Scaring the Horses
Irradiated by LabRat
Friend Breda comments briefly and pungently on the adventures of a couple of open carry activists carrying in the library to make a point. One went in with a pistol, the other fellow with a shotgun strapped to his shoulder. Comment wars have predictably ensued. Stingray is of the opinion that the title of Breda’s post said all that needed to be said, and I predictably have to use more words than are necessary.
Just because you have the right, and are in the right as you do something don’t make that thing the right thing to do. In the case of the long-gun toter, I agree he was within the letter of the law and the library was in defiance of it, and it should indeed be his right to go anywhere he pleases armed for bear without anyone saying boo about it unless he uses that weapon to actually kill somebody that didn’t very clearly need killing. I would make no attempt to restrict that right legally.
This is because things that fall within the scope of rights but are not necessarily the right thing to do are best addressed with social disapproval, of the “thanks a lot, you fucking dumbass!” variety.
Whatever the massive and clanging degree of logical and ethical in-the-rightness any given person possesses, we still live in a society of humans, and a largely democratic one at that. Other people don’t always agree with in our logic or our ethics, and not only do they have every right themselves to do so, we live in a largely democratic republic in which their scope of disagreement has a great deal of power to alter the law of the land.
Gun owners in general and carry advocates in particular tend to see themselves as something of a persecuted minority. To a real extent this is, in fact, true. What we see as our natural human right both to do as we please without harming anyone and to be capable of convincing self-defense are routinely violated on scales large and small by local and federal authorities, and we are the targets of some really quite hair-raising bigotry, especially by people who consider bigotry in general to be an obviously terrible thing but don’t consider bashing on gun owners to be bigotry because obviously gun nuts are just crazy and dangerous and saying so is not bigoted.
What this tempts us to do is borrow the language of other persecuted minorities and civil rights movements of the past, and compare carry protests such as the young fellows in question to things like the lunch-counter protests and bus riders of the black civil rights movement. As to such comparisons, I have a number of points to raise.
1. Mayhap have you noticed that black people went around for hundreds of years being abused on every level, including actually being held captive and forced to labor, despite having every logical and ethical right to autonomy and equal treatment before the law? And yet, it took a war and a lot of slow social change before even the worst of these offenses began to be redressed and their status as lesser citizens even stopped being enshrined in the legal structure of the nation itself. People had to agree with their point of view of themselves as unjustly abused and discriminated against, and the largest reason Martin Luther King’s nonviolent civil disobedience model worked as well as it did was because it highlighted their opponents as more unreasonable and more violent and threatening than the protesters were. With the nature of the bigotry in place fully exposed, public sentiment changed, and the law along with it.
2. JESUS CHRIST ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKIN’ HIGH? If even a substantial portion of gun owners and carriers cocks their head at this analogy as being kind of off-kilter, do you have ANY IDEA how it comes off to people who aren’t already very inclined to be sympathetic? I can and will point out right fucking now that there is a pretty fucking substantial difference between a discriminatory policy that prevents you from ever entering a place without very convincing theater makeup and one that forces you to unstrap and put your gun in your goddamn glove compartment, or even to just go concealed and hope you’re as good at it as you think you are. I AM very sympathetic- I believe this is in fact discrimination of law-abiding citizens that just want a goddamn hamburger without having to partially undress and render themselves more relatively helpless than they would be should someone less law-abiding come mincing along- and I still think these comparisons are outrageously entitled as well as incredibly tone-deaf. Make some faltering attempt to imagine how they sound to someone who doesn’t believe carrying a gun in public is a natural human right, doesn’t see the mere presence of a gun as emotionally neutral, regards all guns as having the whiff of violence, and greatly admires the non-violent nature of that civil rights movement.
Oh, but you’re in the right? Well, that will make a protest designed to sway public sympathy and point out a violation of the law that much more fucking effective, won’t it?
3. Speaking of the perception of threat, public fear of black men going around getting goofy on the reefer and laying waste to the good white folk of the world was indeed used to reinforce support for segregation- but the actual primary argument was “seperate but equal”, and the idea that preventing mixing prevented conflict. The non-violent civil rights movement worked as well as it did because it shifted perception of who was the threat to the people enforcing the policies with dogs and fire hoses- it was effective because it orchestrated predictable violence by others. The later, more muscular Black Panther style movements didn’t so much shift public perception as prove that public perception had shifted, in that there was relatively little backlash to a much more openly threatening group. (Which mostly specialized in threatening insufficiently ideological black people, but that’s another discussion.)
