultural factors not present at the Founding itself. Heller, then, has used post-Founding history to create a Second Amendment that reflects the sensibility of the Jacksonian frontier, not that of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. This strange result is what Heller gave us. Following its methodology leads to an embrace of open carry and a rejection of both a strong public safety-oriented limitation on the right to carry and the alternative outlet theory. This is a result that is unlikely to please most anyone, and perhaps the Court will avoid it. But we should not mistake such a choice for anything but an unprincipled path of convenience. Given Heller’s reliance on modernity-accommodating carve-outs, however, perhaps we should prepare ourselves for just such an unsatisfying and unprincipled resolution for the right to carry weapons outside the home.”

        I am three for three in defeating criminal charges of open and concealed weapons carry in California. Next on the agenda is injunctive relief through a declaratory judgment. This remedy has been available in California since Zeitlin v. Arnebergh, 59 Cal.2d 901 [31 Cal.Rptr. 800, 383 P.2d 152, 10 A.L.R.3d 707] (1963), where the appellate court held that the plaintiffs there were entitled to a declaratory judgment that the book Tropic of Cancer was not obscene within the meaning of section 311 of the Penal Code, and that its sale would not violate section 311.2 of the Penal Code. I am suing for a similar result in regard of sanctions against open carry of firearms under Penal Code Sections 26350, 26400, etc. My lawyers are top notch, and most of the groundwork has been laid down in their briefings in People v. Michael Zeleny, San Mateo County Superior Court Case No. SM382036. I will do my best to force the courts to embrace open carry and reject both a strong public safety-oriented limitation on the right to carry and the alternative outlet theory.

        • Where one is a criminal defendant, as Michael Zeleny has indicated he has been at least three times, it is indeed true that someone who defends himself has a fool for a client if for no other reason than he cannot raise on appeal that his attorney was incompetent.

          My lawsuit, on the other hand, is a pro se Civil Rights lawsuit where proceeding as one’s attorney, when one knows what he is doing, places one at a distinct advantage over someone who is represented by an attorney.

          While it is true that I deliberately wrote my early briefs to sound “folksy” or what Zeleny called “awkward” I abandoned that tactic early on. And anyone who is capable of reading a brief would recognize that I managed to “stumble upon” the correct case law and made the correct legal arguments.

          Unfortunately, people reading this have never studied law and don’t have a clue how our legal system works. I encircled California Attorney General Harris, and the District court judges who were arguing her case for her with an ever enclosing fence of longstanding binding US Supreme Court and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decisions.

          Three of the numerous fatal defects made in the District Court decision were:
          1) There is no right under the Second Amendment to openly carry a firearm anywhere. That includes one’s home, the curtilage of his home, his own private residential property, in and on his motor vehicle including any attached camper or trailer and in non-sensitive public places.

          2) Persons who openly carry firearms and their firearms fall completely outside the scope of the 4th Amendment, even in places where it is legal to openly carry a firearm. FYI, in 1970 the California courts held that the mere sight of a firearm in a public, prohibited place does not constitute “probable cause” that one is committing a crime.

          3) There is one way, and only one way, in which a racially motivated criminal law can be challenged in Federal court and this is to plead that the criminal law was enforced against one because of his race. While it is true that this is one way to bring a race based challenge, it is by no means the only way.

          And this last part here will lose everyone, including many lawyers, but the judgment in my case was a judgement on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 12(c). The only way I can lose on appeal is if the court of appeals determines that my operative Complaint is either frivolous or incapable of amendment.

          And did I mention that another advantage of not being a lawyer is that our filings must be liberally construed in our favor, especially when it is a civil rights lawsuit.

          The lawyer for Governor Brown and Attorney General Harris argued that the Second Amendment permits racially motivated criminal statutes which ban the carrying of guns.

          Do you really think that there are even two judges on the court of appeals who will rule against me and say that Blacks and other minorities cannot be trusted with guns merely because of their race?

