Carrying Guns In The Open-It Is A Right & Just Plain Crazy

http://regularfolksunited.com/index.php?tab=article_view&article_id=216 ^

[nateriver]

“A Sheriff revoked the concealed handgun permit of a woman who insisted on open carrying her gun to her daughter’s soccer games”. Is the Open Carry movement making matters worse for legal gun owners?

[Dead Corpse]

And one of the basic steps for retention is not to wear it outside your person when you’re going to be in a crowd and distracted by your primary purpose in being there.

Another argument for forcing police and military personnel to wear their weapons concealed only. Even there, you see articles now and then about law enforcement losing their weapons. Using that info, maybe we should just ban firearms carry in public all together. I know that isn't what you are getting at, but it is where such fractional arguments invariably lead.

If more people carried , openly or concealed, there would be less to worry about. Enough criminals get ventilated by their intended victims, and it becomes less of an issue.

Concealed or open, it should be an individual choice. Period. The Government has ZERO legal authority to tell private citizens how they may "bear" their "arms". The injunction lies in "shall not be infringed".

[mad_as_he$$]

Because the system cannot extort money from you before you can exercise your rights.

[mad_as_he$$]

May 25, 2008

Deputies with the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office are investigating a shooting in Winnemucca early Sunday morning that left three people dead and others injured.

The shooting happened at the Player's Bar & Grill on South Grass Valley Road.

Investigators say a feud between two local families is behind the early-morning shooting inside the bar. Three men from Winnemucca died from gunshot wounds, and two others are in critical condition at the hospital.

Deputies say about 2:25 a.m., 30-year-old Ernesto Villa Gomez walked into the bar and starting shooting. 20-year-old Jose Torres and his 19-year-old brother Margarito Torres were killed. When Villa Gomez was reloading his semi-automatic gun, a man from Reno took out a gun and shot Villa Gomez. That man has a concealed weapons permit.

The unidentified man who shot Villa Gomez is not expected to be charged in this incident; law enforcement call it a justifiable homicide.

Local police, the Sheriff's Office and the Nevada Highway Patrol are preparing for retaliation from one or both of the families, and rumors are already circulating in the small town of Winnemucca. There is a sense of sadness for losing three local men in this violent incident.

The Player's Bar & Grill was full of about 300 people, because a local biker event "Runnemucca" is going on this holiday weekend.

I routinely open carry here in Nevada many times with slabsides just stuck in my back pocket. Many LOE's have seen me and never challenged it. The odd thing is that both times I needed a gun - long ago - I had to go get it from the car becasue I was in a state that did not allow open carry and made a CW permit very hard to get.

I will not comment on the sir names of those involed.

No, the guy that stopped it was not charged.

[Dead Corpse]

If they carried openly, it would reduce the effectiveness of the program.

How so? Do you have any numbers to back this up?

Didn't think so.

Everywhere more people have lawfully carried firearms, crime has gone down. Gold Star Carry States, which allow open carry, have some of the lowest crime rates in the Country.

Stop fighting the gun grabbers battles for them.

[MarkL]

If they carried openly, it would reduce the effectiveness of the program.

How so? Do you have any numbers to back this up?

Didn't think so.

Everywhere more people have lawfully carried firearms, crime has gone down. Gold Star Carry States, which allow open carry, have some of the lowest crime rates in the Country.

Stop fighting the gun grabbers battles for them.

Maybe you should read my post again... But I'll go over the exact same argument for you. I gave you a specific example of the Air Marshal program. If the US Government were to announce "Air Marshals will be on some flights, and they can be identified by these nifty blue uniforms and a side arm. No undercover marshals will be employed." Just how effective do you think that that program would be? I would be willing to bet that it would be quite effective on the flights where an Air Marshal was assigned, but not so much on the other flights, should a criminal or terrorist decide to do something nasty.

I'm all for carry however a law abiding citizen wants to carry. However my point is that especially in an urban environment, open carry is foolish: It alerts everyone around you that you're carrying, and may set you up as a possible target.

As for numbers, we know that criminals will always go after the easiest targets. That was seen by the high rate of criminal assaults and car-jackings that went on in FL, when rental cars had the identifying stickers on them. Since FL had a good CCW law, the criminals knew that if they went after people who rented cars at the airport, they were probably unarmed. The state banned the use of stickers identifying rental cars, and the number of attacks immediately went down. It was because the criminals weren't sure who was and who wasn't armed and able to defend themselves.

Mark

[Dead Corpse]

I gave you a specific example of the Air Marshal program. If the US Government were to announce "Air Marshals will be on some flights, and they can be identified by these nifty blue uniforms and a side arm. No undercover marshals will be employed." Just how effective do you think that that program would be? I would be willing to bet that it would be quite effective on the flights where an Air Marshal was assigned, but not so much on the other flights, should a criminal or terrorist decide to do something nasty.

And what would be even more effective?

However my point is that especially in an urban environment, open carry is foolish: It alerts everyone around you that you're carrying, and may set you up as a possible target.

And appearing unarmed makes you an easy target. The effect of appearing weak has less of a deterrent effect than that of appearing able to enact effective resistance. Did we win the Cold War by appearing weak?

It was because the criminals weren't sure who was and who wasn't armed and able to defend themselves.

Er... no. Your statement just proves that they didn't know which were RENTAL cars. Nothing more. How many squad cars got car jacked?

[CholeraJoe]

I agree. A few years ago, I pulled up to a convenience store about 10pm. There was a group of young men loitering around their cars, playing loud music, smokin’ and jokin’. They would call out rudely to young women who would pull up to buy gas.

I exited my vehicle wearing a visible thigh holster with a large semi-auto pistol. The young men’s demeanor changed immediately. The music stopped, and they smiled and said, “Good evening,sir. How are you, sir?”

