Put on your big boy pants
Some pants-shitting hysterics by a man who saw an open carrier and nothing happened:
How am I, just an average person, supposed to know if the person with the firearm is a good guy or a bad guy?
Suppose that I am armed, too. Should I fire preemptively at the other person with the gun just in case that person is a bad guy, and take the chance of killing a good guy, or should I hold my fire and take the chance that the other person will not be a bad guy or be a good guy and think I am a bad guy and fire at me first?
Is there a secret handshake that good guys use to identify each other? If so, what if a bad guy uses that secret handshake to pretend he is a good guy and then performs his nefarious acts?
Look, Sparky, are they shooting at you? Or carrying at you? That’s usually how I can tell.
July 30th, 2015 at 5:05 pm
I like the secret handshake idea. Make me feel like a real lodge member, it would!
July 30th, 2015 at 5:09 pm
I can’t imagine going through life wound that tightly. Kinda glad he doesn’t exercise his 2A rights, actually.
July 30th, 2015 at 6:17 pm
How about use some common sense that the guy walking around with it openly in a holster probably isnt a threat since people up to no good try to avoid drawing unwanted attention
July 30th, 2015 at 6:22 pm
He’s just being intentionally stupid, mistaking it for cleverness.
How about; the bad guy generally isn’t going to openly display his gun until he’s ready to do mischief with it? What about all those guys you see, everywhere around you, with concealed guns? Wouldn’t they be more suspect by that reasoning?
Or; what about that cop who’s carrying openly? How do you know he’s a real cop or an honest cop and not a gang member dressed as a cop?
How do you know that one of the other drivers on the highway, coming at you at a closing speed of 130 MPH only a few feet away, isn’t going to suddenly swerve over and take you out? They’re all openly displaying potentially deadly weapons, known as motor vehicles.
How do you know that someone on that crowded sidewalk, pushed up right next to you, isn’t going to stick a knife in you?
July 30th, 2015 at 6:37 pm
Replace ‘open carrier’ for ‘gay dude and his boyfriend’ in this piece.
This idiot would be torn apart by his fellow travellers.
July 30th, 2015 at 8:34 pm
Well, I don’t know about the good guys having a secret handshake, but the bad guys do.
It involves taking the gun out of its holster and pointing it at someone minding their own business.
So if they ain’t doing that, don’t worry about it.
July 30th, 2015 at 11:12 pm
50 years ago his column would have been about how he couldn’t tell if the guy at the lunch counter was a Good Negro or a Bad Negro.
July 31st, 2015 at 12:53 am
@Lyle #4
That’s it–I’m not leaving the house. I will live through Amazon Prime. I wonder if El Chapo’s engineers can dig me an underground range.
July 31st, 2015 at 10:30 am
+1 Lyle, I’ve been REALLY turning some people around with this argument of “How Do you know?”
I ask them if they walk on the sidewalk? Because they are just a quarter-turn of the wheel before that car jumps the curb and kills your ass.
Same with that dude with the gun…yes I could kill you right now…but why would I want to?
July 31st, 2015 at 10:47 am
But people with guns are the paranoid ones fearful of their shadows.
Sweat Odin’s beard, how does this goober drive? Is he in constant fear someone is going to cross the double yellow, ram him from behind, or maybe if he’s sitting in traffic. reenact the police car scene in Usual Suspects.
July 31st, 2015 at 11:44 am
You might remind the fella that everybody involved in a gun incident is in deep doodoo, even if they did shoot a bad guy. And the one who first pulls the trigger is in the deepest doodoo of all. So it’s wise to hold back on pre-emptive defenses.
July 31st, 2015 at 2:14 pm
I recommend concealed carry. Consider this scenario:
You are in a store/bank/etc. You are openly carrying. A criminal who intends to rob the place/patrons is concealed carrying. You don’t know he is armed. He knows you are. He doesn’t know or care if you are Joe Average or LEO. So, he will try to take you out first to improve his odds. He will probably get the jump on you, since you won’t expect it.
If the criminal doesn’t take you out, Society, Swatters, or the Shriekers will.
I won’t allow strangers knowing ANYTHING about me, especially whether or not I have or don’t have a weapon. It’s better for me, and all concerned.
July 31st, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Spotting the good guy is easy! They wear white hats! Just look at The Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers.
July 31st, 2015 at 11:37 pm
“…carrying at you? That’s how I can tell.”
Except that little tamism describes a whole movement of dips who will tell you they are the good guys. One of ’em getting preemptively taken out might alter their behaviors, but it’ll really fuck up the taker outer too. I hope it isn’t me that does it, but some of the stories I’ve read, it wouldn’t be just Sparky going into condition red if they pulled their stupid shit in a place where I’m with my family. Dumbasses.
August 1st, 2015 at 7:02 pm
Yu-Ain Gonnano just won today’s internets.
August 1st, 2015 at 7:58 pm
YAG,
Thing about dumbasses with front-slung long guns in public places is that no holsters are involved and everyone in the vicinity gets pointed at.
Bad guys? Probably not. Stupid guys? Definitely. Dead guys? Could happen. MYOB too long and your internets better be made of plate steel.
August 2nd, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Here’s a simple idea:
1. Don’t try to be a policeman if you aren’t one. An ordinary citizen who is armed is not responsible for “keeping the peace”.
2. How can you tell the armed good guys from the armed bad guys? Well, let’s leave them both alone until — and unless — a crime is committed or threatened. Carrying a gun is not in itself a crime; therefore, when you see someone carrying, leave that person alone. Nice and simple.