If we did that, the response to the hysterical “OMG!!!11!!!1 Those Gun Nutz haz guns!!!! In public, even!!!!!” from anti-gun organizations would be, “So? Those are the nicest guys I know! What’s your problem?”

But it would take a lot of niceness, and a lot of patience, to get there! (So far, of course, OCIYF types have had a bit of difficulty with both…)

If you’re carrying a “period” firearm, you get bonus points if you’re wearing period costumes–Colonial/Revolutionary War for muskets, Civil War/Frontier for lever action, or Formal Business Attire if you insist on carrying an AR-15. Heck, I suspect that you could even mix and match (a Colonial with an AR-15 accompanying a Businessman with a musket, for example) and get away with making OC rifle a little less alarming.

I remember a news article a few weeks ago in Utah, where someone got in the news for OC’ing a rifle in a mall. He didn’t look too bad, but the tee shirt he was wearing was orange with some sort of raptor on it (if I recall correctly)–basically, borderline “I’m a scary person” outfit. I have often wondered what the reaction would have been, hand the guy been wearing a suit and tie at the time…

I think all these points can be summed up as three things to remember: look extra-nice, act extra-nice, and be as non-threatening as possible. And above all, do not unshoulder a rifle unless there’s an imminent threat to life and limb!

(There are times and places to pose with weapons, but a restaurant is not the place, unless you have explicit permission from the manager to do so. Again, act extra-nice!)

Some believe that upsetting the public by parading with firearms obviously, if non-threateningly, displayed, creates a bad impression of those who support firearms rights. In response, I say if people are alarmed by this, then it is they who must become accustomed to it. They have been conditioned by decades of anti-gun propaganda aimed at making the exercise of the right to arms problematic and threatening. Are they afraid when they see Muslims displaying outward symbols of their faith (full beards on the men and burkas on the women)? Yes, some people are afraid. Should Muslims be barred from restaurants for frightening the customers? It would never happen. Does it upset them that the local newspaper prints editorials that espouse opinions they find objectionable? Should the editorial writer be fired because he upset some readers? Should an aspect of a right wither and die merely because the public is unused to its exercise and finds it “objectionable”? What right might not be challenged for having been disused for a period of time? What right will we not sacrifice for fear of public opprobrium? The idea behind the protection of rights is that they are protected against those who find them objectionable. Rights not found objectionable by anyone don’t require protection.

If you’re not for all rights, you’re not for any of them; the fall of one leads to the fall of others. Those rights most reviled require the stoutest defense.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
Barry Goldwater (Karl Hess, speech writer)

The armed demonstrations of “Open Carry” activists sets back gun rights movement.

I am reminded of the absolutists who change every subject to banning all abortions.

This is how you throw away the Reagan legacy. This is how you let the Left take over a center-right nation.

For you to react to a single comment making a legitimate point – that confrontational tactics have been repeatedly used to de-sensitize people to certain types of conduct – with nothing more than name calling and unsupported denial of the point being made tells me not to waste any more time on you.

There’s a someone acting like a petulant child here alright – and his name is Branca.

To point 3.

“After ten years of guns on beach towels, no one will bat an eye, but how do we get from here to there?”

“Someone will be the first to walk down Kalakaua Avenue with an AR-15.”

You have narrowed the options for getting to comfort with guns to one and only one option. This is not how the real world works. For every problem there are literally hundreds of options to solve that problem. You are rationalizing your solution and discounting or ignoring all others.

Here is a possible solution to your Hawaii situation that isn’t OCIYF. You stated that it is currently legal to only have guns on your property. That means that those that want guns have guns and they leave them at home. Don’t you think that those gun owners talk to their friends about guns? Don’t you think that they may also talk to their co-workers about guns? I bet when someone at their job decides to get a gun then they know just who to go to to get information about gun ownership. That person could be an affable and trustworthy person, someone that you want to talk to about things that might cause you insecurity about guns. That person will do more for the gun movement than any of the fucktards that try to ram their gun rights down everyone’s throat. Truly not everyone wants to own a gun they have that right. They might have insecurity about guns but don’t you think having a respectable gun owner around might turn them around faster than some cocksucker walking down the beach with front facing fully loaded unsafe AR-15.

The day may come when Hawaii allows open carry and our respectable trustworthy gun owner whom everyone knows has a gun comes to work with his gun fully displayed. People that have never seen his gun before may be put on edge at first, but then they remember that the know him and he is safe. I see this all of the time where a pro gun person is being interviewed and at some point the interviewer will say something like “… but you seem like a responsible gun owner, but what about the idiots …” This video (VIDEO: Andrew Branca, Law of Self Defense, Interview on N24 German TV News) illustrates my point exactly.

1. If, as you argue, a civil presentation makes a case more persuasive, what’s your purpose in using the following: “jackass”, “utterly stupid”, “their fantasy vision”, “jerks”, “you’re neither smart enough nor entertaining enough to be worth engaging with”, “these OCIYF! ass hats”, “you dope”, “only an idiot would believe …”, “I call your kind petulant children”?

