I can’t find the link right now but I’ve definitely read of people who have been carrying but decided the smart move was to hand over their wallet when getting mugged. It’s a judgement call.
I also know someone who concealed carries and feels it allows him to involve himself in situations where he’d otherwise not be prepared to, even though he didn’t pull his gun. His specific example was a guy he saw assaulting his girlfriend.
“You can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold, dead… Hmm? This gun? Sure! By all means, take it! I have some ammo too, do you need that?”
It depends on the situation. A gun gives you additional options, which always have to include not using it. As was said just a moment ago.
This reminded me of the scene in “Rumble in the Bronx” when the kid shadowing Jackie Chan expects him to use all his martial arts skill against some criminals who point a gun at him (and, let’s face it: he was fast enough in those days to have pulled it off) but instead he raises his hands in surrender and lets them have what they want.
Yes, but even if you don’t use the gun it can still become an instant liability in a robbery. If it’s in your purse the thief will get that along with your wallet. If it’s holstered under your jacket the thief may notice it when you pull out your wallet and decide you’re too risky to leave standing. In almost all armed confrontations the person who has his gun trained on the other person first is going to control the situation no matter what the other person is carrying.
You also have the option to run away, depending on situation. Also, consider situations where the encounter is at knifepoint or even fistpoint, then you have a decisive advantage. The adversary also has not only an incentive to shoot on the sight of a gun but also to run away too. Lots of options.
You have a good chance of doing so. I’ve also read reports where the bullet traveled along the skull inside the scalp. If it it just zips through the grey matter and doesn’t bounce around, you have a fair shot of living too. I am sure you have seen the xrays of people who get a nail gun shot into their head. It’s sort of a crap shoot, but if I had a gun to my head, I’d much rather it be a .22lr than a 9mm, giving me at least a shot in hell of surviving.
My point is to the untrained eye, it looks like it’s made to be a killing machine like a Glock, when it’s utility for doing so isn’t that great. I could stab you with a paring knife or a kabar, both might get the job done, one will do a much better job of it and one would do a much better job of slicing up some apples instead.
they… said nothing. To me, [that’s] a well-disguised attempt at soliciting schadenfreude…
Looks like we’ve got a psychic here!
Ironically, no, there isn’t.
Agree! The interplay between he and Travolta was genius. Also, Devito ordering off the menu!
FINALLY someone notices the gun that was actually taken. Who the hell open carries a .22 walther? While it has some assaulty-rifley styling cues, it has approximately the same cost to self-defense value as a solid gold ice pick. It’s protecting your kid from bullies by pinning a $50 bill to the front of their shirt for lunch money.
It’s like revving the engine on your new prius at a stoplight beside a 'vette.
The fact that he was visible carrying an unloaded, fashion accessory pistol he’d owned for 2 days at 2am should cause convulsions of schadenfreude regardless of where you stand on gun rights and laws.
There are a few assumptions about open carry of firearms which I find perplexing, and never encounter discussion of:
open carry as norm, versus making a point:
Most of the criticism I read of open carry posits that there needs to be some specific reason behind choosing to do so, based upon the presumption that concealment is a normal, natural way to go about things. I am not convinced of this. Almost universally, people conceal what they have, or what they are doing, if it tends to be commonly regarded as wrong. If people tell you that an activity is legitimate, provided that nobody witnesses or is otherwise aware of it, I think should raise a flag with people’s critical faculties. How do we substantiate the presumption that it is normal to conceal things?
Most of the legal static I read about people encountering when they openly carry firearms seems to fall under the umbrella of “disorderly conduct” or “disturbing the peace”. Typically stemming from complaints of people who have no direct relationship to the carrier in question. I am sympathetic, but they are also employing poor risk assessment. The fact that somebody may be armed in no way implies that they are doing anything to you, or putting you in any risk. So catering to this logic only re-enforces an irrational fear. And how do those who oppose suggest we manage the risk? By hiding these same weapons! Does this make the timid people around the carrier any safer?
Part of my problem with this is that I have little patience for victimless crime. And if somebody is not doing anything to you personally - then you are not a victim, and nobody should bend over backwards to cater to your unfortunate personal insecurities. The reason why people cry if they see somebody smoking weed, or having sex, is because they don’t know how to mind their own business. People do countless different things, and neither you nor I need to agree or participate with them. I think it is just passive-aggression normalized as a means of projecting people fears onto others rather than take personal responsibility for them.
what I do versus what I say -
So, if some timid soul decides that they have a problem with a person legally carrying their visible firearm, what do they tend to do? Call some police, of course. So the problem of a person who “disturbed the peace” by going about their business with a visible weapon is solved by summoning a person who “protects the peace” by arriving with a visible weapon. But nobody finds this incredibly odd?
If police don’t know anything about tactical use of firearms, why not just make them all put their guns away? They could zip them away in their pants, or keep them in their glove compartment. But these police seem worried that it would be suicidal to do so, hindering their preparedness to react to danger. Yet, most opponents of firearm use and of open carry say that what the police consider normal and safe is the opposite, providing only a false sense of security. My guess would be that those police would know more about firearms than people who don’t use them. Maybe somebody should do a more comprehensive study?
I do not have any firearms myself, but it has never occurred to me that strangers were out to get me simply because they had weapons. It has never seemed to me that more or less would make me much safer. But I do find the discussions around the topic interesting. I would prefer to see more formal reasoning used than the mostly emotionally-loaded discussions I tend to encounter from either side of the issue.
For most people I think the “normal, natural way to go about doing things” is to not to carry a weapon in public at all unless they have a specific reason behind choosing to do so. That needn’t necessarily be the only way to go about things, but it’s certainly the normal one.
I do believe that this case approaches the Stellar Death quantity of irony…
However, once iron is reached, fusion is halted since iron is so tightly bound that no energy can be extracted by fusion. Iron can fuse, but it absorbs energy in the process and the core temperature drops.
You are quoting my remarks out of context. I did not say that it was more normal to carry or not carry weapons. Rather, I was addressing a specific argument which crops up in “open carry” discussions which seems to be based upon certain presumptions. This is the normative process I was referring to.
Cadillac of Minivans is often heard around our house.
Here’s another prime example of casting aspersions, as is BoingBoing’s commenteriat wont. I’m anti harassment. I’m anti GamerGate.
Good attempt though, but you missed.
And there it is. Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Arlington’s a great place to be from.
That sounds like the rationale behind “Eldridge de Paris” trousers.
Uh huh… So, does that mean you think that there should be more white open carry advocates? Finally, something we agree on!
P.S. I hope you used your legs and not your back- goalposts can be heavy.