Perception of threat is what I keep coming back around to. It may not actually be a threat to be openly carrying a weapon, and public fear of it may be completely irrational, but however irrational fearing an individual just because they have a weapon is, it does not negate the existence of people who are carrying a weapon in public because they’re about to gain everlasting fame and glory for ventilating as much of the public in immediate range as can be.
Speaking of those of us sympathetic, for those what do go around carrying, whether away from the public’s eye or no, what would your immediate first thought be upon sighting in a densely populated public place that wasn’t a range or a hunting ground, a young man who looked like he was nerving himself up for something, with an uncased shotgun slung over his shoulder? “Solidarity, brother”, or the thought that you might actually have to use your own weapon? If you’re hesitating at all on “solidarity, of course!”… that should tell you something.
I do agree “you shouldn’t exercise a right because it might alarm somebody” is a shitty argument with all sorts of slippery slopes, but there’s a difference between going about one’s dailies quietly exercising your rights and a protest organized and designed to get your point across. Namely, the entire reason to do the latter is to make your cause known and hopefully sway public opinion more favorably in its direction, not to make yourself feel righteous.
The point of discretion between “exercising your rights, move along good citizen” and “doing an unnecessary dumbass stunt that needlessly scares a lot of people” is always going to vary a lot, and because of that “technically in the right” thing will also have a great deal of overlap. Many fair-minded and good folk will disagree with me about where that point is… but I still think Shotgun Lad was well over into “unnecessary dumbass” territory.
This’ll likely generate a lovely comment war, so Stingray pointed out a little added clarity over our usual policies- linked on the nuts and bolts tab, visible enough- may be hepful.
Rule one: Don’t be a dick.
Rule two: If your justification for why you’re not being a dick includes rules-lawyering invoking technicalities of dickitude, you’re being a dick.
We also invite you to ponder the applications of both these rules to the original incident in question.
February 16th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Dicks and dumbasses will always have excuses for being dicks and dumbasses.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Bravo Labrat! Outstanding post!
February 16th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Huh. It’s almost like the point of a protest should not, in fact, be a self-indulgent bleating of your opinion to the body politic as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, but instead should be geared toward maximizing sympathy and changing the opinions of others to better match your own.
Weird.
February 16th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Awesome, as usual.
It was not so long ago that I was part of the ‘guns are scary’ camp. Not in the wanting to take them away sort of way, just a lack of knowledge sort of way. A polite and friendly person with a holstered handgun would have intrigued me, someone with a shotgun would have freaked me the hell out.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Best OC protester I know of was a free-stater in NH, who chose to both OC and go topless ( both of which were legal in NH ).
She did not scare the mundanes, and got lots of positive attention from the local cops.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Man, I want to agree with you, but I keep looking at that 60 degree vaseline covered polished concrete retaining wall and seeing how very far down it goes… and I keep shying away from it.
“You shouldn’t exercise your rights because it will scare people into abrogating them.” just isn’t something I can get real comfortable with, y’know?
The pragmatic engineer in me urges finding solutions that work. The somewhat rabid political philosopher in me screams damn the torpedos.
I guess I can probably agree that they should have waited until they could go about without wearing coats, so as not to have an inadvertent concealed carry concern, and then carried service pistols in proper holsters. (1911, Glock, Beretta, anything that can be easily pointed to as “cops carry these, in these holsters, all the time”.) But it’s really hard to even say that.
*shrug* But hey, lots of people already think I’m crazy and/or stupid, so…
February 16th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
Given this isn’t about what should be allowed, but rather what’s a good idea, I’m not particularly afraid of taking a bath in the acid at the bottom of the slippery slope.
Especially given “no one should ever disapprove of any action taken that is technically within someone’s rights” is an equally greased slide.
February 17th, 2011 at 1:54 am
First off, excelllent post. Second, it’s hard to have a positive expression of the right to carry when the main emotion you engender in the general public is fear. A shotgun or a modern military-type, or looking, rifle is going to be seen more as a threat than would a holstered handgun. The war for gunrights is an emotional media campaign, “Hearts & Minds” if you will. Perception is all, facts really don’t seem to matter to the other side or popular media. I think we forget this.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:01 am
I’d consider this to fall under what I call the “Lycra Rule”.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:11 am
As John Matus points out, and as LabRat has eloquently stated, because you have *the right* to do something does not equate it to *the right thing to do*.
