Texas gun owners lament new open carry laws

boing
42

Thanks for that link! Interesting, I must say.

@pacifica, @DreamboatSkanky, are y’all aware that image searches on Google do not return the same results to every searcher? Also - would you mind sharing with me the reasons you want to pretend I said that anteaters and ants and snakes are reasons to carry guns? I didn’t say that, and I think you know that I didn’t say that - it seems like you’re willing to misrepresent my views in a public forum, is that true? What’s your goal in posting, if you don’t mind sharing? I presume you’re not just here to exercise your fingers, and I’d like to understand your reasoning.

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That is what is suggested by the page presented to us with your link. A link you offered as evidence of the “dangerous wildlife” threatening Texans.

Would you mind sharing why you would post such a link to support your position, apparently knowing that it would…[quote=“Medievalist, post:42, topic:71995”]
…not return the same results to every searcher?
[/quote]

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“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.”

I don’t think so, No. In this case, what the conceal carry crowd in Texas is saying is that previously they could conceal carry anywhere the law allowed and it being Texas, few people said anything or considered it an issue. Then the fight over open carry made a big stink and now many places feel the need to explicitly state ‘no open guns’ and then add ‘oh, and while we’re at it, no concealed guns either’. It’s effectively INCREASED places you can’t carry at all, because many businesses that before didn’t feel that it was worth putting up a ban are now motivated to ban BOTH practices.

It’s extremely likely that many of the businesses assumed few people actual conceal carried into their locations, but now they feel the need to be explicit, especially when an open carry might just put a gun in their pocketbook/coat/whatever when walking in the door to try and skirt the sign. So from the perspective of people who have concealed carry in the past, they effectively now have fewer places to go.

45

It sounds like a property rights win to me. Don’t see the issue. You can frequent businesses that allow guns on site if you want that and are free to start a business that allows it if you feel you and others like you are underserved by the market.

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46

Seems like its also an ease of use thing. To keep OPEN CARRY folks out of your shop with guns, you must post a sign and most shop keepers don’t want people feeling scared while shopping, so they will take the action! To Keep CONCEALED CARRY out you need a different sign and because the problem was concealed and not scary, there was no need to post the signs.

Now that people are posting sign A, its easy to post a combined sign and get rid of the concealed carry folks too. Something they’d have liked to do but it wasn’t important to their mission.

Concealed carry is getting hit by friendly fire.

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In Florida, it’s apparently necessary to “defend” yourself from flying popcorn.

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48

“willing to misrepresent your views in a public forum” ??? By reporting what I saw when I clicked your link? You posted, I clicked, and I saw what I saw. Where’s the misrepresentation? And really, I was just sharing mild amusement at the cognitive dissonance of expecting to see dangerous Texas wildlife (or, alternatively, a facetious collection of gun-toting Texans), and instead seeing numerous images of creatures which were either non-Texan, innocuous, or even human.

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49

Coyotes!

Depends. When I worked at IBM in Austin, the “weapons prohibited” signs went up on 1/1/1995, or just whenever it was that concealed carry went into effect.

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Those are not my words, but quoted from the OP. I’ll see if I can find his email so you can ask him and report back.

That is truly a tortured metaphor. Are you intending to imbue guns with “agency”?

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51

This seems like a risk-assessment failure to me. It’s like the “peril sensitive sunglasses” from HHGTTG, where not seeing something supposedly makes one safer than they would be otherwise. It seems that the logic behind this would easily come off as preposterous in nearly any context.

Also, I think it presents a double-standard which most people seem to not be comfortable talking about. People’s emotional incontinence manifests itself both in public fear as well as the impulse control issues that some complain of. People having more discipline fixes that underlying problem whether there are firearms or not. Not addressing it still results in a paranoid, coercive, murderous society even without firearms.

So I guess my position on the issue is that, all around, it is safer if people are more mature. The problem is not the weapons, but the culture itself.

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Do you think, after all I’ve posted on this here blog, that I support concealed carry?

I want to take all the guns away, even from law enforcement, and require we call in special tactics teams when we need that much force.

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I was quoting it as part of an open question. I fixed the post so that it has generic quotes now.

How so?

If that was my intent, wouldn’t I have likely stated this? I suppose I confused an order of abstraction between “doing” and “being”, but the analogy can be readily adapted. If it helps, you can replace it with “You are free to engage in homosexual acts, so long as nobody finds out”.

Point being, I assert that anything which is clearly legal should not need to be concealed.

54

Allegedly Texas has a lot of problems with both Mexican cartels, and the Aryan Brotherhood. Aside from that, I have no idea.

I can’t speak to Texas, because I live in Illinois, but it’s the rural part of Illinois. The state is almost entirely dedicated to agriculture. If you have some sort of livestock, there’s an animal out there that is hungry and will, at some point, try to eat it, or at least maim it. You will at some point be forced to take out a wild animal to save a cow, a chicken, or whatever. And people do seem to like their hamburgers and fried chicken.

Another part would be this: 99.999% of the time, I can leave my house and go walking down the road, come back two hours later, and not only not encounter a problem, but my house was unlocked the entire time, and everything’s still there despite living 10 minutes from a town with a high crime rate.