2. We agree: civility matters. I asked earlier “Seems to me “normalize public attitudes” and “create ‘context’ in which open carry of long arms is routine” are pretty much the same thing. How else would you recommend open carry advocates suppress the public’s reflexive micturition at the sight of firearms” …than to carry openly?

3. Hawaii is (or was, until Peruta v. San Diego) a “may issue” State. The County Chiefs of Police make the determination who may and who may not carry concealed. There is no legal open carry of handguns or long arms by civilians outside one’s residence, one’s place of business, the range, or the hunting area. Permission to carry concealed is never granted. Effectively, civilians are (or were) forbidden to carry firearms outside their own property, hunting areas, target ranges, or in transit between these permitted locations. Suppose now that the Honolulu Chief of Police decides to respect the US and Hawaii Constitutions (and pigs fly). After ten years of guns on beach towels, no one will bat an eye, but how do we get from here to there? Someone will be the first to walk down Kalakaua Avenue with an AR-15. How will this NOT constitute “OCIYF”? Haven’t your criteria (“an activity, usually orchestrated among multiple participants, to openly carry firearms for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention to themselves, usually by means of frightening a populace unfamiliar with the sight or practice of open carry”) created a “heckler’s veto”?

Now my turn, has Chipotle’s ever taken a position on guns in their business before these morons pulled their little stunt?

Also, you want to say that Andrew is “overstating” the level of fear. Now I have a question; “Where you there?”

Just because it is more accepted in your location doesn’t mean that the same reaction is found everywhere. Andrew didn’t say that folks run screaming from their tables and our the doors. It obviously did cause some level of discomfort for someone otherwise there wouldn’t have been a statement from the business.

Just the fact that it is an issue for these businesses now is a win for the anti-gun crowd. How can you not see that?

If their stated goal is to make open carry “more normalized” then what would be the point in going somewhere where it is largely accepted.

Oh, and a point about those gun racks, when we go in to a place to get some grub before we hit the stand, we leave the rifles in the darned truck, its called having manners.

Nope I am saying my property. My house, my car, my TV, my computer, my body. If I am on my property then I call the shots, just like when you visit your parents, they call the shots. And if they say you have an 10:00pm curfew well then you have 10:00pm curfew, otherwise they boot your ass out. 2A doesn’t exist on MY property, neither does 1A. Because if it did then I can come to your property and do any damn thing that I like, and at that point property rights become moot and the whole purpose of the Constitution is out the window.

Chipoltle is private property so is Starbucks so is Jack in the Box. If you say that you are pro 2A then you are saying I am pro property.

“It is an immoral position to rank your “say so” over my life”

Then if you are concerned about your life and protecting it then don’t go on the property of people that don’t allow you to defend your life. If you insist that they must allow you on their property then what other injustice must they endure in the name of “your” rights. This can just as easily be turned to say that you must quarter troops on your property or perform abortions on your property. Once again no property no Constitution.

“Are you really that shallow? How about standing back from a group of open carriers?”

Ok how about being on the inside of the restaurant when the OCer’s first arrive at it. How can you make a blanket statement that people aren’t panicked or fearful. The couple that just went out the other door because they were concerned, did you see them? How about the guy that went to the bathroom because he was scared? How can you possibly read the minds of the people in that place? And honestly if you asked anyone after the fact do you think they are going to tell you the truth. Mostly the people that were scared left. They just want to get away.

And how would you respond to the OCer’s showing up at the Mothers for WTFever meeting. Twenty armed people that don’t like you showing up at the parking lot of your meeting. Nothing says we respectfully disagree like a show of force in the parking lot.

“Body language is an indicator of emotional state and I do not see the indicators of either fight or flight.”

And you will never see the crime coming. As I have said multiple times before in previous posts, take a force on force class, maybe, just maybe you might get it.

Fatboy and grey shirt on right side of photo display guns with magazines. You are right we can only speculate on the actual way that they were carrying coming in, but if they are to lazy or ignorant to know that having a magazine in the gun is not helpful to not being threatening then I am going to make an educated guess that they didn’t come in with the guns slung over their back.

Also a long gun in an urban environment (other than a war zone) as a form of self defense is less than useless, so I guess that they were trying to make a point. So why even bother to load and front point carry a weapon that you are using to make a point, at that point why not make absolutely certain that there is no way that the weapon can fire, and that everyone except the absolutely least educated would know it.

There are many unanswered questions in my mind regarding this incident. What were the reactions of the people in the store? Many likely didn’t notice right away, or care. Were there 911 calls made? In the last big incident, the police insisted employees hid in the freezer, but the company’s director for security contradicted that statement. Photos also show smiling open carriers AND employees. Why would the police lie and the MSM parrot incorrect statements?

“You keep waving around that people aren’t as afraid as everyone makes them out to be, you seem to have put yourself in a position where you know how everyone else feels, narcissists do this, are you one?”

Are you really that shallow? How about standing back from a group of open carriers? Have you tried that? When I do so, I do not see panic, 911 calls, running away or fearful looks. Body language is an indicator of emotional state and I do not see the indicators of either fight or flight.

You keep waving around that people aren’t as afraid as everyone makes them out to be, you seem to have put yourself in a position where you know how everyone else feels, narcissists do this, are you one?