With friends like this: Part II(open carry)

Minneapolis-Gun-Rights-Examiner ^ | 27 February, 2011 | John Pierce

[marktwain]

It has been over a year since I ran a series of articles chastising Clayton Cramer for criticizing both open carry and the gay community in his Shotgun News column as well as for his follow-up attack on open carry in his Pajamas Media column.

Given the vitriol with which Mr. Cramer attacked open carriers in those instances, I suppose it is little surprise that he has once again taken aim (pun intended) at open carry.

This time, his target is Michigan Open Carry and their efforts to force the Capital Area District Library (CADL) in Lansing Michigan to comply with Michigan’s preemption law that forbids local units of government from regulating the otherwise lawful carry of firearms. And while there are a number of interesting legal issues surrounding this preemption battle that I will address in next week’s column, today I want to talk about Mr. Cramer’s latest attack on open carry.

He starts by correctly noting that two of the goals of the open carry movement are to overturn statutory bans on open carry and to normalize open carry. And while Mr. Cramer professes to approve of the first goal, he goes on to state that he considers the second goal “delusional.”

He rants that this goal “ticks him off” and makes some truly bizarre comparisons that I will let speak for themselves:

But [not open carrying] is a convention nonetheless — rather like the one that says it’s bad manners to show your genitals in public even though everyone’s got a set.

Normalizing” open carry … is about as likely to work as “normalizing” homosexuality by having two guys strip naked and have sex in the middle of Main Street.

[marktwain]

Clayton Cramer has done some wonderful things. I contributed to his political campaign. He is simply wrong on this issue, but I have faith that he will eventually see his error.

[archy]

And while Mr. Cramer professes to approve of the first goal, he goes on to state that he considers the second goal “delusional.”

Right. As, for instance, in my state, where a concealed carry permit is not available to new residents until they've lived in the state for six months; until then, they're restricted to open carry.

Mr. Cramer's attitude is akin to that of those who demanded open housing for blacks in urban neighborhoods, but kept them out of their own suburban areas.