Perception is *everything*, folks. If you are *perceived* as a threat, you will be labeled as such, and those in positions of power (read: elected officials) who wish to keep their cushy jobs will respond to the bleating of the sheep who are frightened, and pass new law / change old law to make the sheep feel safer by taking away *the right* because the few in the population can’t figure out how to separate *the right* from *the right thing to do*
And therein lies the problem with the actions of those folk who were fully within their rights, according to the letter of the law. They acted as *anarchists*, not as members of a civil society.
And yes, I understand the desire of the rabid OC crowd to make their point, loudly, with a *damn the torpedoes* attitude, but that is just plain wrong where firearms are concerned. The reason is t hat firearms *are* deadly weapons, period. They are tools used to kill, either for sport, for food, or for war. People see these tools as a threat to their *lives*, and as such they want these tools removed from their midst. Our job, as folks who wish to see the expansion of firearm freedoms, is to build *trust* in the sheeple. The way we do that is like perlhaqr said, which is to wear the same firearms at our sides as the cops wear, so as to be able to point to it and say that it is no different than the standard issue police gear. Once that is accepted, then we move on to polished chrome 1911’s, Les Baer’s, Kimbers, etc.
Start small and inconspicuous. Then slowly move to small and conspicuous, then to a bit larger…bu in the end, unless we are at war on this soil, leave the tools best suited for war (rifles/shotguns) at home.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:22 am
I think quite a few equal rights movements go off the rails when they can’t gracefully transition from dogs-and-firehoses rhetoric to the tactics appropriate for less vivid kinds of discrimination, and start burning the goodwill they built up earlier. The gay rights movement, for example (with which I share a lot of sympathy and some significant common interest) seems to be having a hell of a lot of trouble realizing that the righteous rhetoric they used for “the cops are beating us up in our clubs, exposing us to gang rape in prisons, and chemically castrating us” doesn’t ring as true to the mainstream when used for “our civil unions have most of the rights of marriage, but separate-but-equal status leads to subtle discrimination”. It seems in some ways to have completely stalled their progress. This could also be a lesson to American gun owners who, even for all the crap we go through here in New Jersey, have never been abused as badly as gay people have.
The only issue I take with condemnation of the Shotgun Teen in Breda’s post is that he did have an extenuating circumstance in this case. As an under-21, he was legally prohibited from carrying a handgun, making the shotgun his only option. Discretion may still be the better part of activism, and if he was otherwise acting like a dick, then to hell with him, but I’m reluctant to use his shotgun toting as evidence of dickery.
Otherwise, come on, folks, stick to handguns when you OC.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:43 am
What really disturbs me is the complete failure of empathy on the part of the OCers. While I certainly have the right to discuss interesting autopsy findings at the dinner table, I don’t.
Yes, people are exercising their rights. And it would be nice, and probably wise if they did so in a way that makes the people who overreact look foolish. Being petulant, childish, and demanding is no way to do that.
Finally-there is a process for correcting an entity that has wrongfully abrogated your rights, be that entity a police officer or a librarian. Get witnesses, have your recorder going (video and audio) know the law, and then sue them. It is expensive, and it takes longer, true. But by doing so you occupy the moral high ground, and you look reasonable, and like an adult.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Great post LabRat, the “right to do” something and “do the right” thing are not the same… Regardless of what one believes, there is a time to step back and get a big picture perspective on what your action(s) will engender if you ‘carry’ through… And yes, dicks are dicks, especially when they are thinking with the little head, not the big one…
February 17th, 2011 at 8:26 am
I think some of the kerfluffle is coming from people thinking that the guys from Michigan Open Carry, who were protesting the libraries rules and in fact spoke with the library board, and Shotgun Lad were affiliated when they were not and were actually at the library on different days.
The library was informed that their rule was against state law but decided to double down on the dumb and upheld it and said they would do so until they were ordered by a court to change.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:57 am
[…] Labrat wonders if they’re high. […]
February 17th, 2011 at 9:16 am
[…] in libraries and open carry activism: no, because between Breda, Say Uncle, and the Atomic Nerds, everything that needs to be said has been […]
February 17th, 2011 at 9:36 am
Perception is indeed key.
