A post I was reading earlier today got me thinking about carrying of guns. I can imagine some (very limited) circumstances where someone could argue that they need to do concealed-carry. The number of cases where someone has an actual need to open-carry a pistol … well, I struggle with thinking of one.
But open-carry of a long arm? If you're not in the woods hunting (or concerned about being hunted)? I can honestly say that I cannot imagine a single rational reason for doing so, except to intimidate and posture. Neither of those are crimes, to be sure, but I'm pretty sure they're not why the Founders passed the Second Amendment, either.
(cartoon from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/12/1305939/-Cartoon-How-to-recognize-an-open-carry-patriot)
305 view(s)
Well, I sure as heck wouldn't go to Mos Eisley unarmed! Aside from that, though…
Yeah, the second someone tries to associate race/racism with people against gun control, most credibility is pretty thoroughly lost.
+Robert Nowlen In broad terms, it's very arguably unfair. In terms of the kinds of folks one can observe open-carrying long arms (at least since the Panthers 40-50 years ago), they are white and not infrequently associated with racist / supremacist movements (esp. in their criticism of the president).
+Dave Hill Nevertheless, it does an excellent job of souring more moderate/liberal 2A folks on those who paint those broad pictures.
As someone who leans Democrat on most issues, it annoys me greatly to be demonized by being included in over exaggerated sweeping generalizations of supporters of a constitutional right, and prevents me from voting for all but the most moderate Democrats.
+Dave Hill so why ban it because you're afraid. I've never been intimidated by a citizen openly carrying a pistol or rifle. I have been intimidated by gang members who may have been carrying illegally and concealed.
You're talking about prohibiting the carry of a weapon, not an actual crime. I urge you to reconsider the bias view you're holding.
Why is it unnecessary to prohibit open carry? Because it creates a victimless crime and puts CCW holders at risk. It also creates an unnecessary burden on those who wish to carry to protect themselves and their families.
For example, in states with CCW but no open carry, law abiding citizens are harassed and arrested simply for accidentally letting their concealed weapon print or show momentarily. Is that just?
I gather that you don't want people carrying firearms because you attribute firearms with crime. But such a view is clearly bias as you ignore the fact that prohibition does not affect those who are willing to commit crimes in the first place.
Prohibition disarms only those who respect our laws in the first place. Thus prohibiting firearms, and by extension, any form of carrying those arms, will only disarm those who won't commit the very crimes you want stopped in the first place.
Prohibiting arms or the carry of arms only make crime worse as it makes the situation of the victims worse, and the criminals better.
Finally, that image is wholely offensive as it alludes to the intellectually dishonest argument that all people with firearms are dangerous. This is obviously not the case and to maintain that opinion will rob you of all credibility.
Simple fix: screen print t-shirts w/ "Good guy with a gun"
Problem solved. #sarcasm
These open carry idiots are doing more harm than good.
lol
+Patrick Henry So you're not afraid of somebody holding a lethal weapon but you're afraid of people you think might be dangerous due to their clothing or the color of their skin?
You are a fucking idiot. If there are six, obvious, gang bangers to the north of me and a shaved skull, middle aged, white dude with an AR-15 to my south I'm turning my back on the gang bangers and watching the rifle.
No, let me correct that. I'm going to walk over to the gang bangers and organize how we're taking our soon-to-be-shooter, out.
+John Poteet Color of their skin…? A gang member is a gang member by action not race bud. And you're going to murder someone because they carry a rifle? Woooow..
Thanks for colorfully illustrating the purpose of the second amendment and giving an example for why I post under a pen name. You and your lefty kind are quite violent under your "green" disguise and a pathetic excuse for a human being.
+Patrick Henry You'll have to forgive +John Poteet — "gang members" is often code for "people of color who are scary-looking and hanging out together."
Were I in the hypothetical he posited above, I would leave the area, because when you have parties posturing about and trying to be as intimidating as possible, then people are likely to get hurt — more likely with firearms involved, and not just the parties to the conflict.
For what it's worth, I'm happy to prohibit open carry to all people. It does have the advantage of being easily verifiable to law enforcement, thus not leave the non-criminal element bereft of their long guns.
As far as concealed carry, I can imagine fringe cases where it might be necessary, so I think it should be legal but highly regulated, because, honestly, all people with guns are dangerous, potentially — certainly more dangerous on the whole than people without guns. That the intent for carrying is to be dangerous just to bad people is moderately reassuring, but only goes so far — I frankly don't want to blindly trust in the good judgment and clear sense and kindly nature of anyone who can point a stick at me and kill me at a distance.
