Ok, I promised you I would not say anything more about this current open carry froofera… I never promised that I would not highlight other people’s words, like this comment by Alan:
You know the reason I want to open carry? Because it’s my right as a living human and if you disagree then you can just f*ck off.
(Slightly edited to maintain the mostly-PG-13 rating of this site.)
Incidentally, this comment goes hand-in-hand with a post by another remarkably blunt individual:
Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night. I didn’t. So piss off.
Both of those sentiments are probably why I do not understand or appreciate the tactic of, “All of those other open carriers are behaving like jerks, so you should not open carry!” In addition to being a complete non-sequitur, that “argument” generally elicits a response of, “So what? I am not. And who are you to tell me what to do?” from me, which probably does not help things at all…
“And who are you to tell me what to do?”
If you OC and act like a douchebag in front of people, they may remember when election day comes and they associate the pro-gun candidate with the Impolite Chest Puffer.
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I don’t personally care if you open carry or not, I’m going to keep as close an eye on you as I do on every other customer who walks by my desk.
Please however keep in mind that legal or not, the majority of my coworkers are rather put off by guns. If you act in an aggressive manner (including raising your voice, trying to get behind the counter, or in any way other than perfectly polite) they’ll likely hit the panic button. At that point we have police in the building and your day off is likely ruined, as is your reputation in the community when your name makes the paper for acting aggressively while carrying a gun. Even if in the end you end up not charged with anything. In that case not only did you NOT help your case to make the point that guns are legal, you scared my co-workers even more so that the NEXT time someone walks in carrying a gun the panic button gets hit right away instead of waiting to see what you’re going to do. Plus I get to listen to them panic at the thought of an armed customer. Which means that the next time you need help in my place of work, armed or not, I’m not going to be happy to help you cause you made my life more difficult.
Stay polite, calm and courteous regardless of what you think of what has happened to your order and it’ll go much further.
I realize I’m probly preaching to the choir with this post, but its a peeve of mine. Even more so cause the only people open carrying in my state are LEOs who OUGHT to have an understanding of that concept and yet so often don’t.
@ Miguel: Great. And who is the anti-gun candidate to tell me what to do? That comment addresses more layers than just your everyday neighbors / people you pass on the street.
@ Ruth: The problem, as I see it, is that you are expecting behavior that should be standard for all people at all times, regardless of whether or not they are armed – that is primarily what I meant when I penned the “open carry changes nothing” post a while ago. If a person is aggressive, argumentative, obnoxious, and otherwise verbally assaulting, I will automatically categorize them as a “potential threat” regardless of whether or not there is a firearm openly on their hip or not, and I would imagine that most people would do the same thing as well, and the reality is that they really could be, even if they did not actually have a firearm.
I am curious – would your coworkers do the same for a loud, argumentative, large, black person? And future large black people?
Granted, I fully comprehend the futility of attempting to counteract a purely emotional response by applying reason, but that is one of the closer analogues.
Speaking personally, I have never had the cops called on me while openly carrying, nor have I noticed any particular panic due to the same… but I am as polite as I always am when I am carrying a firearm, so the one probably follows the other.
Depends on the coworker. Personally it takes more than raising your voice at me to categorize you as a potential threat, but then I’ve worked customer service WAY TO LONG and have learned to have a thick skin (I’ve actually had a guy threaten to kill me-I THINK he was joking-and more threats of physical violence then you want to imagine), and not being prone to panic over guns I don’t generally add it to the list in deciding WHO is a threat. And in my personal experience its much more likely to be the little white guy who’s the actual threat not the big black guy.
I have had coworkers though who panic over much smaller issues, and the couple times a cop in non-uniform clothes (I saw the badge on his belt but they didn’t) walked through with a gun openly displayed the “oh my GOD whats going to HAPPEN” reaction from them was much more obvious (and yes, one time one such cop got a bit loud, and yes someone hit the panic button, I wasn’t amused). And its worse when the cop in question is wearing a jacket that hides the gun and badge till they deliberatly flash it at said coworker during the conversation (and yes that really happened too, and since I was standing behind her I can testify it was a deliberate move, not an accidental flashing). No she didn’t hit the panic button that time, but she didn’t stop panicking for DAYS (and proceeded to pester the manager about a “no guns” sign for much longer).
I’ve never noticed any of them displaying a specific bias towards race, the bigger guys in general yes, but not race specific, so I don’t THINK so but I can’t swear no.
I’d love to see a better standard of behavior for all customers. I’ve long been of the opinion that EVERYONE should have to spend a year of their adult life working a cash register or basic customer service in a retail or food service environment so they can learn for themselves what its like to be on the receiving end of such behavior. But I also realize that some folks ever learn either. But thats a rant for another day!
Heh, been there, done that – spent a summer behind a cash register at Halmark. Granted, the type of clientel we had was probably better than your average big-box, but it was still an experience.
Out of curiosity, what state are you in, if you do not mind my asking? I am only curious because, honest to God, I have never witnessed the kind of behavior you are describing while I am openly carrying here in Tennessee… but it very well could be a cultural/geographical kind of thing. Or the folks here are better at hiding it. Either way
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Upstate/central NY
As for my coworkers, well because open carry is so NOT something that happens here They have no opportunity to desensitize even a little. And if they don’t come from a hunting family then they really have no exposure.
I have no idea how I didn’t end up like them, except I’ve never been prone to panic over “things” and as a kid, since my parents highly disapproved of guns, I then had to find out about them (yes, I was that sort of child).
Ah, yeah, that definitely explains it.
Well, the smaller picture is to get people in states where it is a “normal” thing desensitized to it, and then they tell their friends and/or move, and so on so forth, until the entire concept spreads across the country.
Granted, that is going to take a hell of a lot of time, but I figure it is worth it.
Also goes to show that we Open Carriers are not as nuts as some people would paint us
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