Wearing them in public is like a 10 year old walking around wearing his cowboy hat and six-shooter. It invites trouble as you are daring anyone to pick a fight with you which a lot of people do. If you want/need to carry a weapon/gun on you get a CWP and then you don’t have the need to show that yours are bigger than anyone else’s and you still have your “protection”.
1justguy
Comment to Starbucks’ “Pro-Gun” Policy Prompts Gun Victims’ Advocate Group to Launch Nationwide Boycott on Valentine’s Day 2012
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!
John Hardin unintentionally lead me to this guy.
Also worthy of note is that technically 1justguy’s claim of people picking a fight with people who are open carrying is factually unsupported. But my hypothesis is that he is not only incorrect but he has the wrong sign on the correlation coefficient.—Joe]
They think that we are ashamed of ourselves for carrying guns. They seem to think this will increase that shame (it can’t, there’s none there to begin with). They try to play on that shame. What doesn’t seem to be grasped is that we are PROUD of our stance. They keep thinking that these levers will work on us, but they keep pulling the ones that aren’t hooked up. I know enough people that I can wrap my head around some of what they are thinking, regarding gun control, even if I don’t subscribe to their views. They don’t seem to have ANY idea what we think. Its almost like they are fighting their own caricatures. If it weren’t so loud, it wouldn’t even be annoying…
99% of anti-gun-owner thinking can be explained by reversed signs on correlation coefficients.
Wolfman: They know we’re not ashamed. They’re trying to convince us we SHOULD be. They are interested in trying to make you think that most other people think wearing a gun is shameful. They are trying to make you think that if you wear a gun, everybody who sees you will think less of you for it. They are trying to make you have bad feelings when you engage in behavior they don’t like.
They could, in theory, try to engage with what you think, but that’s too hard for simpleminded, childish people like them. It’s much easier to revert to childhood playground behavior, where they try to bully people into conforming by calling them names whenever they act independently.
They have never spent a split instant wondering what you think and they never will.
Went out with the wife on Friday, dinner and movie in Moscow Idaho, saw several folks openly carrying, young folks, old folks, men, women. We did not see anyone pick any fights with those folks, actually I didn’t see anyone misbehaving at all. No bullying, no bossing people around, everyone minding their own business and enjoying a night out.
I’ll have to go with the “And not a single F$%K was given” meme on this one here… Of course other people seem to have some sort of odd fear of inanimate objects & tools, they should seek some kind of help for that.
Open carriers are like people who own expensive jewelry. It’s nice to own a $100K diamond ring but it’s even better to wear it out and have people notice it. It just screams “Look at me! Look at ME!”
Brandoch Daha: The thing that puzzles me is: Why? Why keep banging the same drum? The attempts to get us to feel shame are obviously not working. I admit that, in a vacuum, a person could be persuaded to think that they have a point, but why the blindness? I try to avoid ad homenim attacks, but can it really be that they are that dumb? This is working for them! Why do they keep trying?! The disconnect from reality is really really hard to ignore. I admit, I’m puzzled why they continue to think the same things that failed them in the past, in their strength, will succeed for them in their current weakness. At any rate, it continues to work well for us. Every time they even PRETEND to open a dialog, they get swamped, and our position gets a new foothold. I can’t even project a state of mind that would lead me to that action. They’re like a strange, surreal sideshow, playing their puppet games, playing make believe that they are real world.
ubu,
Most open carriers are like people who wear normally-priced watches, or, say, socks. A gun is just like those things, something they put on as a normal part of getting dressed in the morning and walk around wearing; not caring if people see it or not throughout the day.
It’s folks like you who insist on attaching emotional import and ascribe “meaning” to ordinary inanimate objects.
The only reason OC is even a “thing” that is done as a “statement” in some places in the US is because of emotion-driven people who can’t distinguish between their fears and reality. If they would grow up and join the real world OC’d guns would become as innocuous to them as shoes, just as they currently are in much of the country.
@Wolfman
I think the reason they keep trying to shame us is that they work off of group think/pressure, they’re looking at it from their perspective and not our own. They care what other people think and about offending anyone else’s views, which is what leads to the political correctness non-sense. We don’t give a damn what they think of us.
See ubu52 above, implying that we’re attention whores for open carrying? Why should we care what someone like that thinks? We won’t let ourselves be bullied because someone might think we’re just doing it for attention. This isn’t grade school anymore, we’re not going to care if people whisper about us behind our backs.
ubu,
Most people never even notice when I am open carrying. The most entertaining experience I ever had I was open carrying a 1911, OWB (outside the waist band), and my VX-7R ham radio. Guess what most people noticed? I’ll tell you it wasn’t the gun. Everyone asked about the radio.
Joe had an experience at the doctors office, the give O shit meter might as well have been at -1 in that instance. The truth is most people don’t even notice. The only people who care are the ones who go into pants shitting hysterics at the sight of someone carrying a firearm. Those people are not in the majority, they are in the very low minority. Cops also really don’t like the people who go into pants shitting hysterics either.