+Dave Hill The concept of people with guns being more dangerous than people without is objectively false. Lawful concealed carriers by and large commit crimes at significantly lower rates than the general population, a fact that can be backed up in states that release crime statistics on concealed carry license holders separately.
Many, many states have switched to shall-issue over the last couple decades, and none of these changes have resulted in "blood in the streets."
Any unfortunately, your inability to appreciate how unlikely it is for you to be shot in comparison to many other common deaths and resulting fear is not an adequate reason to ban something in a nominally free country.
+Robert Nowlen I don't think I said there was blood in the streets, nor am I commenting on the crime rate (it would not surprise me to find out that lawful concealed carriers have a lower crime rate overall than the general population, for a number of unsurprising reason, one of which is likely what qualifies as a crime in those comparative statistics, as most criminals are not in fact armed).
That said, a person carrying a gun, objectively, is a greater potential physical danger to me than a person who is not. He or she can, if they choose, injure or kill me before I can run away (or attack them, or, if they see I'm carrying around a gun, before I'll have an opportunity to get it out).
Most — clearly the vast majority — will not. But I can't know that about every single one. Accidents, bad days, bad judgment, all can happen. All I can know is that there are people around me who could kill me with a thought and trivial effort, and in most cases whether I am similarly armed or not.
Given that, I'd like some assurance that they have been seriously vetted by a trusted third party as to their criminal record, mental stability, regularly refreshed weapon training, and actual need to be carrying a firearm, or, otherwise, that they will be treated as a criminal if discovered carrying a so lethal a weapon.
So, yes, it's fear, for myself and my family and any random neighbor along the street. I think that's as worthy of consideration as the fear that I might encounter a situation where having a gun tucked away (or slung over my shoulder) is the only thing that will save my life.
+Dave Hill But nothing you claim is an objective fact or fear actually happens in reality, at least not at anywhere near substantial enough rates to justify that fear. You'd be better served banning alcohol – you and your family are far, far more likely to be hurt by a drunk driver, and alcohol serves even less purpose than firearms.
Unless you live in CA, NY, or IL you probably know many people who carry and are none the wiser. People who generally obey the law don't haul off and shoot people willy nilly.
+Dave Hill I know what a right wing fuckwit means when he says "gang members." He means black, latinos or asians hanging out and playing basketball, soccer, or possibly fixing a car i.e. people behaving normally that he assigns criminal affiliation to.
+John Poteet The example you were referring to is bad, but you sound just as stupid by painting an extremely broad picture of half of the US as racist. Good job.
+Dave Hill it's an idea of false utility to ban something out of fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience.
In terms of accidents, firearms are actually orders of magnitude safer than swimming pools and bath tubs.
And by limiting carrying you will sacrifice the countless advantages of being armed, including but definitely not limited to:
The right of women to fight of rapists with effective weapons. The right of any individual to resist deadly force with an effective weapon.
Additional, firearms prohibition (carry and ownership) can only make the situation of the victim worse as only those whom do not commit the very crimes you wish prohibition to prevent will be disarmed by prohibition. Those who break the laws prohibiting rape and murder will ignore any weapons prohibition.
Additionally, even if every firearm was destroyed, the result will be that the physically weaker victims will still be worse off as they will have no means to resist to strong (whom will use a multitude of other deadly objects as weapons anyway).
And finally, Harvard recently released a study corroborating my points against firearm prohibition. There are NO anti firearm laws that can be attributed to a reduction in crime (for the very reason that criminals, by definition, ignore laws).
But prohibition of firearms does make the situation of victims of crime worse.
+Robert Nowlen But that cuts both ways. The circumstances in with a concealed carry (or open carry for that matter) actually has an affect in a positive fashion are also extremely rare. So why add the incremental chance of a rare harm to possibly avert another rare harm.
+Dave Hill Because we don't live in a country where rights are granted because we think they should be; we live in one where rights are inherint unless there is compelling reason to restrict them. Any restriction of personal liberty – be it 2A, abortion, gay marriage, etc. – is a heavy, heavy con in itself. Doesn't really cut both ways.
I can construct a statistical argument against that if you like as well.
+Robert Nowlen That's a fancy way of saying that you don't care how many children get shot by maniacs with assault rifles. You're going to completely ignore the precedent clause of the Second Amendment that says……
….A well regulated militia……..
