Open carry: The new normal?
How should you react? I dunno about the new normal. Sure, I’ve seen a few people walking around with a pistol on their hip. But walking around with a slung AR-15 is pretty weird.
22 Responses to “Open carry: The new normal?”
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June 9th, 2015 at 2:06 pm
I don’t have the nerve to do it, but Glenn is right.
The left has villainized the norms I grew up with while normalizing their outliers so effectively that I would have to think twice before wearing a “Jesus-Saves” t-shirt to city hall, while NAMBLA holds meetings in front of Stride-Rite.
June 9th, 2015 at 5:36 pm
Cops (who by the way exhibit criminal behavior including murder far more often, statistically, than carry permit holders) (OK, maybe the wrong metric here) go about armed all the time, and generally speaking it is not only no big deal, but it is no deal at all of any kind.
If seeing an armed cop doesn’t make people soil themselves, while a plain clothes person carrying in the same manner does, then clearly we have a purely psychological problem in society.
Furthermore, that purely psychological problem was engineered by the Progressive movement, particularly by its operatives in media and entertainment. This has taken over 100 years, and so it probably isn’t going to be cured in six months or even a few years.
Not sayin’ what to do about. Just definin’ the problem. Sometimes that’s all that need be done though—Just look at it and see it for what it is.
June 9th, 2015 at 8:49 pm
In Texas it is done because it is illegal to open carry pistols.
June 9th, 2015 at 9:12 pm
I think we think rifle carry is weird because it’s not legal here
June 9th, 2015 at 9:15 pm
For OC as for most things, context is everything.
June 9th, 2015 at 9:46 pm
People walking in public with slung rifles? Hunting season. Yawn.
June 9th, 2015 at 11:47 pm
Jerry Miculek has a clever video regarding open and concealed carry. It’s all good, but I think the best part is his point on what he calls posturing, starts about 11:42.
June 10th, 2015 at 10:54 am
Well DocMerlin, it might be illegal in Texas right now, but in the VERY near future, it will not be.
The bad thing about 2nd amendment supporters is that we are all too eager to “eat our own” in the bid to try to show that we have “common sense”.
One of the worst things that I hear so called “2nd amendment supporters say is “why do you need to: open carry/carry a rifle/fill in the blank here?”
Many are quick to point out that they don’t have to show a need to carry around a concealed firearm. “It’s my 2nd amendment right by God!!”
However the same folks always ask the open carry crown “why do you need to open carry?”.
To me, this is just as bad (if not worse because its coming from inside our ranks). I may not NEED to open carry, but what if I want to? You see, the liberals ALWAYS try to point out the need when talking about rights. I don’t have to establish a need or prove a necessity to exercise my rights.
I personally open carry very, very little but always conceal carry. But when it comes to carrying a firearm, I am 100% PRO CHOICE!!
June 10th, 2015 at 12:14 pm
The in your face thing works for gays, so why shouldn’t it work for pro gun? Liberal progressives are just going to have to live with it. You cannot insist that people accept your beliefs without you accepting theirs. Its a two way street and if they have to learn it the hard way then so be it.
June 10th, 2015 at 12:18 pm
I think it all comes down to how you are perceived… if you look like a slob and/or act like an ass, it is detrimental to all of the good work going into re-normalizing firearms ownership, use and carry, and is harming the movement in general. if on the other hand you are capable of acting as a good ambassador, you will help make inroads into the vast majority of the US population that doesn’t really care one way or another. A person is helping the cause when they consider how they appear from the perspective of the people we need to win over to keep trending in the right direction, and keep the re-normalization push within the bounds that will not push these people away from us rather than towards us. I think a lot of the OC movement understands that but there are enough OC people who don’t that they offset all the rest as the negative seems to spread far and wide faster than the good encounters…
June 10th, 2015 at 12:58 pm
Lyle– there is a HUGE difference between you and that cop. S/he is wearing a polyester uniform. And it is probably blue. Or black.
June 10th, 2015 at 1:04 pm
…and it has some letters on it.
June 10th, 2015 at 1:10 pm
Robert, you are misinterpreting the question, or maybe the question is phrased wrong..
.
There’s a pretty high ambient IQ here as to Constitutional rights, so I don’t think “need” is what is actually meant, as that would lead down a slippery path to questions of speech, religion, etc., and way too much erosion has occurred there already due to PC BS…and it’s had its effect, i.e. “why do you need to have a table full of Nazi crap at *my* by God red-blooded all-American gun show?”