Counteracting pre-conceived notions of what a “gun-toter” is will go a lot further than reinforcing the stereotype.
Remember the guy carrying the AR-15 at a public rally a while back? Instead of Travis Bickle or Larry the Cable Guy, we have a young, articulate black man in a suit.
I don’t advocate slinging an AR as a way of making a statement about OC, but he’s a fine example of changing perception through creative cognitive dissonance.
Besides the guidelines stated by Breda herself, there is an excellent set of rules put forth by a gentleman named Andrew in the comments.
His method is the diplomatic, “normalizing” approach. And really, “normal” shouldn’t be in quotes. Most of us are, in fact, pretty average citizens leading average lives like everyone else. We just carry a firearm for self-defense.
A steady exposure of this type of gun owner to the ambivalent or anti- public will go a long way toward making the true nut-jobs out there seem like the exception to the rule that they are.
Identification. If they can identify with us (“I know that guy, he’s real nice. So he carries a gun, huh?”), then maybe the line between “they” and “us” will fade.
Then when the time to vote comes around, they’ll be more likely to see gun restriction as affecting the single mother next door, instead of flashing back to the last shooting incident on the news.
February 17th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Elmo: Local state law allowed for an 18 year old to own and carry a pistol.
Federal law prohibits a dealer from selling him one, but he can buy one privately from someone in state without running afoul of the federal law.
The goal here is to win … not to play macho flash games.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:18 am
“not to play macho flash games”
The battle cry of the anti-OC anti-gunner.
Stop projecting.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Yes, Rich, I’m sure that’s absolutely what people’s problem here is. They’re anti-gun.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Labrat,
I cannot comment on a person’s personal beliefs, only on the words they place here. The part I just quoted is a line I (and many others) hear all the time about carry and OC in general from anti-gunners.
To assume the only reason someone would carry a firearm is to play ‘macho flash games’ is to give us a scary insight into your own thinking.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Your ability to read for butthurt rather than for context is stunning. Let me put it in a few short sentences since evidently the original post was too long for you to cope with.
I (and to my knowledge all the commenters here) are in favor of essentially unrestricted gun rights, including OC. Many of us HAVE OC’d. We feel scaring the crap out of a bunch of library patrons with a slung shotgun was poor activism, though it should not be prohibited by law. The suspicion is that the motivation to do so may have had more to do with self-aggrandizement than concern for normalization of open-carry or preservation of the right.
If all you can read into this is “AMG YOU’RE BEATING UP ON OC YOU MUST BE ANTI-GUNZZ” then your future commenting career here is looking poor as well.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Labrat,
Quite to the contrary, I don’t believe you read my comments very well at all.
At no time did I call anyone anti-gun. I simply pointed out that the same arguments that are being used against a certain type of firearm in a library is the same battle cry of those who wouldn’t allow any guns in a library (or perhaps anywhere).
As for crusading against one person because they chose a different manner of carry than you or I? I don’t have much to say on that. I let that carry itself as it will. I am pro-rights, and my support does not end or die just because someone chooses something different than I do.
For reference though, please cite your source on the ‘bunch of library patrons’ that had the ‘crap scared out of them’.
Not everyone OCs to promote a movement. Some people OC because that is their chosen manner of carry and they just go about their daily business in that manner. I will not debate the person’s intentions if they have done nothing illegal. It is simply not my place to judge.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Hey, uh, Rich B, why don’t you go scroll back up and read LabRat’s posted Rule 2, because you’re doing an excellent job of illustrating it.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
The battle cry of the anti-OC anti-gunner.
Stop projecting.
To assume the only reason someone would carry a firearm is to play ‘macho flash games’ is to give us a scary insight into your own thinking.
Not only are you rules lawyering, you’re not even doing it particularly well. If you don’t want to be misinterpreted in your comments mysteriously talking about some other anti-OC anti-gunner who should stop projecting, then be clear. If you want to call someone out, don’t use an escape clause when you yourself are called on it.
