Why I don't like people who complain about open carry

[bugeye]

Wow. That was insightful and well thought out. Of course I could say that to a paranoid person, a guy walking down the road with a fork may also be seen as a plausible threat, creating a situation that you would have to "take extra care to assure a safe condition". I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in life there is no way to "assure a safe condition". Life is full of risks and unscrupulous people. Of course it is proven that the more of us armed folks there are, the safer we are as a society.

As far as I know, a person is not "displaying a weapon" when it is in a holster on their person anymore than they are displaying a weapon when they have a knife in a sheath.They are being law abiding citizens and exercising their rights as the law dictates, and helping to make society a safer place in my opinion.

I can't believe that I am having this conversation with pro gun people. lol. I am glad that I am not on a anti gun site! Here is the logic as I am hearing it. You as a person are safer when a guy walks by you and you don't know that he is carrying a weapon, than you would be when he has his weapon holstered and in plain view? Is that what I am getting? Or is it that when you see a person with a gun, he is automatically a bad person or a criminal? I thought that is the stereotype that we are fighting to get rid of. Or do you somehow jump to the conclusion that if he has his gun concealed that he is licensed to do so and therefore no threat at all? I don't get it I guess. I am kind of a simple guy though so I hope you will forgive me.

If I saw a guy run into a building full of people with his gun drawn, you better believe that I am going to have a problem with it. When I see a fellow gun owner exercising his right to bear arms and it most basic form, I am not assuming that he is a gun nut, a crazy, a loon, or a criminal. That is a jump that I am not willing to make. In fact, I would be more suspicious of you carrying a concealed handgun that I caught a glimpse of than I would by someone open carrying.

And finally, the last thing to address in my rambling. As far as I am concerned, you don't have a "right" if you have to exercise it "under wraps". We are not talking prohibition. There was no inalienable right to get drunk in the bill of rights. I would argue that the best way to keep a right is to openly and hostilely exercise it, and fight to keep it. While some of you decide to exercise your "rights" without people knowing you are doing so, I for one, will do all we can to keep all of our rights safe from those who mean to take them.

I wonder where we would be now if our founding fathers would have established our new nation in secrecy, and never bothered to fight for it?

Again good points.

Yes, I know it fails to make sense on some levels but if no one knows your carrying then you make no special impact on others, even though you may be the greater threat. By not exposing the public to the fact that you are carrying they won't react, complain, form comittees and start calling their representatives. By avoiding this politics we safeguard the right more than if we take it on head first, but than again I'm just a pragmatist and not an idealogue. Someday I may need to open carry and I'd like there to be a right to do that when I need it, I really don't need to go show off at Fred Meyer's now.

Our founding fathers were an interesting lot but keeping a low profile wouldn't have allowed them to avoid taxes, escape restrictions on rum running, free them from being lead by people they didn't vote for thousands of miles away who knew nothing about them and their problems, or of having to deal with appointed, corrupt officals of the crown. I suspect if simple keeping under wraps was enough they would have done it as it is a lot less risky and lowers the posibilities of being hung.

We can talk highly of inalienable rights, but this is a matter of law and politics, and I don't count on any decision made in such an arena to go my way. Seems best to fight interpretations that diminish our rights but not to create the confrontations that open the door for such interpretations in the first place.

 

[coctailer]

So, you can tell that just from a quick glance, or do you personally know all these folks?

No, can you?

 

[JumpWing]

I'm not aware of any Constitutionally protected right to "feel safe," or to "feel" anything else for that matter.

 

[NoAim]

I'm not aware of any Constitutionally protected right to "feel safe," or to "feel" anything else for that matter.

It's not in the Constitution. It's in the Declaration of Independence and several state constitution preambles.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So, basically, a new government is formed, so that individuals may, among other things, be happy and safe.

 

[bugeye]

It's not in the Constitution. It's in the Declaration of Independence and several state constitution preambles.

So, basically, a new government is formed, so that individuals may, among other things, be happy and safe.

Good, and safety is the issue not happiness.

Given a group of angry organized citizens making a good case involving protection of children in public places (think of the power of MADD who have made it a near capital offence to be driving with .06% blood alcohol) you can bet on knee jerk reaction laws, that become undisputed legal preceedents, becomming living extensions of the constitution (interpretations). Remember we are not talking fairness, or reason, unalienable rights, or even common sense, we are talking law.