          It seems to me that the only “fool” in my lawsuit were the defendants who allowed the district court judges to argue their case for them.

  9. Some people are simply born to be slaves. Regard them as little more than animals; that’s what I do and it gets me through the day. There’s satisfaction in seeing the deer-in-the-headlights look of an anti when they start talking and I ask them why I should care about the opinion of an animal.

    Harsh? I don’t care. Freedom by choice is a human trait, blind slavery to a pack, patriarch, or instinct is an animal trait. I call ’em as I see ’em.

    There’s a reason the founding fathers didn’t allow everyone to vote. And there’s a reason why the left tried to make the stupid and uneducated allowed to vote. Equal protection under the law should never have translated to equal say in the government. All we have now is the tyranny of the stupid.

    Giving the sheep a say in how wolves should act only ends with a society of sheep.

  10. “What are the odds she’d been standing in line at the grocery store next to a person legally concealing a firearm?”

    For the last few seasons, I carried concealed when I went skiing. And many times, I’ve ridden the lift with other skiers I had never met. I didn’t say anything, but I often wondered how many of them were hoplophobes who would’ve been “horrified” if they knew they were mere foot or two away from a loaded and chambered 9mm S&W M&P Shield, and they had no way of getting away from it short of jumping off the ski lift.

    Instead, I just carried normal conversations. The same kind of conversations had I not been carrying.

    It didn’t give me any sardonic satisfaction that I had somehow “shown them.” It gave me satisfaction that I had successfully “concealed” my carry piece, but it also gave me sadness about how unusual carrying a firearm had become in many people’s minds.

    • It didn’t give me any sardonic satisfaction that I had somehow “shown them.”

      The correct attitude. I’ve seen many here who proudly walk into businesses with No Guns signs, reciting to themselves the mantra “concealed is concealed”, spend their money there, and think they’ve made a point of some sort. They’re right; they’ve told the business there’s no consequence to posting a No Guns sign. The business has no idea a pro-gunner just made a dumbass of himself spending money at their establishment, of course, but the bottom line doesn’t lie: They know they didn’t lose business over their decision.

  11. Like most of you, I’ve had a lot of annoying conversations with hoplophobes.

    I have no such “conversations.” I would rather shave my eyeballs than have a conversation with a hoplophobe or any other insane person. So I don’t. And I’m goddamn mean about it too.

  12. I would add, in addition to open carry, those who do OC should commit themselves to making any harassers pay for their actions. If someone calls the police on you, file harassment charges. Make a civil suit out of it possibly. Make them pay for their stupidity. It’s the only way they’ll learn.

    The NRA or SAF should set up a fund to pay lawyers fees for civil suits against harassers.

  13. Try saying this: “Of course it’s loaded. There’s nothing more dangerous than an unloaded gun.”

    • I did a research project for an attorney litigating a case involving a loaded firearm in a home, and he said he could not believe that someone would have a loaded gun in his home. I said I had a gun at my desk. “Is it loaded?” he asked. “Of course”, says I, “it isn’t very useful not loaded.” He says, “You’re going to shoot yourself, Mark!” I assured him that wasn’t too likely. [This is a guy who was born on a farm and owns guns–all safely secured in a safe, no doubt.]

  14. Sara, enjoyed the article. Thanks for sharing. Made me think of the times when cars were new and people would shout “get a horse!” I’m picturing your acquaintances shouting “get a club!”

  15. Maybe just call them “idiots” and walk away. Seriously though, that might be tough to do with your family and keep the peace. Probably best to just walk away as this type of person rarely “gets it” and arguing using logic seems to be way over their heads. Hard to reason with emotions.

  16. Idiot woman.

    I feel sorry knowing her own weapon is more likely injure or kill her than stop her fictional windmill called a “stalker”.