Then you're going to give me the utterly bullshit and historically inaccurate excuse that "militia" meant "citizen." The writers of the constitution were very precise in their language and if they wanted to say "citizen" they would have inserted that word instead of "militia."
+John Poteet Regulated doesn't mean the same as legislated or controlled. That's besides the fact, since the supreme court has affirmed that the first part of the 2A is not essential to the second part, which means that the existance of a militia in the traditional sense is not a requirement for the refusal restrictions on firearms. Your smug assertion of the actual reading of the second amendment has been legally wrong for a long time. If you really want to be anal about wording, we could just use the correct, historical definition of militia, which would also weaken your argument.
That said…
Look up how many people are killed with long arms a year. I'll wait. That number is utterly inadequate justification for legislation in a country of hundreds of millions.
There are plenty of adequate, logical arguments for anti-2A folks to make. You aren't picking any of them.
+Robert Nowlen Again you assert that the deaths of tens of thousands of children by gunfire in the last 20 years doesn't matter because it might inconveinence you to have Constitutionally mandated regulations on firearms.
The majority of people don't own guns and they're frankly sick of the bullshit coming from the gun nuts.
The current perversion of the Second Amendment is the result of right wing justices appointed by Reagan, Bush and Bush. It's historically inaccurate to say there was ever an unlimited individual right to arms.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/23/1279131/-Should-we-amend-the-US-Constitution-Justice-Stevens-thinks-so-incl-2nd-Amendment-new-book
You are moving goal posts.
You started by saying children killed with assault rifles, and you've now changed to all children killed by all guns over decades. I mean c'mon, its totally legit to attempt to goad me into feeling ashamed of my beliefs, but at least be consistent about it!
I'm not even sure where inconvenient comes from? You're attacking the exact same concept that forces the court system to operate on innocent-until-proven-guilty logic, so tread carefully on that route. Of course, you are also implying that we should have Constitutionally mandated restrictions on firearms, and frankly you should see someone, since the idea of getting a 3/4 majority of just about anything in this country to agree on a change to the constitution is quite insane. You might be able to get a literal majority, but time is against you – I'm far from the only liberal who is a closet 2A supporter, and growing repulsion with state abuse of power doesn't do anything for the argument that we should give up more power to it.
And did you really just cite dailykos to support your argument? XD
It would indeed be historically inaccurate to say that there has even been unlimited access to arms, which is why I didn't say that, nor say I want that in the future.
Nevertheless, in the 19freaking30s during FDR's administration (and an all-around bad time for individual rights), the Supreme Court felt that the, "Does the military use it?" in the sense that if they do, civilians should be allowed to own it, was a reasonable test, so I'm not sure what you're even trying to say by pointing at the current make-up of the Supreme Court.
You don't really know what you're talking about. I'll kindly provide you with some anti-2A arguments over email if you like.
post scriptum – I did really enjoy you shutting up arguing about the meaning of the 2A, and instead switching to "we should change it."
+Robert Nowlen This isn't a legitimate debate. Any debate that was legitimate would recognize that gun regulation actually works in every developing country but the U.S..
You're deliberately ignoring that fact because your precious guns are so important to you that you refuse to see reality.
Every dead and maimed kid in the U.S. shot with a firearm is on your hands until assholes like you admit to reality. Children shot by firearms are not a daily reality in Europe, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Canada and New Zealand. That's a U.S. perversion and you, +Robert Nowlen are the pervert.
+John Poteet Europe is a country?
And I strongly suspect your idea of a legitimate debate is one you win, since your replies have been rapidly digressing from incorrect assertions of fake information to name calling.
You don't vote, do you?
Also: I'll go through the reasons why your assertions about other countries/continents is wrong too, if you like.
N.B. – using italics for emphasis makes you come off as a pretentious jackass, no matter what your profession, or what you profess.
+Robert Nowlen The E.U. plus Sweden, Norway and Finland. Just the E.U. alone is 511,434,812 people that don't really have to worry about gun crime. They don't have mass shootings every other day and they don't shrug when their children are killed by gunfire.
I'd compare your morality to that of a cockroach but the humble cockroach doesn't deserve the insult.
You're going to assert that there's some vast wave of violent crime in the E.U. and it's crap. The U.S. has the guns and we have the crime also. We have 25% of the world's prisoners and 5% of the world's population.
The EU isn't a country either. Try again!
And did you just assert cockroaches have a sophisticated system of morality?
