I’m as much of a 2nd amendment absolutist as they come, but the notion that I – as business owner – can’t make the call about who can carry and who cannot is just ridiculous.
There’s plenty of room within that to decide it I want to offer a “gun check” or as patrons to keep their guns in their cars or, crazy I know, at home!
No, I’m really pretty good at it. You’re pretty bad at identifying supportive sources, because your link features ants, spiders, scorpions, and at least one anteater, right above the fold. To be fair, it does include some reptiles and even a scary mammal, but ones that can be dealt with without guns.
Quite true!
That was precisely my - possibly erroneous - thinking. That their job mostly involved maintaining horses and cows, and not killing them. When cows are killed for meat, they have other ways of doing that than shooting them all. But sure, I suppose there are times when farm animals need to be euthanized.
I was reacting to the “cowboy” quote in the article as seeming more like snark than real criticism.
I used a shovel, and an ax the two times I’ve had to kill a rattlesnake. Generally, you can just walk away from them.
This explains why everyone in Australia is dead since they passed gun control legislation.
My official gun control gif. 
Interestingly, the vast majority of highly venomous snakes I came across when we lived in Texas (4th and 5th grade) were just the heads hanging from the trees next to the creek. I scared a rattlesnake the only time I crossed paths with a live one. He jumped into the creek. Seriously. Jumped. Had to go to the Ft. Worth zoo to see these snakes up close and personal. Ditto for armadillos. Never saw a live one in the wild until I toured Kennedy Space Center many years later. Not that armadillos are dangerous.
I had to kill one in my garage. Sorry, snake, but I can’t risk you taking up residence there. The irony was that while I ordinarily would have used a .22, it was immediately between me and my gun safe. I used a shovel. Man, that thing smelled horrible when I cut it open. A uniquely awful stench.
I killed another one in my folks’ backyard – an aggressive adolescent – with a hoe. I beat the living crap out of some of her plants, unfortunately, since I didn’t get a good clean hit the first time. I’m not convinced she ever quite bought my calculus of “grandkids v. petunias” (or whatever it was that I Hulk-smashed)
Srsly? It’s like the entire point of the article. The open carry push (which is wonderfully described by a gun-control minimalist as a “dress code” issue) has now backfired against folks who used to be able to conceal carry. Now that open carry has been legitamized and codified, those that do not wish to have guns in their businesses are motivated to put up both “no conceal carry” and “no open carry” signs.
From the article:
“We were free to carry concealed at far more places before than now. You have the exact same ability to be safe carrying concealed as openly. Except that now you can’t do either in many places. So you’re not safer at all. Open carry is not a right. It’s a dress code and comfort issue. You were already freely bearing arms before 1 Jan. You’ve given up safety for comfort and lost and freedom [sic] for all of us.”
Not to mention that the image search contains fierce Texas beavers, possums, and a few little kids.
I work with someone who falls foul of this. Our employer bans guns on site, so he parks on the street instead of the office car park, to allow him to keep a gun in his car. Perhaps Seattle is more dangerous than I realize, but I’d hazard a guess that the likelihood of his car getting broken into is higher than that of him needing to shoot someone.
Until I started blocking everything they shared on social media, I saw a lot of complaining from Texan former coworkers about those signs telling people to keep their guns out of businesses - mostly refusing to shop at places that won’t let them carry.
I guess they’re still good going to the pub though, as far as I remember guns were never allowed in places that served alcohol. Not been to Texas in a few years though, so maybe that’s changed.
Yes, quite. I am quite happy to have a reasonable population of CCW around. The open carry guys are – to me – at least as obnoxious as the folks who insist on blasting their stereos too loud. Heck, there was a guy in Fry’s the other day wander around with a speaker clipped to his polo shirt, blasting something. It bothers some (many?) people and it is done purely for effect. For my money, open carry it is unpardonably rude.
As I read it the open-carry law is causing some business owners to state explicitly that no firearms are allowed on the premises. Property rights trump a concealed carry permit as thoroughly as they do open carry.
So before this nobody felt the need to expressly forbid them therefore if you were carrying concealed it wasn’t an issue.
Well, I mean, there are all these people walking around carrying guns!
I was reading that almost 10% of the US population has anger/impulse control issues - and owns a gun.
Right, the article states that basically ease of posting two notices at once – on permanent signs – is just as easy as doing one notice, so the CHL guys lose.
Basically if we made up a lot of free 30.06/30.07 unified signs and gave them away free in Texas, it’d give these enthusiasts a heart attack.
Or the likelihood of a confrontation requiring a firearm will pause for him to actually make it to his car.
Maybe he goes to really sketchy places after work.
I would put money on that. Cause that is seriously a sure bet.
The very idea that rights are not absolute, that they must be somehow balanced off each other, is anathema to some people.
But not really. If people were freely bearing arms, then why was it (arguably) the norm to hide them?
Isn’t that like saying “You are free to be homosexual, so long as nobody finds out”? If you are explicitly told that you need to hide what you are doing, it seems that there is some perceived conflict as to its legitimacy.
Most police open carry. I wonder if they would agree that it is “a dress code and comfort issue”.
If you aren’t living in a state of paranoia, you’re missing out on one of the true pleasures in life.