Why do I make the LOGICAL LEAP OF INCREDIBLENESS that people were scared? Because there would neither be a need for or a point to open-carry normalization if it was in fact normal, hence the library’s policy and hence the sufficiently large stink for a legislator to grandstand about it. If you require written proof that the ensuing kerfuffle specifically involved people who were specifically scared I can’t give it to you notarized, but it’s pretty much what would happen in a downtown urban library on the Earth I inhabit. Maybe you live on Earth-prime, where OCing long guns everywhere IS normalized?
Not everyone OCs to promote a movement. Some people OC because that is their chosen manner of carry and they just go about their daily business in that manner.
Again, you are rules-lawyering. There is no hypothetical here at all. He was protesting.
Calling someone a dumbass is neither “crusading against them”, nor revoking support for open carry or gun rights in general. It is quite possible to agree with someone’s legal and ethical stance, or for that matter to belong to the same tribe, and still be able to say “hey dumbass, that was a pretty stupid move, what did you think you were going to accomplish?”
February 17th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Right. Same thing I hear everywhere. OC will cause panic.
I OC all the time. I have never seen a panic break out, and especially not caused by my firearm.
Sorry, but when I hear something that my daily experience tells me is wrong repeated over and over, I am going to require a little more proof than “Thats just the way it is”.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Rules Lawyer Fu: when the specific is kicking your ass, leap to the general, and vice versa.
You are not getting it. We don’t oppose OC, we’ve OC’d, worst that’s ever happened to either of us was a mildly scandalized old lady after a group meeting in which almost everyone had a pistol on their hip in a diner. No one else cared.
This specific man specifically OC’d a slung shotgun in a library with a specific (and yes, illegal) no-guns policy in a specific act of protest after which specific legislation was specifically proposed and a n>1 number of alarmed news articles about terrifying gun nuts in the library were specifically written.
Playing reindeer games with semantics neither strengthens whatever argument you actually have nor will be tolerated indefinitely.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Well you got me there. Proposed legislation is the perfect reason to hang this guy publicly.
Nevermind:
1) There was proposed legislation for getting rid of all gun free zones in Michigan at the same time as that other proposal that wouldn’t even have banned OC at a library.
2) No one is reported to have been ‘terrified’ other than the library people who are anti-2A to begin with.
3) I have yet to see anyone actually talk about the shotgun OC as being a reason why the proposal was made and not the multiple people OCing handguns there everyday.
You are right. My ‘reindeer games’ will never compare to your infallible judgment of this man.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
You have exactly two arguments and they are cycling on every other comment.
1)AMG YOU CALLED HIM STUPID IT’S JUST LIKE LYNCHING HIM HOW COULD YOU.
2)YOU’RE A HATER WHO HATES ON OC JUST LIKE ANTI-GUNNERS.
I have said multiple times he was legally and logically in the right. Your demand for proof that anything was other than totally sunshine and bunnies is rather answered by the fact that this is a media event at all, even if some involved are “anti-2A”. (Imagine that, people who are alarmed by open carry and people who don’t support gun rights overlap!) He went out of his way to provoke a reaction and he got it. Measuring the exact scale of reaction is completely pointless. There are no media details counting heads for who was scared because that is *also* completely pointless.
He has a right to open carry anything he can legally own. He doesn’t have a right to freedom from criticism of his judgment.
Unless you are ready to settle on an argument that hasn’t already been addressed and drop the bullshit, you and I are done here.
February 17th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Right. So the OCers are all at fault there, because none of them were welcome in the library and all of them were violating the library policy.
Interesting thing is that the guy with the shotgun left when asked to. The people the library objected to the most (and likely the cause for the actual media coverage and proposed legislation) were the guys who came in OCing (handguns) and refused to leave when asked. They even had guards stand watch over them and then detain them when they entered unarmed and wouldn’t answer their questions.
February 17th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Annnd we’re back to general-specific games, with a side order of “but the OC’ers were in the right”, as though if you can win one of these points, all of the rest become irrelevant.
You are commenting on refresh. You are doing this at more blogs than just mine. You are saying nothing at all new. You need to go die on your hill at someone else’s place, because you are no longer welcome here.
Further comments will be annotated for my own amusement rather than replied to, because between this thread and many others, replying is clearly pointless.
February 17th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
How reasonable and responsible. Thanks.
Missing logic filled in for audience convenience.
“Because bloggers have a responsibility to answer the same two points until I get tired, as we all know.”
