Paladin's Colt 45 would be a nice open carry to have. Loved that show staring Richard Boone "Have Gun Will Travel"
Posted on 03/09/2010 4:01:20 AM PST by marktwain
One goal of the "open carry" movement, The New York Times notes, is to encourage liberalization of concealed carry laws. California, for instance, is one of nine states where concealed carry permits are issued at the discretion of local officials, which often means that only the politically connected receive permission to discreetly pack heat. But California law (PDF) allows you to openly carry an unloaded gun without a permit, provided you are outside of designated "gun-free" zones. Hence the holstered coffee drinkers letting it all hang out at Starbucks:
"It is a discriminatory issue in California," said Paul Higgins, 43, a software engineer who runs a Web forum called CaliforniaOpenCarry.org. "If you are politically connected, if you're rich, if you're a politician, if you're a celebrity, you get a permit. Otherwise, you don't."
Mr. Higgins said the meet-ups [of gun toters] were not meant to be confrontational. The hope, he said, is that if other restaurant or cafe patrons are uncomfortable with guns being displayed so conspicuously, pressure will increase on lawmakers to consider changing the law so that weapons can be carried more discreetly.
Public attitudes on this issue seem to have changed dramatically since the 19th century, when carrying a concealed weapon was often banned as a sneaky, disreputable practice conducive to crime. Today, by contrast, it's the open carrying of weapons that is deemed alarming. In addition to avoiding that effect, hidden guns have the advantage of deterring criminals who can't be sure who is armed and who isn't.
Yet in D.C. v. Heller, the 2008 decision vindicating Second Amendment rights, the Supreme Court noted that "the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues." The majority therefore deemed such bans "presumptively lawful." The Second Amendment lawsuit that I discussed in my column last week, challenging the District of Columbia's blanket ban on carrying handguns, argues that legislators may require people to conceal their guns or to bear them openly but cannot constitutionally ban all carrying in public.
Beyond the legal and practical issues, of course, there is the question of whether open carry activists are helping or hurting the cause of gun rights by popping up in coffee shops and restaurants with weapons on their waists. Respectable, law-abiding people carrying guns openly in public places could help normalize gun ownership and armed self-defense among people who are unfamiliar with both. The experience of a Walnut Hill, California, pizzeria owner who decided to welcome gun carriers is consistent with that hope:
"Frankly, I wasn't sure how I would feel in that type of situation, and it really turned out to be a total nonissue," Ms. Grunner said.
"The families were great," she said. "These were very gracious people." The fact that customers wore sidearms, she said, "just faded into the background."
Then again, the sight of people with pistols on their hips could serve to confirm prejudices about gun owners among people who believe they fetishize their weapons and seek to project a macho image. The goal of encouraging support for liberalized concealed carry policies depends to some extent on normalization yet at the same time assumes open gun toting will make people uneasy. I'm not sure people can be simultaneously reassured and alarmed.
This is not really a contradiction, as different people are reassured and alarmed. The majority of people are quickly reassured, as it is no different than police or security guards carrying guns. The hoplophobes are alarmed, because they have a mental problem.
Paladin's Colt 45 would be a nice open carry to have. Loved that show staring Richard Boone "Have Gun Will Travel"
The libtard lawmakers turned the 'rule of law' over to the 'rule of a man.'
Would LOVE to see Florida get on the open carry bandwagon. We’re one of the few states that doesn’t allow open carry which is a shame.
Eh, that "tactical advantage" has shown to be no different than the "tactical advantage" of being able to diffuse a situation without brandishing or firing a shot.
Good article!
Lookls like a cap gun.
Ummm...don't think I want to OC with an empty weapon.
BTW, at least several of the states where people are bragging about their “shall issue” CCW laws do have loopholes for cronyism on the matter. Anyone can be turned down in many counties except for those in the local, yocal, business/government/sewing circles. They’re driven by fears of others they feel to be beneath them.
I’ve known some exceptionally responsible and level-headed people who often carried firearms while dressing and acting like the homeless folks so feared by most (kids in the Ozarks, for example).
If many people don’t get over their fears of openly visible firearms, there’s no tellin’ where the winds of CCW laws and their requirements will blow—maybe to exclude all with less than high pay grade government incomes, IQs less than above average, old folks (assumed senility), or those perceived to be clumsy in their physical disabilities.
I was wondering what unloaded really means.
Loaded magazine in but no round in the chamber, is that unloaded?
No magazine in the gun but loaded one in my pocket, is that unloaded?
Hmmm.....
I agree! Being in the tropics makes CC much harder imo.
can you carry clips elsewhere on your person in California, I assume? Maybe a domb question, but I don’t assume anything is true in California.
So, as soon as you need to defend yourself, and you load the clip, you are illegal?
“can you carry clips elsewhere on your person...”
While clips are not unique to the broomhandled Mauser and the M1 Garand, most semi auto and bolt action firearms (particularly in the last 50 years) use magazines to store and present ammunition for feeding.
Clip - a device that holds ammunition prior to insertion/loading into a magazine.
Magazine - a device that holds AND presents ammunition into a position ready for feeding into a chamber prior to firing. Typically contains a spring that puts upward pressure on the ammunition column to enable positioning and feeding.
There have been court cases to address this issue. If a cartridge is located in the weapon where it is ready to fire, then the gun is loaded. Is an unchambered cartridge at the top of a magazine "ready to fire"? Perhaps.
The recommended practice for those exercising their "right" to carry openly and unloaded in Kalifornia appears to be with the magazines carried separately from the gun. This might mean that the gun is visible on the right hip and the magazines are visible on the left hip. With practice, and two hands, the gun can be loaded and ready to fire in about one second later than a loaded gun would be.
It's surprising that a liberal cess-pool like Kalifornia would enact laws which seem to so frightfully discriminate against people who only have the use of one hand.
I haven't yet participated, but the time may come soon for me to do so. I will probably choose a Starbucks which is clearly outside of any "school zone" and will order something quite expensive to help reward Starbuck's decision to simply follow state law.
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