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Do you carry your gun with you all the time? Do you sometimes leave your gun at home when you know you are going to a place that carrying a gun will be consider offensives or disrespectful?
Why am i asking you this? I read the post about the soccer mom who brought a gun the her daughter’s soccer game and had upset the parents that were present at the game.
Jones, who is also the county’s public defender, said he wasn’t certain if Hain was breaking the law by wearing the gun, so he did not ask her to remove it. However, he explained to her that its presence was making parents upset and asked her to view the game from the other side of the field, away from the sideline were the kids were standing. She complied but continued to wear her holstered weapon, he said.
Do you think it was inappropriate?
When is exercising rights inappropriate?
When is being prepared to protect your family inappropriate.
Things like this are only considered inappropriate because we’ve let the sheep and ninnies control the narrative. It’s become “conventional wisdom” that guns in the presence of children is “inappropriate”. That “conventional wisdom” is wrong. These types of things are actually good for us because it exposes the fallacy of the “conventional wisdom”. The only arguments that can possibly be presented in opposition to this obviously law abiding, good person carrying in public are emotional arguments and the fact that she makes people “uncomfortable”.
The more times we can expose these patently irrational arguments for the emotion based drivel that they are, the better.
Blacks didn’t win their rights by meekly riding in the back of the bus. Homosexuals didn’t win wide acceptance of their lifestyle by staying in the closet.
Why people think gun owners should meekly pander to the emotions and comfort levels of the sheep is a bit beyond me.
Hide it but never ever stop carrying it. you are there protecting yourself and your children and nothing should stop that, especially when you are in the public at the park. I prefer an ankle holster and a small but powerful gun, give it a try nobody will know that it’s there. People do get nervous when they see a gun that’s why you don’t let them see it keep it to yourself and you will make more friends.
The sheriff should be fired, as should the public defender. If neither one knows the law, they should not be involved in upholding it. The women with the gun has every right to carry a weapon. It was not on School ground or any other place where weapons are prohibited. As for the Sheriff revoking her carry permit, he has opened a can of worms the county might end up paying for.
Part of my ccp training was that it had to be concealed, so that’s what I do. Also I don’t want to anybody to know that I am carrying a gun it’s none of their business. Open carry however is legal in many states and that’s a different issue. If you are being harrassed and it’s legal to do in your state you might need a lawyer to educate your police department. It’s going to cost you though lawyers aren’t cheap.
Indeed, there is a question here of what’s legal vs. what’s socially responsible.
Certainly, if allowed by law, carrying a weapon to a soccer game is acceptable.
What makes me curious is the question of why a person who is not an on-duty law enforcement officer would openly carry a firearm. What I’m reading here just from a surface perspective is a person with sub-par self confidence or self-esteem issues openly carrying to make some sort of statement.
Openly carrying may be legal, but certainly shouldn’t be considered socially responsible. People (both pro-gun and not) react very emotionally to the sight of a firearm. One could be putting oneself in harms way more easily by inviting confrontation from an unstable or agressive individual.
I know of at least one off-duty police officer who was gunned down by an unstable sort while standing in line at a fast food joint simply because he inadvertently displayed his credentials (badge) while searching his wallet for some cash. The assailant later stated, esstentially, that once he saw the badge he figured he’d better get the officer before the officer got him. I can easily imagine a similar situation for a civilian openly displaying a weapon– too much room for misinterpretation of intent.
Make a concealed-carry system part of your daily wardrobe, if you intend to carry, and train with it to proficiency. Going cowboy in public isn’t going to win you any advantage, and certainly not many friends.
<i>What makes me curious is the question of why a person who is not an on-duty law enforcement officer would openly carry a firearm.</i>
I can’t speak for Ms Haas (who is, unfortunately, now deceased…murdered by her abusive, law enforcement husband…demonstrating unequivocally that her choice to be armed was justified), but I carry openly often simply because it’s more comfortable, I can carry "more gun" than were I trying to conceal it, and the firearm is more accessible to me in a time of need.