They left the lot while I was in the store. You know they were up to no good.

[LeGrande]

Because the system cannot extort money from you before you can exercise your rights.

And place restrictions and controls on those rights.

[mo]

Great cartoon! IMHO, 911 was a prime example of a Second Ammendment failure...and should be laid at the feet of those responsible.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I absolutely agree that it should be an individual choice. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pipe up when we see people making a choice we think is bad. And I think open-carrying at a kids’ soccer game is a bad choice.

I also wonder if there isn’t “more to the story” here. I can’t find one iota of information on Meleanie Hain on the internet, except for reports of this incident. And the articles I’ve been able to dig up on this incident are short on details. Like is this a private soccer league, or something run by the county or school system? If it’s private, then the league has a right to set its own rules for parents and spectators. If it’s public, I would argue that it could have a rule against open carry at games only if it both provided armed security and provided free lockers for spectators to check guns at the entrance to the no-guns area.

Sports leagues do have a serious problem with out of control parents, and I can appreciate that the leagues want to be able to exercise some control over them. IF this is a private league, and parents have agreed to abide by the rules and decisions of the league officials, and IF this woman had been asked by a league official to cease and desist from open carry at games, then I can back the sheriff’s decision to pull her carry permit pending a court hearing in the very near future. Though I don’t think there should be any requirement for carry permits in the first place, I do think the 2A can be reasonably interpreted as allowing any and all prohibitions on a particular individual carrying firearms, per individual adjudication (if capital punishment is allowed under the constitution, as well as involuntary commitment of people judged a danger to themselves or others, then it’s impossible to raionally argue that individually adjudicated restrictions on carrying firearms are unconstitutional).

[Dead Corpse]

And I think open-carrying at a kids’ soccer game is a bad choice.

What other Rights should we not exercise when we feel like it? Especially if the free exercise thereof may make everyone around us a lot safer, if a bit uncomfortable from their own idiotic biases?

I think anywhere my children are, I should be armed to help protect them. I'll protect yours too. Free of charge.

It's only a "bad idea" because the media has spent the last couple of decades trying to get us to hit that Pavlovian bell that rings every time we equate "gun" with "bad".

No thanks...

[mbraynard]

It would be harder for uniformed flight security officers to sleep on the plane.

[Dead Corpse]

Maybe an armed civilian could let them use their blanket...

[GovernmentShrinker]

I think anywhere my children are, I should be armed to help protect them.

Me too. But at the time of this incident, this woman had a concealed carry permit, so nothing was preventing her from legally taking her weapon to the game, and being prepared to protect her child and everybody else's should some criminal need taking down.

Again, I'd like to know more about the facts surrounding this incident before taking the position that the sheriff had no legal right to pull her carry permitlike whether the league was public or private (though as I've said before, I don't think the 2A allows a jurisdiction to require carry permits, I do think it permits prohibition of firearms possession by specific individually adjudicated citizens). The organizers of privately organized groups and events have the right to set rules for their gatherings, even if we may disagree with the rules. I expect many sensible people would, for example, object to open carry by guests at their wedding and wedding reception, both because of the effect on the ambiance, and because of a desire not to upset relatives who hold strong anti-gun feelings. And there are many not-so-sensible people who would object to concealed carry at their weddings and wedding receptions, because of their own strong anti-gun feelings. I can view their feelings as misguided, while still respecting their legal right to have their wedding and wedding reception be no-guns events (and of course if they really want to be sure of this, they'd have to set up metal detectors at the entrance -- idiotic, IMO, but still their legal right). Legally speaking, if the soccer game was organized by a private league, it clearly also has the right to set whatever rules it wants.

[marktwain]

“Why isn’t it legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit?”

---

In New York, it was because organized crime did not want to have to worry about being shot when they were practicing extortion. The Sullivan Act is named for its promoter “Big Tim Sullivan”, a notorious thug and politician. More at the link:

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/column357.html

[marktwain]

“whether the league was public or private”

The games were being conducted on public property that was open to the public, so they could not legally exclude her.

This is just one of the battles in the culture war. The left first fought for concealed carry laws under the rubric that open carry was protected by the Constitution, and no honest person needed to carry concealed. Then, they pushed hard to delegitimize open carry.

The question here is simple: Why would people who have no problem with a police officer carrying a gun openly, have a problem with a peaceable citizen who is not threatening anyone carrying a gun openly.

Rights that are not exercised are lost. No one has a right not to be offended?

[marktwain]

The question mark is in the wrong place. It should be after “openly”, not after “offended”

[GovernmentShrinker]

The games were being conducted on public property that was open to the public, so they could not legally exclude her.

Careful, that's the same theory used by the people banning Boy Scout troops from renting public facilities. "It's public, so if you use it, you have let in everybody, gays and atheists included, even if that goes against your beliefs and the objectives of your group". I don't buy it.

[marktwain]

“Careful, that’s the same theory used by the people banning Boy Scout troops from renting public facilities.”

---

I would have to know more before I could comment constructively about that. It seems to me that rental, by its nature, is exclusive. If you pay for something, you get to use it, not someone else.

[GovernmentShrinker]

In some cases, it’s a matter of reserving, rather than paying anything. But if a group is privately organized, and a public facility allows any privately organized group to reserve a facility for its exclusive use for a set time period, it should allow that for any privately organized group whose activities aren’t illegal and which doesn’t have a history of property damage when using public facilities. And the reservation shouldn’t carry a dictate that you have submit to laws as if the activity was a publicly-funded, open-to-the-public activity. Public facilities that are made available to groups by reservation but without payment are usually those for which there is not much competing demand for time slots, and for which no significant added costs are incurred by the group activity, and there is usually a requirement that at least one of the organizers making the reservation is a resident of the jurisdiction that owns and maintains the facility.