If we are attention seeking, it is us calling out to our own kind so we can strike up a conversation. It’s a common thread between the two of us and provides a point of conversation to start at. Makes it really easy to meet new people when you can walk up to someone and say, “Hey, what kind of 1911 is that!?”
I shop at Walmart no one notices. Guy at Safeway notices and asks me what I’m carrying. Nothing happens at McDonalds. Nothing happens at CDs Smoke Pit other than a 10% discount for open carrying. Notice a pattern here, because I do. No one gives a !@#$.
@ubu52, It’s all about context. Barb and I used belong to a nudist club. Wearing pants at the club got you stared at. Outside the club going nude in public would get you arrested and at best a mental health evaluation if not time in jail.
OC is similar. In some locations I frequent not carrying a gun will have people asking where it is at. In other locations I would be arrested and convicted without my lawyer putting up much more than a token defense.
In both cases (nudity and OC) the risk to public safety does not change depending upon the location. All that changes is public attitudes.
100 years ago wearing a hat outdoors was expected. These days it’s optional and actually a little bit rare. There was a change in public attitudes that enabled this. It didn’t scare the horses, little kids didn’t start crying, and god(s) didn’t send locusts and plagues.
A similar change in attitudes needs to happen for OC (and public nudity). No one is having their rights violated and public safety not changed for the worse when someone OCs (or goes nude in public) so what benefit does the government coercion gain us? It makes some people feel better. I insist this is a waste and actually a misuse of government resources.
Matthew,
Show me all the youtube videos of people wearing “normally-priced watches, or, say, socks” in the normal situations open carriers post. One video is titled “Open carry 30 feet from Obama.” Show me the videos that are titled “Wearing socks 30 feet from Obama” or “Wearing my watch 30 feet from Obama.”
You may buy that BS because you are a gunnie — but even MD Willington above mentioned he noticed the open carriers while out on a night on the town. He didn’t say anything about other people because they aren’t seeking the attention open carriers are. I wonder how many people MD Willington noticed that were wearing “normally-priced watches, or, say, socks”?
I have gotten a couple mentions, when OC. I did have one guy, who was the manager of a convenient store, ask me not to carry in his store, and I have obliged. Other than that, I’ve had a clerk at the grocery store express surprise, I had a lady at Wendy’s note her appreciation. I’ve had a guy ask me about OC, and I informed him of some of the laws. The majority of my experience has been totally neutral. Apart from the guy at the CStore, I’ve never had anyone act perturbed, or have me followed by security, or had the cops called. I honestly don’t think that very many people notice. I carry a full size Ruger SR40, in a thumbbreak holster, 5 o’clock. Its never covered, but not flamboyant. I just don’t think it gets noticed. Works for me!
ubu,
MD Willington noticed because he happens to be a carrier as well. We look for our own. I do not have an expensive high end watch. I have a working watch, while it may be more expensive to some it’s not because it’s flashy. My watch is a dive watch, because well I SCUBA dive. I have standard style shoes, I wear clothes from Cabela’s and Wranglers. Nothing in my wardrobe is expensive or high end.
You’re assumption ubu is some how open carry isn’t normal where MD lives. Well he lives down the street from me, seriously, I cleared out his driveway during the snow storm. Did you miss the part where he stated that no one cared?!
If I was going to carry around a gun like Jewelry it wouldn’t be any gun that I own. I’d go buy a high end custom pistol. You don’t see most people carry high end customs though because well they suck for defensive carry. Instead they carry middle of the road weapons much like you would see a police officer carrying. Yeah black plastic, that says high roller right there.
Attention whoring is not something we do. I carry a gun like I wear pants. I get up, put my pants on, put my gun on and walk out the door. It is NORMAL to me, and it is NORMAL to the majority of society. There is a small subset of ABNORMAL folks who go into pants shitting hysterics at the sight of the gun. Those are the people who are “focused” on the gun.
Just because you noticed that someone has a gun doesn’t mean that person is attention whoring. If you answer your cell phone and I notice does that make you an attention whore? No, I just noticed you answer your phone. If I noticed you unlocked your BMW Z-3 and get it, does that make you an attention whore? No I saw you get in your car because of situational awareness. Some of us like to pay attention to what’s going on around us.
Once again, though, I can’t help but notice the wrong levers being pulled. An obviously anti-gun commenter started out with a statement that was, to many of us, false. This statement will not change the way we look at the subject. Several people try to explain their point of view. Those explanations are not acknowleged, but another statement is made. Now, I’ll agree that there are no Youtube videos about ‘look at my totally ordinary socks near the President’ because that would be silly. However, ‘near the President’ is not an average situation. If the intent is to engage people, this effort is a fail. If the intent is to rile people up, of course, it works. Riling people up, on the other hand, makes people more involved, which means it is counterproductive. If this activity is intended to advance gun control, it not only failed, but had the opposite effect. So why keep doing it? It doesn’t work. This makes no sense.
