Open carry controversy just won’t go away (WA)

Thanks to an open carry incident in Vancouver on March 19 which I discussed here, the open carry controversy that began with the Brady Campaign’s attack on Starbucks – which I wrote about here and here – just won’t go away.

Perhaps that’s a good thing, but one must always be careful what one wishes for, as it may come true.

Friday morning, I did an hour radio program with Jim Beal, who goes by the nickname of ‘DEROS72” on the Open Carry forum on National Public Radio out of Portland, Oregon. Also on the program were Oregon State Sen. Ginny Burdick and Washington CeaseFire President Ralph Fascitelli (who called in via telephone instead of trooping to the broadcast facility in Seattle’s University District as did Beal and I; maybe it’s our after shave).

Item #1: Burdick identifies herself as a “gun safety” advocate. That’s more fashionable than being called a “gun control” advocate one supposes, but it means the same thing. In my experience, “safety” with gun control proponents is a substitute for “restriction.” (About the same as liberals now call themselves "progressives." Ask someone who has lost his or her job in the last 14 months how that change thing is progressing for them, personally. Ask the Democrat majority in Olympia how much "progress" they're making on balancing the budget without raising taxes.)

Item #2: Fascitelli simply will not get off this manufactured talking point that private businesses have a right to refuse service to anyone for any number of reasons, including carrying guns into coffee shops. That’s disingenuous and he knows it. It’s half of an argument. He and Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, have steadfastly refused to acknowledge that private businesses also have the right to serve anybody they damn well please.

The Vancouver case has everyone’s attention because of its implications. If defendant Kurk Robert Kirby, 26, is found guilty of violating RCW 9.41.270 – which outlines certain restrictions on how one may legally carry a firearm or other weapon – it could be a setback for the open carry movement. If he is acquitted, or if he wins on appeal, it is conceivable that earlier appeals court rulings (State v. Spencer, State v. Casad) will be reinforced and the definition of the statute will be further narrowed.

From a previous article:

" It shall be unlawful for any person to carry, exhibit, display, or draw any firearm, dagger, sword, knife or other cutting or stabbing instrument, club, or any other weapon apparently capable of producing bodily harm, in a manner, under circumstances, and at a time and place that either manifests an intent to intimidate another or that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons.-RCW 9.41.270"

Vancouver Police Sgt. Greg Raquer told the Vancouver Columbian, which has been diligently covering this story, that state statute allows for someone to be cited “if his display of a gun alarms people.”

That’s not quite accurate. State RCW 9.41.270 (1) makes it unlawful to carry a firearm or other weapon “in a manner, under circumstances, and at a time and place that either manifests an intent to intimidate another or that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons.” This language has been narrowed by at least two appeals court rulings in recent years, including the unpublished opinion in State v. Casad, which noted, “The statute does not and, under the Constitution, cannot prohibit the mere carrying of a firearm in public.”

Simple prostitution of police power by an extremist group. It’s time Americans everywhere start demanding their rights and acting boldly to confront these petty tyrants. The best outcome would be a civil rights decision against the city of Vancouver. Too often the Police look for loopholes to interpret laws for their friends rather than look for equity in enforcement.

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