+Robert Nowlen The E.U. is a governmental agency that binds the wealthiest nations in Europe with the highest living standards in the world. A comparison of any or all E.U. countries to the U.S. shows they have, individually and collectively a much smaller firearms death rate than we suffer.
http://www.gunpolicy.org/
Your repeated, and false, assertion is that guns shouldn't be regulated. It's bullshit.
+John Poteet You'll actually notice I never said guns shouldn't be regulated – in fact, I said, at least once, quite the opposite. So yeah.
Additionally, you are out of your gourd if you somehow think that comparing extremely homogenized countries with relatively low amounts of ethnic, religious, and political diversity, as well as much lower rates of economic inequality, and have the physical size of individual states (NY to LA is farther away than London to Moscow!) is valid.
Please convince me otherwise though. The "bu-bu-but Europe" argument is old as dirt, and no one is particularly impressed by it anymore, mostly due to the fact that not many industrialized nations at all have the tremendous history of social, racial, and economic inequality that the US has, which are why people kill each other, not because they touch guns you moron. You should really be more aware of this – you live in CA.
John (can I call you John?), you seem like a nice guy. Exceptionally compassionate, but with an underwhelming grasp of reality. You probably should leave the politics to people who have enough patience to dig deeply into and truly understand an issue.
+John Poteet there's no having a reasonable discussion with one such as yourself. You're completely intellectually dishonest.
You lump Europe as some liberal paradise with "no violence" yet you fail to awknowledge that Iceland has a very high gun ownership rate and almost no crime to speak of.
Furthermore, you seem completely unable, or unwilling, to grasp the fact that there is no correlation between legal firearms ownership and violent crime. Fact is the safest States in the country have the most lax firearms laws and highest ownership rates.
You refuse to acknowledge that Australia, Canada, and the UK have all recently banned firearms and have all seen huge increases in violent crime as a result.
You're also completely ignorant of the cultural influences on crime. You decry firearms deaths yet ignore that the suicide rate in Japan is higher than the combined murder+suicide rate in the united States.
You also blatantly ignore the millions of firearms defenses in the untied States every year.
You also blatantly ignore the fact that these mass shootings happen I'm schools precisely because they are no-carry zones. Meaning victims are guaranteed disarmed.
You also refuse to acknowledge that European countries also have shootings in schools.
You put up this ridiculous straw man of firearms owners who "shrug" at children being murdered. How dare you? You pretend your some saint, that you care more about children than whoever you debate. It's the very policies you support that make children on campus sitting ducks in the first place.
You curse. You lie. You insult like a schoolyard bully. You're an crazed fanatic fixated on hatred of inanimate objects and the people who own them who has absolutely no ability to comprehend the most simple facts or arguments. Frankly your demeanor is appalling and disgusting.
+Robert Nowlen Last time I checked all of those countries were populated by humans and humans. Just like the U.S. is populated by humans and more humans. Are you implying that there's some sort of racist connection to gun deaths? Then how come the state with the highest gun death rate per capita in the U.S. is Alaska.
http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-rate-per-100000/
Are you saying that americans can't learn? Then how come Hawaii has 1/6th the gun death rate of Alaska and the most diverse population in the U.S.? Massachusetts has 1/5th the gun death rate of Alaska. That looks like learning to me.
You're trying to convince me that the smart thing to do is to be stupid.
Fuck. That. Bullshit.
+Patrick Henry Your assertions are as false as your screen name. You're a liar and you know it.
Murders US (2012) 14,173. – 4.8 per 100,000
Murders UK (2011) 653 – 1 per 100,000
(these are the years I could find the latest stats for)
I do think criminals in the US have very polite manners. They obviously let their victims draw their weapon. If it was me I’d hit my victim very hard with a baseball bat by surprise so they didn’t have time to draw.
@LH – As has been noted on more than one occasion, open carry means being the first target (esp. since you have something worth stealing), for those so inclined.
I meant to say, the ban on firearms was 1918, to prevent a Bolshevik revolution.
Crime in the UK is currently falling, and non violent crime is proportional to the US. Violent crime (as far as I can tell – the stats are presented in different way for the US and UK) is higher in the US.
@LH – I do believe the US does have a higher violent crime rate than the UK.
+John Poteet congratulations. You just proved you're a racist whose incapable of intelligent conversation, as I have started above.
You curse and throw out random numbers without context. Must me frustrating in your angry little brain.
The other issue is ‘When do you draw?” Too early and you are the aggressor. Too late and that gun is a liability.