February 17th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Aw, c’mon. You asked for a new argument and he kinda sorta if you squint really hard tried to mash the same two into one, which is almost a quarter-assed new argument! Surely that proves everything and that all OCers are perfect saints at all times and it’s totally that damn
patriarchyanti-gun position that would ever think anything bad about OC or guns for any reason ever and forever! DON’T YOU SEE?! IT’S FULL OF STARS!February 17th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Aw, come on! Everyone knows that screaming “Ah have mah raits! Respeckt mah raits!” works every time!
And if that doesn’t work, there is always the option of ignoring every bit of constructive criticism. If your critics were good or smart, they would automatically be on your side!
Remember what Patton* said: “The object of war is to die for your country! All that stuff about long term strategy and winning hearts and minds is for commies!”
*I think that’s what he said. If you disagree you’re nothing but a dirty gun banning Obama lover!
February 17th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Analogizing a little — always a warning sign, but bear with me:
1. The First Amendment guarantees that the feds won’t (or shouldn’t) stop you from burning flags or protesting soldiers’ funerals with big “GOD HATES FAGS” placards. The Tenth Amendment guarantees that the states and &c. won’t (or shouldn’t) stop you either.
2. Burning flags and protesting funerals makes you a dick. More to the point, it doesn’t exactly shore up support for the First Amendment.
3. On the other hand, edge-case speech like George Carlin’s “words you can’t say” sketch makes people wonder what all the fuss is about, and shows like South Park and Family Guy undercut support for the FCC’s censorship of broadcast TV.
Am I doing it right?
February 17th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Yep. And elmo had a good post about the purpose of just such activism.
I’m just of the opinion this was closer to God-hates-fags than it was to words-you-can’t-say. At the end of the day the two are actually pretty close to each other, and that’s where reasonable people disagree.
There are no bright lines here.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
@LabRat & Stingray,
I have found that most OC’ers are of the same mindset as you are….that they wish to promote OC, that they realize the sheeple need to be spoon fed the OC in extremely small doses, and they realize that the end game is more important than route taken to get there.
I came to this realization on an OC forum, where someone had commented on one of my holsters, and posted a link to my site. I was thrilled to have been picked up and linked to….so much so that I actually logged into the bboard, and thanked the OP for the link.
Then I was immediately vilified by the *True Open Carry Advocates* because of some of the text on a page for one of my holsters that they completely took out of context, and twisted to try to make the argument that I should NOT be linked to, because I was an OC hater, and my *mission statement* for the business was to promote Concealed Carry instead of Open Carry.
These folks are just like Rich B….they need to find something to complain about no matter how much of a stretch it is to connect the dots, then go on and blame everyone else for their stupidity when they make complete morons of themselves.
I’ve given up trying to talk reasonably to the OC fanatics, because they are just that…fanatics. And as we all know, fanatics only see one way of doing things, and that is the Square Peg/Round Hole/5 Pound Sledgehammer method.
They are, unfortunately, their own worst enemy, and they fail to see how they are hurting the cause more than helping it.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:25 am
Rich B:
Fuck off asshole.
I am more pro-gun than you can imagine. I was doing CCW back when it was unlawful everywhere. I am an NFA weapons collector ( do you own a Lahti? ). I was involved in the effort to make CCW in Oregon a Shall Issue system, and had personally lobbied legislators to help make it happen.
You aren’t helping. Stop trying to be on my side.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:44 am
Dragon: Toffler-grade “true believers” infest ALL organizations.
In my opinion as an Open Carry proponent ( and occasional OCer ), the OC movement’s long term success depends entirely on how quickly these mental defectives are slapped down and ostracized.
Every time some yoyo like Rich B claims to speak for the OC movement as a whole, he needs to be bitchslapped hard.
February 18th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Are you for gun rights of not?
Just a thought, Open Carry or Concealed Carry and your rights, I wander how many citizens that disregarded the 2nd Amendment. and fought with their “Feelings” to keep you from possessing your gun, and whether they also belonged to a Gun Rights Organization, or Forum.
Remember the Kids!!
Just My Feelings.
Yes, we know this is spam. There’s also no link attached. I’m starting to wonder if the spambots aren’t evolving of their own accord, Doctorow-style.
February 18th, 2011 at 11:40 am
There is a lot of back-n-forth in these comments, but has anyone contacted this kid to ask him what and why he was doing what he did?