    Sorry, Gunophiles, But you’re disgusting for preying on a woman’s fears over a one time only event and you’re even more disgusting if she dies or get’s seriously injuries for the crooked advice she’d gotten from gun-nut penis animal-diddler compensators.

    • Ah right, the magical talisman of evil argument. Tell me, does your statistics show: people have guns are more likely to be hurt, or people more likely to be hurt have guns? Maybe she needs to wear the legendary badge of good to make it all better for you.

    • Allow me to translate the troll’s screed into simple English…”I’m too weak to stick up for myself. I know I’m a social outlier, but I want to feel normal, so self defense by non-government entities of any kind should be outlawed. Then everyone will be just as spineless as I am, and I won’t feel like such a freak anymore. After that we can all hold hands, sing songs, and let the state take care of our problems forever. Za Stalina!”

    • I feel dirty knowing I have to share air with a creature so mind numbingly stupid, ignorant, and weak. That’s one downside to living in a free country, sheer idiocy isn’t ridiculed and shunned as it should be.

      • This guy is getting the response he is looking for. I’m sure his mother abandoned him at an early age. If I knew that he was living in my neighborhood I would make sure my alarm was set and my pistol was on my hip at all times because he is obviously unstable

    • I plugged this into the blather translator and this is what I got:

      Violence isn’t real, but guns are dangerous. I’m extremely incompetent with the use of guns. Because I am dangerous with a gun that I don’t know how to use – everyone else is too. Rape and murder in the US is uncommon and you therefore shouldn’t have the right to defend yourself with a firearm because my opinion is better than yours, and I would like my opinion forced upon you. This woman isn’t a gun person – She is actually one of us because she is a woman and not an old fat white guy. Because you don’t agree with me – I hate you, and am subsequently going to ridicule you with empty insults with no substance whatsoever.

  17. This post didn’t say anything about the specific importance of open carry. It addressed the importance of carry, but not open carry.

    This post has no “meat” to it.

    Much less it’s open carry propaganda. Isn’t the point to have a gun, not to (try to) proclaim to everyone that they have to open carry or else they’re (insert insult here)?

  18. I think a lot of people have been effectively brainwashed into thinking that indeed, guns do “make people violent.” This is of course despite the fact that given the number of folks with firearms, if guns made folks violent, there would be millions of dead victims every year. It’s as sensible as the “cars make people drive drunk” and “forks & spoons make people fat” logic.

    Since media coverage is slanted – in that virtually every “offensive gun use” (assault/robbery/rape/murder/etc.) is reported in the news, but many defensive gun uses are not – people are given a skewed impression of how guns are used in the country (and/or the world for that matter).

    When people see someone open carrying a gun and simply behaving normally, it at least has a chance to give someone a view of someone who is NOT doing anything violent but is carrying a gun. Many won’t be persuaded, but some will see that yes, normal people do normal things open carrying and nothing untoward happens.

    The more people that open carry and show that nothing particularly interesting happens when people open carry, the more people’s minds have a chance to change from that media-brainwashed state to considering a new thought – that maybe people carrying guns is not the end of the world, that blood won’t run in the streets, and that good people carry firearms.

    All of that said, folks who generally behave like a jackass do us no favors if they open carry. Those who do that reinforce the stereotype that gun owners are violent folks just looking to attack someone.

  19. I think a lot of it is related to thier own personal fears that they don’t trust themselves with firearms, so they assume that no one else should be trusted either. My aunt who was raised around guns her whole life, would not purchase a handgun until just recently after she took a class on using it. She didn’t trust herself with one even though my great grandfather was a LEO, and my dad and grandfather both managed a hunting preserve for the first half of her life, also most every one in my family are hunters/recreational shooters. So there were no shortage of firearms around, and she had shot them plenty of times. But she had a fear of her own confidence with them.

    • My girlfriend, who admittedly leans liberal on some causes, recently came around on the issue of firearms. She wasn’t opposed to them, as being from the South, she was around them all her life, but she never saw a specific reason to get involved with them.