But consider my “context” comment above, and the question really is “why would you *want* to (in the case of the Nazi peddler) incur the anger, disgust, and derision of everyone at the gunshow, or (in the question at hand) *want* to OC in this particular situation?” It’s not a question of need or implied infringement on 2A as much as a genuine curiosity (or suspicion) as to why you might want to go for coffee with a front-slung AK and camos, or parade in front of a school with your AR in c. orange, or do your shopping at Publix with a hog-leg hanging to your knees when you could go about your business and all of those activities well-armed and prepared for any eventuality going CC? Is it to make a “statement”, or to get attention, or to get your jollies by scaring the fuck out of the blue people? Certainly all of the above “contexts” do grave harm to the positive public perception of gunnies that has been so hard-won and so effective, so why? Enlighten us. If you’re heading to the woods, to the range, to a show, or some such, it certainly is logical to OC, and I’d be glad to sell you a few more EBR’s or whatev to add to your collection. It’s easy to get your back up and cry internecine backstabbing when others who love their rights and their tools as much as you do don’t all seem gung-ho anything-goes as to carrying, but why, when you apply logic and reason and circumstance, and context to everything else you do in normal life, would you exempt exercising your 2A rights from such criteria? There’s a lot of wisdom in that little vid of Jerry Mic., and I don’t think you’d want to accuse that old man of not being 100% behind his -and your- Constitutional rights…watch it again, and think about what he says; you won’t find common sense and logic any more plainly presented and humorous than that.
June 10th, 2015 at 3:04 pm
Depending on the locale, it should be entirely acceptable.
Cycling to the range with slung rifle should not cause people to raise hue and cry.
June 10th, 2015 at 11:58 pm
What I got from the Video is that if you are not handsome, cleancut, well dressed, and polite you are not qualified to Open Carry and are therefore mocked. Sounds like some Bullshit to me.
OCing a pistol is much quicker than either open rifle carry or CC. If you believe seconds really do count OC is a the way to go. Don’t know about you, but I would rather be shooting the perp then trying to get my shirt up. If CC was quicker and safer cops would do it.
June 11th, 2015 at 9:21 am
“We’re armed!
You won’t be harmed!
So don’t be alarmed!”
Chanted suddenly by 500 open carry activists in St. Pat’s Cathedral in the middle of Easter services, this would have the same effect as the homosexual activists doing their thing like that – we’d all be vilified, but it would work.
June 11th, 2015 at 2:46 pm
Tam nailed it when she said there is a difference between openly carrying a gun, and carry a gun at somebody. I think most of us understand that.
So how would you react with someone carrying a gun at you and your family?
Would you react assuming that the man clutching the long gun at the low ready is really a friendly person hoping you will love him…or will you go all “Condition Mauve” (or whatever) and assume him a threat?
That doesn’t mean you shoot him. But for me it means I take the kids and wife and head somewhere else.
Got no issue with OC, or even long-gun OC. I have been in company with lots of OC people and never had an issue with most of them. My issue is the idiots carrying guns at people.
My two-cents? If the gun is the point, then you are probably doing it wrong.
June 11th, 2015 at 3:03 pm
Like it or not, obvious intent is part of the law.
A person with a holstered pistol, and is not fiddling with it, is obviously just exercising a right.
A bicyclist with a slung rifle on his way to a range is doing the same.
Someone with a rifle at low ready walking through a park is going to attract negative attention, and rightly so.
June 11th, 2015 at 3:24 pm
If I noticed someone OCing a rifle, I’d definitely do a double take. However, when it comes down to how I’d judge them, [if it’s an AR] I’d probably look at the quality of the optic, and then the quality of the handguard, and then judge them based on that.
June 11th, 2015 at 6:28 pm
Michael, If the NCStar were on backwards, would you call the law on them, or just assume they were being ironic?
June 11th, 2015 at 9:51 pm
If the NCStar is on backwards, it probably is a cop using a rifle his armourer handed him.
June 12th, 2015 at 11:26 am
GUN!
Is it slung/holstered?
If yes, no reaction.
If not, double take.
Is it being transported/carried/used to swat mosquitoes/demonstrated/etc?
If yes, no reaction.
Is it being used?
If yes, then react by running towards it.
I think most people are violent, crazy, and stupid, but I only get concerned when they have a badge and a license to murder.