I carry in a retention holster and, while I suppose it’s possible for someone to try to wrestle it away from me, I’ve never seen a documented case of that happening. I’ve also heard the old canard about "the bad guys will just shoot you first"…also a contention for which I’ve never seen a documented case. Every time I’ve seen a story like that related, it’s always been second or third-hand and I’ve never seen one substantiated by news reports, official documents or anything more substantive than "some guy I know…"
Much more likely is the possibility that someone who potentially means me harm, if they notice the gun at all (most people don’t) will see that I’m armed and will choose to find a softer target.
<i>What I’m reading here just from a surface perspective is a person with sub-par self confidence or self-esteem issues openly carrying to make some sort of statement.</i>
"To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves."
–Will Durant
It’s not unusual for open carriers to do so to "make a statement", but the psychoanalysis should probably be left to the professionals. I know that when I’m carrying openly, the statement I’m making is "I’m not ashamed of the fact that I take my safety and security seriously."
Are you ashamed that you carry a gun? If so, why?
Used to be that concealing a weapon about your person was the mark of a scalawag or scoundrel. Honest people had no reason to disguise the fact that they were armed.
Why did that change?
Why shouldn’t it change back?
<i> Going cowboy in public isn’t going to win you any advantage</i>
Whether open carry wins any advantage or not is a matter of opinion. As I said before, the advantage lies in the fact that the vast majority of criminals choose targets that appear "soft", not armed ones. Until I see some quantifiable evidence that your contention is true, it remains pure conjecture, not objective fact.
Points well-taken, Sailorcourt.
I’ll have to stick to my opinion that open carry creates negative emotional responses in others. Though I certainly admit there is a time and place (gun store employee, for example, or backwoods hiker). We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.
I like your use of Will Durant. True words.
I like the full quotation even better: "To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you can’t say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do, and always a clever thing to say."
I like the whole quote too, but when I use quotes in posts, I try to keep them short and pithy.
I’ve been open carrying here in Virginia fairly regularly for almost ten years now. Virginia was pretty much ground zero for the open carry movement that has been catching on across the country, even in such gun restrictive places as California.
I believe that the results speak for themselves. We have enjoyed a virtually unabated string of legislative and public relations victories in Virginia in recent memory. Carrying defensive arms, either openly or concealed, is increasingly accepted and popular among the citizenry.
Open carry in Virginia did experience some "growing pains" when the movement first really got off the ground…just as many other states and areas are experiencing now. We had some fairly high profile incidents and got lots of bad press, but what those incidents and bad press made people realize is that it wasn’t the open carriers that were causing any problems, it was the irrational reactions to them. People heard and read story after story of regular people openly carrying firearms and…nothing bad happened, except maybe to the gun carrier if he was harassed by police.
A few high profile incidents where people openly carrying firearms have stopped crimes in progress haven’t hurt anything.
Now days, I rarely encounter any type of disapproval when I’m openly carrying and the only overt reactions I get are from people approving of my firearm/holster selection or asking questions about the laws…which provides an excellent advocacy opportunity.
The only people who still react negatively to the question of open carry are those who oppose gun ownership and carry by reflex. Frankly, I don’t care about them. They’re going to fight against our rights no matter what we do. The thing is, they’ve been so marginalized in Virginia (and most of the rest of the country) that they flat out can’t get anyone to listen to them any more regardless of how hysterically they scream. Chicken little and all that.
Every time we’ve gotten a law passed relaxing restrictions on gun ownership, the anti-gunners have wailed, moaned and gnashed their teeth over predictions that blood would flow through the streets and we’d be transported through time and space to the gunfight at the OK corral.
They can only be dead wrong so many times before people simply stop listening to them.
Anyway, we can agree to politely disagree on the subject, I’m OK with that. We don’t have to agree on everything and if you choose never to open carry, that’s absolutely your right…as long as we agree that my choice to lawfully do so is my right.
She was killed by her estanged husband in October of 2009 in a murder-suicide.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/10/meleanie_hain.html