On the other hand, there’s this line from Longmire that seems pretty apt: “The Dog Soldier knows what you’ve done Crystal- And when he comes for you- I’m just a phone call, and twenty minute drive away…I’ll come as fast as I can.” Both of my next door neighbors have been broken into, one while I was home, during the day. About a mile from here, an old man was beaten nearly to death by burglars looking to score some cash off of a helpless old man. It’s easy to forget, in an urban environment, that law enforcement isn’t always there. And the people who own guns don’t always look like this.

Many gun owners are more or less sane people, and some might just want them for target practice, hunting (please, no arguments about the morality of hunting), and what have you.

Now, on the other hand, I get it. States with the laxest gun laws have the most gun violence. It’s not really up for debate. But I don’t think trying to push off a blanket policy one way or the other is the way to go, because in my state at least, the concerns of Chicago are vastly different than the rest of the state. I can’t think that the situation in Texas is much different.

And to get on a soap box, I know of at least one loved one who is avoiding treatment for depression because they’re afraid they’ll lose the right to own a gun. That’s…frightning, but not surprising; instead of getting guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people, it’s causing unstable gun nuts to avoid treatment.

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55

That’s quite the false equivalence there as well - but I take your point. The average Joe/Jane in Tx with a CCW can achieve such with - I’m pretty sure - all online training. I know the concealed part can be taken online there and I know the initial purchase doesn’t require any training.

To compare that to LEO, in any way/shape/form, where the majority of LEO’s are required to carry as a mandate for employment - in fact, if they can’t carry/shoot they can’t be on the street for many positions - and just to get to that point (in Tx) they’ve passed a 23-week training course (@ minimum). The most I’ve seen for Joe/Jane is an 8hr course to take you from beginner to CCW certified - and that wasn’t required, just recommended so that they get to shoot their gun before they carry it, which again, isn’t necessarily even a requirement. Even in states that may require a proficiency exam be passed, they will recognize the CCW’s from other states that may not have such a requirement.

Bottom line is, to use LEO’s as a baseline for open carry - in comparison to Joe/Jane - is only even apples to oranges because both are round (both have guns) - after that, the similarities couldn’t be farther apart.

When the Dump invoked San Bernardino under the premise that, had they been armed, the outcome would have been different - it would have been different, it would have been much, much worse. Imagine being in a shooting gallery with automatic fanatics on one end and untrained, handgun wielding, adrenaline fueled civilians on the other.

Should all US police carry a fire arm - let alone civilians - , that’s a better question for another day & the NRA lobbyists have been so successful that I - am - in - awe.

A gun is never a fashion accessory & the distance between OC and CCW is mere millimeters. The real difference is one of perception.

The gun nuts are getting exactly what they deserve - when they make the laws overly broad, they’re open to abuse - and rightfully so - this is the first sign that “common sense gun legislation” is desired both by gun owners and non-owners alike. Gun owners and 2A advocates just didn’t realize they wanted “common sense gun legislation” until this sh*t show started.

56

No, I don’t think so.

That would worsen a classist problem. It already exists to an extent now. Most people find it uncontroversial that police open carry, but many in both the police and public at large find it troubling for others to do so. But any basic constitutional “right” (and I have no opinion on whether or not use of firearms constitute any sort of right) cannot depend upon who one is. What you propose reduces the amount of weapons, but at the expense of creating an explicitly privileged class of persons, which I think is actually more harmful. My personal, family, or community safety is simply not worth deliberate social iniquity.

FWIW I would like “taking all the guns away”. What I usually recommend to gun control advocates is to ban the manufacture of firearms entirely, but I encounter surprisingly little support for this approach.

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57

maybe they can snuggle the snake to death instead.

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58

I can’t think of open carry without thinking of this.

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59

You got that right!

60

I could ask the same thing about the anti-gun people.

Here is the thing - open carry is less about protection and fearing trouble, and more about awareness of rights, exercise of rights, and sort of “coming out of the closet”.

Here is the deal. People in America are scared of their own shadow. Hell, we just has a post on BB about them making a LAW saying it was OK to let your kid walk to school. OMG - what have come to that letting your kid WALK or RIDE A BIKE to school is considered weird or dangerous? I walked to school by myself from like 3rd grade, until I moved to a town where I was too far away from school and took a bus.

Anyway, so, the “average person” sees a person with a gun they think, “ZOMG - that person wants to hurt someone/something.” Unless maybe they are in a Uniform. The PERCEPTION is that everyone with a gun is just looking to kill someone. The REALITY is a very, very small number of gun owners ever use their guns to hurt someone. You shouldn’t fear some guy because he has a pistol on his hip any more than you should fear some black kid in a hoodie. But everyone has biases and even subconscious fears.

So the whole movement is more of an “in your face” exercise of rights. Personally I don’t really like it. I get. I get that people SHOULDN’T have such irrational fears. I get that it’s their right. But at the same time I think it hurts the cause and they go about it the wrong way. I am sure you can think of other movements and causes where one vocal segment poisons the rest by being overly in your face and over the top.

The analogy I like to make is that I own a shirt that says, “Fuck you, you fucking fuck”. I can wear that anywhere thanks to the First Amendment. But I fully expect to piss people off in certain areas (say Disney World). Time and a place for everything.

ETA - there are 27 state with open carry laws and none of them have devolved into Mad Max yet. Open carry in the United States - Wikipedia

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