Posted on 05/20/2010 8:44:25 PM PDT by marktwain
Early Sunday morning, my 1-year-old son stood on the couch, trying to knock my iMac off the desk.
I sighed the heavy sigh of an overtired father whose patience is wearing thin. My son looked at me with the grin of an evil mastermind, testing how far he could move the iMac before I screamed "no!"
I shook my head and smiled, then tackled and tickled him.
"What are we going to do today?"
We went to the Village Park in West Salem.
When we got out of the van, I noticed a sign propped up on a sawhorse. I was about to read it when I heard music playing across the park and saw people wearing black shirts walking around. On their hips were handguns in holsters.
Oh, yeah, I thought to myself. It's the La Crosse County open carry picnic. I had been given a flyer about it at work. If I had remembered, I might have taken my son to a different park. But I figured that if they wanted to exercise their freedom to carry a gun in public, I wasn't going to let it affect my freedom - or my son's - to play in the park.
I grew up around guns. I have targets from when I was 4 years old in my baby book. I fired 10 rounds of blanks out of a full-auto M16-A1 when I was 5. My dad has owned a gun shop. I was in combat shooting competitions with my Model 27 .357-caliber Smith and later my crappy Llama .45 ACP when I was 16. (Don't ever own a Llama firearm.) I had a Savage .243, and I could put five rounds in a dime at 100 yards. I used to sit in front of a lead pot out back of my dad's shop, casting bullets. I used to reload .223 and .40 S&W for my ammo eaters. I've owned plenty of guns over the years and own a few right now. I love guns. I love owning guns. I love shooting guns. It is my right to own a gun, and I would die protecting that right.
But witnessing this little demonstration on Sunday at the park not only made me laugh, but it also made me a little mad: Not that these people were in the park, not that they had guns, but rather their total lack of respect and disregard for what it is they are trying to defend and support.
If you folks want to be taken seriously, here are a couple of suggestions:
n Get rid of the cheap sunglasses and matching
T-shirts. They make you look like a bunch of roadies for Thin Lizzy. How about looking like normal citizens enjoying a picnic rather than a group of paramilitary wackos trying to recruit troops for your army?
n Don't strut around the park as though you are tough guys. I watched one gomer strut across the park to his vehicle, and he looked like a huge rooster. Head bobbing back and forth, chest puffed out. Guy thought he was cool as hell, walking around with that gun on his hip. Every guy I saw walking out of that group had the same look and the same walk. There are reasons some people don't make the cut for law enforcement, and this crew represented that well. You all looked more like Barney Fife than Harry Callahan.
There are places you can walk around with your handgun in a holster every day. Those places are called shooting ranges. You are even allowed to take the gun out of its holster and shoot it.
How cool is that?
You can carry a shotgun, a rifle, a .50-caliber Barrett (if you have the strength) or a flintlock. Other people can touch your gun. You can let people shoot it.
And you would be expressing the same freedom as you are while gathering in a local park. And, thankfully, you would be out of the public eye where people like me won't laugh at you. Or, worse yet, misunderstand what you are trying to express.
That's really what it comes down to, isn't it? People understanding why you are there and what you are doing. For the most part, without the loud music, your presence might have been overlooked, which would have been better for you and your cause. One of your people could have walked around without a gun, talking to people who visited the park, telling them why you were there. You could have educated people.
Instead, you chose to sit in your group and look nuts, effectively forcing people away from your group rather than toward it.
I felt no need or desire to run home and get my Glock G35 and come back to join the group. I identified you as nut jobs who likely mourn the lives lost at Ruby Ridge and have your own "security plans" should the FBI come knocking on your doors.
In the bottom right hand corner of the www.wisconsin
carry.org website there are two people, the likes of whom I didn't see at the picnic. Normal-looking people. They're the kind of people you need to be attracting. The goobers who dreamt of being part of Army Special Forces or Navy SEALS but never made it should be asked to stay home and play video games.
Or at least have some simple respect for what you are doing, respect for our freedom.
If I, a fellow gun owner and firearms lover, had a negative reaction to your presence in that park, what reaction do you think you are going to get from the anti-gun crowd?
Eric Roellig manages online technology for River Valley Newspapers.
Love how he took a slap at Randy Weaver’s murdered wife and children.
This is a pathetic attempt to look “mainstream” to his liberal wuss friends. Reminds me of Bill O.
Notice the olbigatory reference to an iMac and his “quality time” with his son. You see, I’m just like you liberals; I’m a soccer dad. Pathetic.
Re: Imac.
Apple does Not support the First Amendment.
People that Patronize Apple are enabling the Take over of America by the Fascists.
mark,
are you the keeper of the open carry ping list? if so, please put me on it.
BTW what do you make out of the Gonzales arrest in Milwaukee? I believe you have posted stories about him before.
something seems weird.
Open-carry advocate pleads not guilty in killing
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/94453264.html
I think I could predict what he would say about Waco.
“If I, a fellow gun owner and firearms lover, had a negative reaction to your presence in that park, what reaction do you think you are going to get from the anti-gun crowd?”
How about a reaction like—I don’t care. I have no concern about appeasing these slugs...nothing you do will appease them except destroying the Constitution and putting you into a prison camp.
All the castigations aside, this fellow does have a point.
What is the point of the black shirts and loud music?
Were they afraid they wouldn’t be able to identify who was in their group?
The loud music is a clue. Without the shirts, without the firearms, without the cause, it just marked them as a
**holes telegraphing an “up yours” to anyone else in the park.
“There are reasons some people don’t make the cut for law enforcement, and this crew represented that well.”
There is also the other side of the coin. Many LEO’s are on an ego driven power trip. They are losers that can’t get any other job and want to be control freaks and mini dictators.
Once you join an organization which is intended to change people’s mind, you become a representative.
Leave the cami’s at home, lose the tactical sunglasses, get a pair of tennis shoes. In short, if you’re at a recreational park, dress like you at a recreational park and not air dropped off in the middle of a banana republic.
I’ve been to too many fringe gun group rallies where I was embarrassed and wished some of the people were from the other side.
Keep in mind that this is only the opinion writer’s opinion. You can go to the link below and see some video of the open carry event that was taken by local media, and make up your own mind.
http://www.wkbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=12490744
What would one expect from some one who works for a news paper.
He is probably afraid of losing his job.
When one hangs around with liberals one starts to think like them.
I would bet his bosses are very anti gun and he is kissing their behinds.
Why do you say that? Because of the porn thing?
LOL!
If I, a fellow gun owner and firearms lover, had a negative reaction to your presence in that park, what reaction do you think you are going to get from the anti-gun crowd?
This is like trying to "win the hearts and minds" of the haji terrorists or "reaching across the aisle" to the leftists. These people HATE you, no matter what you do or say, so who cares what they think? Why try to please them? Maybe the author meant to indicate the 2A debate's fence-sitters?
Bill Gates does not support the second amendment.
http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/01/cov_29feature.html
Watched the video...they looked like pretty ordinary people talking while at a picnic. They did NOT look like a bunch of phony military wanna-bes - plenty of women, and no one in the video was ‘strutting’ anywhere.
I am not concerned about the Porn Issue,although others might be.
I believe that the First Amendment covers even Offensive speech. Unfortunately that is how we know it is being Honored.
Apple recently refused to add an application to the APP Store.
Said App was Political in nature and they Deemed it offensive.
Although the person had received assurances that his App would be done, At the last minute Apple refused.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.