Civil Disobedience
Well, they weren’t breaking the law so it’s not disobedience. But it’s not obedience either. Turns out, it was a blogger.
It should be noted that I don’t think open carry like this is good for team but I admire the sentiment.
Via Jeff.
July 16th, 2004 at 12:34 pm
In North Carolina, open carry is not technically illegal, but there is a some sort of common law thingy (sorry, lawyers, for my mangling the terminology; a little help?) called “going armed to the terror of the public” which you can get in trouble for doing.
July 16th, 2004 at 12:49 pm
I live in Northern Virginia. There was also a follow up story today in the Metro section of the Wash Post which seemed to want to assert a little more balance to the p. 1 article Uncle links to above. I think that article was placed on p. 1 to freak out residents of DC and MD (and VA too).
I have mixed feelings: Although it made me damn proud to be a Virginian, I think it can play into the gun grabbers hands from a PR perspective. But the law is the law, and our rights are our rights.
These articles also led to an uninformed cartoon by an otherwise usually funny cartoonist, Tom Toles, in the Wash Post. Not sure when that’ll be up.
Second article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53084-2004Jul15.html
July 16th, 2004 at 1:19 pm
I agree, this is not good P.R. It’s great P.R. in the few remaining jurisdictions, if there are any, that still allow open carry but not concealed carry. When passersby say “eek, put that thing away,” you can answer “I’d love to, ma’am, but the law won’t let me.”
July 16th, 2004 at 1:21 pm
DCJ’s article had this bit:
Some, such as Cindy Jones, worry that openly toting guns could make them too accessible to the wrong fingers. “The image that comes to mind is a child could grab it,” said Jones, 50, a psychologist. “It’s frightening to think that that’s the mind-set. It makes me think of a gunslinger with a holster.
I wonder if she’s aware of the thousands and thousands of police officers walking around “openly toting guns?” Any examples of children grabbing their guns?
July 16th, 2004 at 3:26 pm
Found the Toles comic . . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/tolestom/
As I noted earlier, it is uninformed and actually echoes the stupidity of what Cindy Jones says.
July 18th, 2004 at 12:30 pm
‘I wonder if she’s aware of the thousands and thousands of police officers walking around “openly toting guns?” Any examples of children grabbing their guns?’
I don’t recall any. Just too many examples of police officers shooting themselves in the foot while drawing their weapons, dropping them and causing them to go off, and losing full-auto rifles out of the trunk of their cruiser.
Maybe we should restrict police recruiting to people who have open carried without getting into trouble…