I also do not understand how anyone can postbelieve “just because you have the right…” you either do or don’t.
Other people’s fears are just that, it is their irrational fear, let them enjoy it. I have enough in my life to woory about than someone with a weak mind crying about the LEGAL things I do.
February 18th, 2011 at 11:41 am
You know what’s funny about this? Rich B. is coming across as a total asshole here in comments (and at Breda’s) and is getting trounced by Labrat. In doing so his behavior pretty much proves Labrat’s (and others) point for us.
If he acts like this around folks who are clearly pro-OC how does he present himself to fencesitters when he carries?
February 18th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
You also have the RIGHT to take a 500 lumen flashlight into a movie theater and draw laser-pointer nipples on the screen.
Go on and give that one a try too and see how long before someone tells you you’re being a douchebag and gtfo. BUT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT! IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR COMFORT MEL GIBSON NEEDS LASER NIPPLES!
Some days I can go whole minutes before I remember that 99% of the population is nothing more than a walking cloaca that learned to talk.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Stingray,
That has to be the single silliest analogy to open carry I have ever heard.
I seriously hope you were joking.
Missing logic filled in for audience convenience:
Because having missed the point for god knows how many comments at god knows how many blogs, I find myself in this hole with only one recourse: KEEP DIGGING!
February 18th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I don’t think they were high. I think it was more of a Stupid Aspie Trick. “Why should I care about what they think? There’s a Principle involved!”
Believe me, it takes one to know one, and I recall having done similar righteous-but-socially-clueless things in my youth.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
An analogy to drawing laser nipples on Mel Gibson was silly?
Can’t have been intentional.
February 18th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
MAKING LASER NIPPLES IS MY RIGHT IT IS NOT AGAINST THE LAW YOU CANT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT LASER NIPPLES. Y U MAD BRO YOU DONT HAVE TO LIKE MY RIGHT IT IS MY RIGHT AND YOU CANT HAVE IT.
February 18th, 2011 at 2:18 pm
I should mention that Walter from “The Big Lebowski” is not meant to be an example of how to defend rights and win arguments.
February 18th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Curiously, I just found a counterargument to my analogy that god-hates-fags is detrimental to (public support for) the First Amendment:
Please picket us, Mr. Phelps! (Volokh Conspiracy)
In any case, my analogy fails in that the First Amendment is broadly accepted (except at the margins), whereas the Second Amendment is broadly viewed with suspicion (except at the margins).
Also, now I have the curious mental image of a Soviet paratrooper from Red Dawn taking Mel Gibson’s laser nipples from Stingray’s cold dead hands. And it’s too early in the day for brain bleach, so I have to share.
February 18th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Sting, you have helped me invent a new oath: “I swear by the laser nipples of Mel Gibson…”
February 18th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Oh? Rich B? On the Aspie question? I suspect that U R 1, 2. Some of us have learned, in the course of long lives, how not to scare the normal people. Some of us even had the benefit of having been raised Southern, which taught us formal manners.
February 18th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Justthisguy: Not sure about the Aspie bit. But the “true believer” syndrome may be related.
Both display an inability to relate socially, and tend to deal with social problems with a mindless repeated battering ram approach.
February 18th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Oh and here is where they have taken us:
http://miopencarry.org/moc_files/cadl_tro.pdf
They will probably win in court … and cause the legislature to vote to put holes in the state pre-emption statute in order to save librarians from teener assholes.
Thanks a lot, dicks.
February 18th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I just wanted to say that (with very few exceptions) you have the BEST and most intelligent 2nd A commentary I know. Keep kicking ass.
February 20th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
So, I know you’re being silly, but Mel’s Laser Nipples don’t really make a very good analogy, because movies theaters are private property. The Library is (presumably) publicly funded.
So, orthogonal to the action being a dick move, one can at least claim a legitimate right to carry one’s slung shotgun into the library, where the movie theater is perfectly within their rights to ask you to stop lasering Mel’s Mighty Mantits or GTFO.
February 20th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Yeah, but we consider analogies made after the point has been exhaustively made and people are either just repeating the same points as though they’ve never ever been addressed or clearly haven’t read the post or the thread to not necessarily need to be airtight.
February 20th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Heh, fair enough. LASER NIPPLES AWAY!
*pew! pew! pew!*