perspectives on the matter

It looks like the old-and-familiar not-really-spectre of “open carry” has reared its cute little head in the old-and-familiar (and unlinked) places. Color me unsurprised.

However, the responses to the standard narrow-minded “arguments” are getting a little more vociferous, and a little more wide-spread, ranging from a simple-but-still-unanswered question:

Now, the usual suspects are screaming that this is yet another reason why OC is a Bad Idea. I contend that Dohmen was ambushed, and did pretty well all things considered. He kept calm, he offered some literature that explained citizens’ rights, and he left the building ….. he was going to get to talk to police no matter what happened. I think he did good.

But jumping to conclusions are some’s stock in trade. To them I ask this question: What is a good OC encounter, especially in enemy territory?

… to a declaration of rights:

People open-carry for many reasons, which sometimes does include the political. Some people do it because that is all they have. Who are any of you to deny a person their right just because you feel it casts negative light on *your* cause. [...] As an American, I am under no obligation to offer reasons for the way that I speak, worship or carry. It is simply my way and it is my right.

I, too, have had absolutely no luck getting similar questions answered, and as to the nature of why people openly carry… well, I find it interesting to note that in our Founding Fathers’ days, carrying a firearm in a concealed manner was considered to be a suspicious and unnecessary action. After all, if you were an honorable man, why were you trying to hide your sidearm?

My take on this situation is quite simple: I support carry. If you want to openly carry, knock yourself out. If you want to concealed carry, have at it. If you want to wear a yarmukle, break out the bobby pins. If you want a rosary about your neck, that certainly makes it easy to get to.

Unfortunately, bigots within the very ranks of firearm owners are not quite as tolerant of the idea of people exercising their rights as they like to claim they are.

I will not waste my time speculating as to their reasons. I will, however, speak from an anecdotal, one-does-not-a-statistic-make position: I have openly carried many times, in many different locations, in two separate states. And you want to know what happened?

Darned near nothing. Oh, sure, the first time I openly carried, I was actually asked by another permit holder who was interested in openly carrying if doing so was actually legal, and another time, a store manager asked what it was I was carrying, and if I had a permit, but I would not exactly describe either of those circumstances as “negative”.

And yet some bigoted gun owners treat any instance of any firearm being openly displayed on any law-abiding citizen’s hip as the end of the frakking world. I am not at all sorry to point out that this is simply not the case.

I have said this before, but I will repeat it again: if you do not want to openly carry, I am certainly not going to force you. How about you show the same courtesy and consideration? I still routinely concealed carry when the situation or attire requires it – one does not preclude the other. But senselessly lashing out at fellow gun owners and pro-rights activists, using arguments frighteningly similar to those fielded by the Brady Bunch, and seemingly doing your damnest to convince the world you are not quite the staunch defender of rights you portray yourself to be, simply because your sensibilities are offended? Where does that start being helpful?

As Garry Harvey said,

We, the pro-carry citizens, have to stop criticizing each other. We have to stop playing footsy with the politically correct crowd and stick together. Public opinion can be swayed in our favor if we as law abiding citizens can show through open carry that we are safe, caring individuals whose only want is to be able to defend our family and ourselves from needless victimization. Ben Franklin said it best when he explained that “the very fame of our strength and readiness would be a means of discouraging our enemies; for tis a wise and true saying that one sword often keeps the other in the scabbard. The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. Those who are on the guard and appear ready to receive their adversaries are in much less danger of attack than the secure, the supine, and the negligent.”

Lord knows we have enemies aplenty outside our own ranks… but, then again, pro-rights activists seem to have a penchant for targeting one another.