Posted on 04/25/2014 2:09:52 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
One story reported on CBSDFW.COM has a lot of people talking. It started with Tuesday nights vote on an ordinance by the Arlington City Council to ban guns and concealed weapons at public meetings.
Members of the gun rights group Open Carry Tarrant County believe they are the ones being targeted, but they may not be the only ones affected by ordinance changes.
A second Arlington ban could put heavy restrictions on handing out pamphlets.
Weve all seen them from time-to-time groups trying to push their cause, including gun rights advocates. Now some leaders in Arlington say the approach by some groups creates hazardous situations.
Kim Martinez believes in free speech. But she says what happened to her recently nearly left her speechless. Recalling her reaction when approached Martinez said, I was just like step away from my car. I just looked at them and said No! Back away from my car.
Martinez says she was approached last Friday near Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Open Carry members walked up to try to hand her a copy of the constitution and literature promoting gun rights.
Not only were they carrying pamphlets, they were also packing heat. Members were armed and had their weapons openly displayed.
It scared me. It really scared me, Martinez said of the encounter. I didnt want them near my car. I didnt want their gun near my car. I didnt really want to hear anything they had to say.
The Open Carry group has even documented several run-ins with police. Members ask if firefighters who would be excluded from the ban can stand and walk on street corners, sidewalks and medians while soliciting donations, then why cant they?
Kory Watkins, with Open Carry Tarrant County, claimed that, Nobody just goes to the car waving their gun around.
Arlington council members also want to ban people from passing out literature to drivers in the roadway, but one member voted against the measure. Another vote will take place in May.
Kory said, For us, it just means we are going to be harassed when we go pass out literature to citizens who mutually agree to want it and call us over.
As for mom Kim Martinez, she said she was just glad she didnt have her kids with her when Open Carry members approached her. I applaud them for standing up for what they believe in. Thats all our rights and more people should do it.
Open Carry members say if the ordinance passes in May then they are ready to go to court.
Sources told CBS 11 News the group will be in Euless on Thursday.
“I’m not opposed to their rights.......but.......”
Left to their own devices, this usually ends up with some goon’s boot on your throat and an automatic weapon pointed at your face - ‘because you were giving citizens butt hurt...’.
I believe in open carry but I DO NOT believe in getting in people’s faces while openly carrying. This kind of has to happen gradually and subtly. Pushing things like this will be detrimental to the cause.
I guess one should sit in the back of the bus and not eat at the whites only counter.
Next, TSA Scanners before entering your city and your own home to make sure you wont hurt the kids or pick up smoking, who knows. So many people blame their smoking and murdering habits on the legal availability of smokes and guns.
This is no more about guns. This is about home visits and privacy violations. The gun has become an excuse.
And why does FR's spell check recognize "homophobia", but flag "hoplophobia" as not being a real word?
We haven’t gotten where are today by getting in people’s faces with openly displayed firearms on our hips, quite the opposite in fact. All good things in all good time. In the mean time, feel free to walk around with a .357 magnum strapped to your belt, underneath your shirt. That’s what I do.
No we are were we are today by pushing for are rights and not hiding them.
On the state level we been winning more and more
More states have open carry now then ever more states have CCW now then ever.
We have four constitutional carry state instead of one
KS and GA has just passed and signed in to law great open carry bills.
In TX both governor candidates even the liberal demorat one have said they well support a open carry bill.
A right not used is a right lost.
Instead of a gun rights group peacefully open carrying and educating people... Substitute in "half a dozen large black youths." Now how do her comments sound? Yeah, thought so.
While being all for open and concealed carry, OTHER than the venue was a baseball stadium parking lot, where I would imagine more than a ‘few’ people were around,
A young lady named Martinez (sorry - especially if she ‘looks’ her name) may have cause for concern if a bunch of middle aged white guys were approaching her with guns strapped on their hips.
I know that I would be readying myself and telling a bunch of Black guys or Spanish guys or even Young/Middle aged White Guys to ‘back off’ if they were getting into ‘my space’ without my knowing their intentions.
Granted most ‘bad guys’ don’t walk around with ‘guns visible’ but......And, as I am quite observant, I would probably figure out what was up BEFORE questions were brought up.
I don’t step out the door without my ‘friend’ but it is concealed and the fewer people that know about it, the better.
Seeing I am in an ‘open(er)’ state, most people (at least those I may have a concern with) probably perceive that I am packing and that ‘suits me just fine’.
“We havent gotten where are today by getting in peoples faces with openly displayed firearms on our hips, quite the opposite in fact.”
I disagree. We had open carry picnics in Arizona, because the State was illegally encroaching on our rights. We did not become the most gun friendly state in the union by meekly begging the old media now to demonize us.
The *only* case where open carry is claimed to have worked against us is in California, a state that has *no* state constitutional protection for the right to bear arms, because they wanted to have the power to disarm Mexicans and Chinese. Even there, when people openly carried unloaded guns, exercising their rights... The legislature passed an open carry ban. If that would not have happened, we would not have got the Peruta decision with the Ninth Circuit saying that you have a right to carry outside of your home.
They only came to that, because both open carry *and* concealed carry were being denied.
Open carry was crucial to getting shall issue laws passed in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio.
As riverrunner said, if you do not use a right, you lose it.
“to now demonize” should be “to not demonize”
The old media can always find someone to make you out to be an “extremist” no matter how well you act.
While it is not commonly known, the word 'but' is not actually a conjunction. It is actually an acronym. Sentances like the above make a lot more sense if you expand it to it's real meaning - "Behold the Ultimate Truth". Everything to the right of that acronym negates everything to the left, and tells you what the speaker really thinks.
This is Texas? The fountain of conservatism and freedom to which so many want to flee?
Of course....the words preceding are meaningless, really.
Yes. If they succeed, the next bugaboo is children and perceived abuse. Homeschooling is abuse. Taking them to church is abuse, and so on.
It would be interesting to know, had the state not outlawed all open carry, whether the Peruta court might have found that UNLOADED open carry doesn't meet the requirements for the Second Amendment. Their decision might have been the same but was made simpler by the heavy-handedness of the legislature and governor, encouraged by liberal's with wet pants who were shocked to see people without uniforms carrying firearms.
(A) There are liberals everywhere and (B) it won’t happen.
We aren’t where we are because we get into people’s faces. We are where we are because we don’t. Get enough faces and the next thing you know, people are writing letters to their congressman just like we have been. Walking around in a public park with a loaded assault rifle just does not help our cause.
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