Posted on 07/18/2004 9:37:46 PM PDT by neverdem
The latte grande at the Starbucks in Tysons Corner, Va., must have seemed extra steamy last month when two college students bellied up to the bar packing pistols on their hips, as casually as if they wore cellphones. Someone called the police, who confiscated the handguns and charged the students. But wait: the Catch-22 in Virginia's enfeebled gun control laws has kicked in.
Sure there's a state law against carrying loaded firearms in public. But the lethal fine print defines "firearm" as a 20-round-plus assault rifle. So smaller weapons, like the .22-caliber and 9-millimeter pistols the students flaunted in their holsters, are legal and no permit is required. The pistols were returned, thereby contributing to a celebratory mood among the state's gun enthusiasts. Now they're strutting their Second Amendment stuff among Main Street shoppers and restaurant diners in Washington's booming Virginia suburbs.
There was what seemed a self-fantasized posse of six this month at a table in a Champps restaurant, their weapons prominent as pepper mills. The same false alarm ensued, with a police patrol backing off in the face of citizens' exercising their rights, according to The Washington Post. And how about the couple walking their dogs on busy Market Street in Reston? They carried pistols on their hips, plus extra ammunition clips, as if the area were a set from "The Wild Bunch" and not one of the most crime-free places in Virginia.
The flaunting ritual is a tribute to "open carry" gun laws on the books in a score of states. Outcries from the unarmed public usually go unheeded. In Utah, university administrators worried over students' wearing guns in dormitories were overruled by the legislature, which defended gun rights — even to the point of packing in class.
You'd think Virginia citizens concerned about weapons in public would be able to seek comfort in the primacy of local controls. Alexandria, for instance, has barred open carrying. But that was before the very latest Catch-22 in Virginia law: effective this month, state law bars any locality from enacting gun regulations. Gotcha.
Join another refugee from the PRNJ in Texas, Free America. NO state income tax, a growing population, decent prices on virtually everything vs. the NE (esp. housing), and NO restrictions on what you can own (except what the Feds say, and that applies everywhere). Carry permits are "shall issue" and arrive in about 75 days, you don't get carted off to jail because you have a spring-loaded, stamped-metal box (i.e. a magazine) that the all-knowing nanny state thinks is "too big" for your own good. I also know several people that own machine guns.
You really can't beat Texas, unless you absolutely can't take the heat. If so, probably you belong in southern NH (where a bunch of refugees from the PDRM reside, incl. a friend of mine with a safe full of machine guns).
I've looked at Find Your Spot and I'm not so sure how complete it is. It has come up with some intriguing spots, but when I tried to hand select some of the places I have lived previously for comparison purposes, I got diddly-squat. I entered about 15 surrounding towns, too, and came up with nothing.
These are some big places, too. Major Hartford suburbs and the entire area from Waltham to Wobur, MA - a major new tech center in New England. I wouldn't want to go back to Mass, but I did want to see how it compared to their descriptions of other places.
Outside the perimeter, in any Atlanta suburb.
Inside the perimeter, it gets liberal again.
Just curious, which movie is it, an old horror flick?
Your friend is correct. Just because a right, protected explictly by the Constitution, federal and in most cases state as well, is violated on a routine basis, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Texas, Oklahoma (if you like red dirt) or Virgina, or Tennessee or several others. Texas may have the most to offer in the job area and cost of living (well with both considered together at least), depending on your field of course. Property taxes could be lower, but no state income tax!
Waht license, you don't need no steenking liscense to carry openly in Virgina, or a few other states. (Sadly not in Texas, not yet anyway!).
Well not quite. It concerned lawful gun owners, whether carrying or not. They are less likely to shoot the wrong person than the police. Actually it's quite understandable. The armed civilian is there when the crime occurs, and knows who the bad guys are. A policeman coming upon a crime in progress, or where one has just occurred, doesn't know who are good guys and who are the bad guys. Good guys sometimes get shot that way.
When did lawfully exercising a right become "flaunting"?
I suppose when six individuals go to a restaurant, each openly wearing firearms, you consider that a coincidence?
The author of the article used the word. I was simply wondering if you thought the above practice to be a good idea, or will it end up pi$$ing off the local (voting) citizenry.
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