In case I didn’t make it clear, my remarks were not primarily about individuals choosing to open carry in their private lives. This gets little publicity and unless it becomes a lot more common than it has, is well below most people’s radar.
I was referencing the mass armed protests that have occurred in the last few months, which I believe severely damaging politically to the 2nd Amendment rights cause. I’ve spoken to perhaps a dozen people recently about the issue, from all varieties of political belief. Every single one of them was aghast that this was happening and thought it showed the fanaticism of the gun rights people. Not a representative sample, of course, but interesting.
YMMV
>In case I didn’t make it clear, my remarks were not primarily about individuals choosing to open carry in their private lives. This gets little publicity and unless it becomes a lot more common than it has, is well below most people’s radar.
Then how would you suggest to put it on people’s radar?
>I was referencing the mass armed protests that have occurred in the last few months,
Isn’t the individual the weakest group? What is the fundamental difference between a peaceful armed individual and a peaceful armed group? Is it merely the number involved? If that is the case, what is the number where that change occurs: 500? 100? 50? 10? 5? 2?
>which I believe severely damaging politically to the 2nd Amendment rights cause.
What about state rights, as in the State Constitution I mentioned in an earlier post? It clearly states that counties and municipalities cannot “regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.” So, if such a rally were denied on the city-level on the grounds that it might frighten someone [”public disturbance”] simply because firearms were involved is ILLEGAL; in this case the only way to tell if the city is following the law is to try to do what is legally permitted and see if they try to stop you.
Now, having recognized that, what of the case where a county or city IS regulating [incidents of] the right to keep and bear arms? How would you go about seeking redress?
>I’ve spoken to perhaps a dozen people recently about the issue, from all varieties of political belief. Every single one of them was aghast that this was happening and thought it showed the fanaticism of the gun rights people.
Kind of like how the SWAT team being called out on the bunch of granny Tea Party-types proves that they are nothing more than barely restrained, violent, seditionists? You know, the incident where they looked like they would have given the SWAT team cookies and milk in the EVIL PLOT to fatten them to the point where they ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO BE POLICE!! *GASP*
[/ridicule]
>Not a representative sample, of course, but interesting.
Indeed. I think it is more indicative of the widespread ignorance of guns than anything else; and the sample is quite small. If we were going on small samples, the one, and ONLY, time I have had a problem open carrying in a restaurant is after picking up a rifle (.22/.410 double barrel over-under) and went into Burger King for lunch as it was about noon. I ordered, with the rifle in my hands, got the food, sat at the table, ate and read a portion of a book before an employee confronted me about it. They said that the gun was scaring people and that it was illegal for me to have the gun in the restaurant. {As previously stated, my state Constitution PROHIBITS laws abridging the right to keep and bear arms for defense, AS WELL AS prohibiting the counties and cities from harassing people about exercising that right.}
So, my only experience with a problem in restaurants with open carry is that they are ignorant at best, liars at worst. Would it be just to characterize all restaurants that way, or even JUST Burger King? {BTW, I’ve open carried handguns in Burger King with no problem.}