Posted on 08/21/2005 6:02:36 AM PDT by CholeraJoe
"Never, ever leave home without it." No, not your American Express card, your sidearm.
This morning, I woke up about 4:15 and was hungry, so I decided to drive to the local 24-hour beanery. The only other customers were a table of 10, intoxicated 20-somethings making alot of noise.
There were 7 muscular young men and three loud-mouthed young women. After listening to their raucous laughter for 10 minutes, I politely asked the waitress to ask them to hold down the noise. All I wanted to do was eat my breakfast in relative peace.
Her request for quiet lasted about 45 seconds, then the noise and laughter resumed. At that point, I decided to do something.
Bear in mind that I am not an imposing figure. I'm 5'9", mid 50's, and slim. I walked over to the table, and walked completely around it twice. I said, "I'd like y'all to hold down the noise for a while, please." One of the young men started to give me trash-talk but within seconds was elbowed by the guy next to him, who whispered something in his ear. Then everyone at the table said, "Yes, sir, or OK."
What made the difference? Open carry. I was wearing a 9mm semi-auto on my right hip. I never touched it and I made no threats, but it was nevertheless visible.
Sounds like an attempt to compensate for undersized anatomy.
"What about all of the lunch counters in the south that refused to serve blacks in the 60's? They were forced to integrate at gunpoint. Any establishment open to the public must accept any law-abiding customer. I was a law-abiding customer. The "No shirt, no shoes, no service" might well be as illegal as "No blacks."
Okay, this guy has officially gone off the deep end. He realizes from the overwhelming negative response he's gotten (when he clearly expected all of us to say, Way to go, Man, you really showed those punks...and thanks for giving a good name to the Second Amendment!), that he was a complete, irresponsible ASS, but he just can't bring himself to say, You know what, folks? I may have acted in poor judgement. Thank you for your comments, I'll rethink all of this.
No, not man enough for that. Instead, he's taking the health laws of every state (no bare feet, no half-naked people in restaurants, it's unsanitary), and drawing a civil rights parallel.
Yeah, drunken spring breakers = Rosa Parks.
That makes sense...In England, the ones getting killed are the honest older citizens.........not the yutes...
Oh, you are just flirting.
"The raucous laughter was punctuated by four letter words and racial slurs."
You punk liar.
If that were significant, it would have been in your first post--you know, the one where the pathetic middleaged man was strutting around showing how tough he was?
That is uncalled for.....
Seeing someone with a gun hanging from their hip and having a short old bald man walking around your table s-l-o-w-l-y so you can have a r-e-a-l good look, while telling you to shut up is a completely different thing.
Something wrong with that image. You can bet the prosecutor will have a poster drawn of that and facing the jury during the entire trial.
NO ONE has licked boots re open carry here. Our objections are about his poor-judgement behavior, and his intimidation with a weapon. Get over yourself.
I would not be so hard on CJ. Any obvious lies would be presented in court. For that matter, any musings CJ put up to the internet could be used against him.
He would just lose his entire life. That must be be tough, but he has a wrongly decided principle to argue.
DOH
DK
If these punks had decided they weren't afraid of your 9mm you would have had to use it.
The jury might then decide that you had provoked the whole episode and convicted you of murder or assault with a deadly weapon.
Being armed requires more self-restraint, not less. Sometimes you have to put up with more crap than you would otherwise.
Remember, 12 people too stupid to lie their way out of jury duty may well sit in judgement of you.
Please do be careful.
A person commits the offense of intimidation when, with the purpose to cause another to perform or to omit the performance of any act, he communicates to another, under circumstances which reasonably tend to produce a fear that it will be carried out, a threat to perform without lawful authority ... [to] inflict physical harm on the person threatened or any other person;The prima facie elements are all present here:
Good job, CholeraJoe. You committed a felony punishable by 10 years imprisonment and a $50k fine. Brilliant.
Alright...how about a slim, 6'-3", well dressed man in a suit with a gun on his hip...oh yea...and with a full head of hair? Would this grant the complainant the power to ask that they keep the noise down?
Oh, it's actually me, Willie Green.
If you've detected a difference in the tone of my post, there is a simple explanation:
my lawn needs mowing and it's opressively hot and muggy outside...
I'm under severe stress in my endeavor to postpone, procrastinate and avoid the inevitable.
((((sigh)))) It's a losing battle.
Should this be forwarded to a Montana prosecutor?
DK
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