It is going to be a process to educate both the police and the public about both open carry and concealed carry. The assumption should be for ignorance, not malevolence.
For this reason, I heartily recommend to those out in public with guns, both open carry and concealed carry, that instead of fretting about being offended by the police or their fellow citizen, they be prepared to act as an ambassador of the right and polite use of firearms in public.
For example, it’s important to present a friendly, cooperative, and open countenance to police if it is at all possible. While this may not immediately defuse a situation with an uninformed officer, it will likely buy time so that you can persuade him that what you are doing is legal and upstanding.
The best way of doing this is to carry a professional looking document that shows the appropriate laws. It is extra convincing if the document is in good condition, especially if it is laminated. And it is extra-extra good if it is from a responsible public organization, so the officer knows it “isn’t just you.”
As far as the general public, I’m a big believer in playing card sized mini pamphlets, that can be handed out both to ordinary folks, and to small business owners and their employees. All you need is a printer and blank paper. Probably two pamphlets per page. Carry a few with you for hand outs.
Handing out just a few of these can insulate an entire neighborhood from gun fear, for months or years. It recruits other people to spread the good word.
All in all, it is better to be an ambassador than ticked off at people who just don’t know better.
That seems to be the case in Madison, where the dispatcher, the police chief, and the police all knew the law. It had been circulated in an police department memo, the AG had issued an opinion, there were previous court cases about it that were highly publicized, and it had been in the news in Madison over the previous year.
When education fails due to blatant corruption, we can only hope that the courts will offer some relief.
I think we have already won. Now is just the hard work of the cleanup.
All true, but it is just as effective to sue the bastards into oblivion, too. Teach them a lesson they won’t forget. That’s what has been done to the right for decades, including taking away, through judgments, ranches and farms from people who are in the path of illegal aliens and dared to enforce their right to no trespassing. The SPLC is famous for this as are other so-called “civil rights” legal groups. Ambassador? Fine. But in this case, the courtroom will serve as a better teacher.
If you have to explain to a professional that is employed to enforce the law of the land, we're screwed. And the employee that doesn't know his job needs to be gone.
/johnny