“It invites trouble as you are daring anyone to pick a fight with you which a lot of people do.”
If that’s true, then I guess cops are the biggest fight-pickers and attention whores on the planet, what with their flashy uniforms, the lights on their cars and the guns in their holsters. By that reasoning, cops should be outlawed. But then who would enforce that law, and anti-cop cops?
Just take their reasoning at face value, and it shows its fatal flaws.
“Yeah well, you’re not cops.”
Yeah well, …that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…
I’ll grant that part of ubu’s assertion has merit, but not as the epithet she intend. Some people do open carry to make a statement. They’re making a statement in the same sense that a certain brave young woman refused, as a statement, to sit in the back of the bus. That is relevant in the same sense too. The response to that brave young woman (the attempted clamp-down) resulted in a backlash against said response, and that now infamous Democrat Governor’s quote; “Segregation Today, Segregation Forever!” became a symbol of shallow, un American thinking and gross miscalculation.
I am 100% for the rights of citizens to carry, be it open or concealed. Additionally, I do not have any place for the antis in my heart. They are bad people. Having said that, I wonder about the wisdom of open carry. If a baddie is going to rob a place, he might just take out the guy with the gun visible before anything else, just to make things easier. Of course cops open carry, but they are visible anyway (rightly so) because of their uniforms. Just a thought. Still, if someone wants to open carry, that is their business, and their right.
Ubu: What practical purpose does a “$100k diamond ring” have other than attention whoring, or saying “look how much better|richer|more-loved than you I am!”
Springfield Armory, people keep saying that yet I’ve never seen or heard about it happening. What I have heard of though is stories like this.
Criminals aren’t interested in shootouts. They attract a lot of attention and if there’s one there could be more. About the only time that might be an issue is a mass shooter set on murder. Even then they’re going to have to pick you and your weapon out of a group of individuals.
I find most people who bitch about open carry and provide these excuses have never actually carried openly. It’s much easier, much more comfortable, and just because you’re open carrying doesn’t mean it’s overly obvious. It just means it isn’t concealed.
Yeah; I took the flashing red LED panel, scrolling letters that read “MAKE MY DAY!” off of my carry piece a long time ago. Glock doesn’t offer pearl grips or day-glow color frames either (damit).
ubu52: Let’s see. Last Spring at the NRA Con, a good Dozen or so People OC’d at the Radisson Hotel on Thursday Night. We were going to OC at the Crimson Trace get together at the Tilt n Kilt, but they said we had to check our guns at the Door. Ask Caleb for Details. Saturday Night, a lot of them OC’d at Lidia’s. Lot’s of pictures on Jay’s Site and others about those events, so look for yourself. Too bad the President wasn’t there to join us. But since I was wearing a suit, I, being the Fashion Guru that I am, chose not to, because it would ruin the look of my suit. So I discretely carried a Baby Browning, which is what John Moses designed it for.
But for most of the daylight activities out and about in Pittsburgh, I was more than happy to have all the Population look at my $300 dollar Police Turn-In Smith and Wesson 4043. Boy, do you know hard it is to run from the Paparazzi while you’re Open Carrying? I mean, the news that day about ME even knocked off the latest Kardashian Scandal off the Front page of People!
Yeah, ubu52, I carry OC. I carry Concealed. And I don’t carry where the Law says I can’t. But I do keep my weapon Safely and Legally stored nearby, and I get out of those places where I can’t carry as soon as my Business there is finished. But I’m ready to give myself, and YOU a Fighting Chance if it all turns to Crap, and YOU are caught in the Crap with me.
What’s YOUR Plan, ubu 52? A Birthday Cake full of Lit Candles?
@Bubblehead Les: Stop copying my wife! She had the birthday cake idea first… Yeah she still has a gun there, but come on now. 🙂
@Lyle: Strip the Glock down and paint it with some Krylon. It will eventually rub off but how awesome would it be to have one that’s day glow orange! Heck paint the slide day glow green and make it two tone. As for the moving LED sign, just get the belt buckle. Then you can easily have a message of the day.
The S&W 5906 in Barron’s picture above was a police trade in, about $300 after transfer, carried usually in a S&W holster I bought from an antique store for $5, my Taurus (what I usually carry) was the same price, about $300 and it came with an “Uncle Mike’s” holster, economy, not bling.
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, on a beer and jerky budget… $100k diamond rings, wife and I have no use for those, my wedding band is stainless steel, like my S&W.
Kinda ironic that an internet troll would chastise attention-seeking behavior.
Of course People Open Carrying are simply raising awareness or simply choosing a more comfortable way to carry…while what Ubu is doing….Psychological projection.
“Open carriers are like people who own expensive jewelry. It’s nice to own a $100K diamond ring but it’s even better to wear it out and have people notice it. It just screams “Look at me! Look at ME!””
So that’s why so many cops and security guards open-carry! I always thought they did it to be ready to protect themselves in times of danger.