      When we started dating, I simplified the gun issue by stowing my EDC before we went into a restaurant (with a bar component) to have dinner and potentially a few drinks. I wanted to stay within the letter of the law, and also figured I may as well reveal the fact I carried before we got too involved.

      She was surprised I carried, but thought nothing of it. Fast forward a few years and she knows how to work all manner of pistol and rifle platforms at a basic level and has a CWFL.

      To her, guns are no big deal. They are just tools with recreational and practical uses. The “intent” is in the person, not the device.

  20. Antis are a confused and hypocritical lot. When pressed, most can’t come up with a factual reason to enact more gun control, but instead play the “my fears trump your rights” card.

    Even worse, I’ve found that there’s a good amount of peer pressure and groupthink amongst the antis. One friend of mine spouts off anti-gun statistics galore on social media, but yet he went to (admittedly it was a local “machine gun” range targeted at tourists) a local shooting center and had a really good time. However, his peer group consists of misinformed hipsters (think the type of people who read VICE) and trendies and he feels a need to conform to their beliefs. God forbid he exercise independent thought.

    The liberals and the antis are a funny bunch – everything is tolerated as long as it falls in line with their beliefs. Express a conservative viewpoint, no matter how innocuous, and prepare to be lynched.

    • Something similar can be said about those POTG who screech about someone open carrying, especially long gun OC. When they throw their temper tantrums online, they are indistinguishable from the antis.

  21. That so reminds me of conversations I’ve had. They never seem to want to apply any logic, but only offer their ‘heartfelt feelings’ – which honestly, are really just the product of subliminally consuming the current media meme and being completely ignorant to the actual topic otherwise. ‘all I know is guns are bad, because that’s what they told me, and they played soft piano music too and it was very sad’

  22. Wow, you’re an idiot. Open carry is, tactically, the stupidest thing someone who carries can do. Want the enemy to know you have a weapon? Open carry!

    • Wow, you’re an idiot.

      http://fablegod.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/disagreement-hierarchy.jpg

      Open carry is, tactically, the stupidest thing someone who carries can do. Want the enemy to know you have a weapon? Open carry!

      Debatable. Maybe you want the enemy to know you have a weapon. Let’s look at some reasons.

      Tactics are how you reason them
      Maybe some people want to carry their firearm but want to do so a bit more comfortably. Maybe they have weighed the pros and cons of open vs concealed carry, and found open carry is for them.

      Open carry is a deterrent
      Criminal looks a girl with a pistol on her hip. Criminal then spots a girl with no apparent defensive tool. Which to target… choices choices. Maybe the easier/safer one?

      Criminal looks a girl with a pistol on her hip. Criminal looks at a pawn shop clerk closing and locking the door to the pawn shop during close. Criminal looks at a police cruiser parked in an apartment complex at 3am where the officer apparently lives. Which to target to obtain a gun… choices choices. Maybe the easier/safer one?

      Police cruisers don’t’ shoot people. Pawn shops don’t shoot people. Unarmed girls don’t shoot people. But a girl with a gun on her hip? – might want to reconsider that one.

      • Let’s say the said criminal walks into a bank to rob it and that “open carry girl” is present – would a criminal thats obviously not afraid to commit a felony in the first place be afraid to take out the greatest threat in the room first? Most likely.

        However, If she had been conceal carrying she may have been seen as just a girl and not a serious threat, therefore having more time to respond and possibly save lives and prevent a crime.

        • One, not being afraid to commit a felony does not imply a lack of fear of armed resistance.

          Two, said bank robber tends to have tunnel vision, and will be focused on his target: the bank teller.

          Three, having to shoot a bystander before committing the primary crime (bank robbery) takes longer, loses for the criminal the elements of speed and surprise, and draws much-unwanted attention before he even has his loot. Thus, shooting the bystander seruously reduces his chances of a successful crime.

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