People who will tell you they are without being prompted for $1,000 Alex.
How do you know someone is opposed to open carry?
Wait a bit and they will tell you.
In detail.
They are especially critical of events like Florida Carry's.
I have a question for these self appointed arbiters of what an appropriate form of protest or rally should look like.
"What are you doing to advance and expand my rights in Florida?"
Cue Jeopardy music, then cue crickets.
The people panicking about the open carriers at the Florida Carry events also panicked about Open Carry Texas. Doom was prognosticated, those idiots are hurting the cause...
And yet...
Texas now has open carry.
I think I will back a successful methodology rather than one that doesn't appear to work.
By the way, the methodology applied by Open Carry Texas and Florida Carry has been successfully applied to expand minority rights before.
The LGBT community showed us the way, we've only to use their example.
UPDATE:
I wasn't even replying to anyone, just pointing out that people who oppose open carry just can't NOT mock anyone trying for it.
Do you know what else opponents to open carry have with people who crossfit and vegans?
They're assholes and bullies. You should reconsider holding them in any esteem at all.
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Ahem - Arizona has Constitutional Carry, and you can count the number of "Open-Rifle-Carry Rallies" we've had from the inception of Shall-Issue CCW in 1994, to the enactment of Constitutional Carry in 2010, on two hands with a few fingers left over...
ReplyDeleteHow is Arizona's legislative history with regards to getting open carry passed?
DeleteOr was Arizona a state where only concealed carry was regulated tightly until the law was liberalized?
I'm pretty sure that open carry was legal without any permit in AZ (with the exception of local pre-emption) from what my dad said when he moved there in '85.
Texas and Florida are completely different situations with regards to our congress things listening to the will of the voters than Arizona. In such situations you've got to resort to more than asking pretty please.
I've only lived in AZ since 1970, and only had my AZ CCW since 1994, so you may not consider the opinions of a whippersnapper like myself to be valid, but...
DeleteOpen carry was always legal in AZ since statehood in 1919, no permit or training needed. (Certain municipalities such as, ironically, Tombstone, actually forbade bearing arms in public, but that was eventually addressed through legislative preemption.) While I was growing up in Tucson, open carry was so uncommon that I cannot recall ever seeing someone open-carrying in public until the early '90s, when I first became interested in guns and armed self-defense.
We didn't want open-carry, we wanted concealed carry. We wanted to be able to carry a handgun for self-defense on a daily basis, without having to deal with the hassles of carrying openly. We wanted to look like everyone else around us, and not be singled out for negative attention because of our visible handguns. And we were happy to spend 16 hours in a very thorough training class to get our permits.
After the first few years of shall-issue CCW passed without blood in the streets, the AZ Citizens Defense League succeeded in first getting the training requirement halved to 8 hours. Their next step was to get the requirement for renewal training eliminated. Along the way, more incremental progress was made by establishing statewide preemption, codifying "Stand Your Ground" and "Castle Doctrine," etc. until we finally arrived at permit-optional, training-optional Constitutional Carry in 2010. Ironically, I've seen more people publically open-carrying in urban areas AFTER 1994, than I ever saw open-carrying when it was the only legal option prior to 1994.
I submit that Arizona is an empirical example that the incremental approach to restoring 2A rights works just as well as the incremental approach to reducing 2A rights. AZCDL has been persistent and patient in working with the AZ legislature for two decades and playing the "long game" to accomplish their goals.
Whereas in Texas and Florida, have the confrontational, adversarial tactics used in hopes of immediate legislative gratification resulted in the ideal of Arizona-style Constitutional Carry? Or have they achieved *permit-required* open-carry in Texas, and...well, the status quo, in Florida?
Yes, we tried that.
DeleteDidn't work.
Hasn't worked for a decade.
Now what?
Took us 16 years, but we got there, by making incremental gains and by revisiting temporary compromises in successive legislative sessions to keep marching the football downfield. "Shock And Awe" tactics might look impressive on social media, but I personally prefer to judge 2A grassroots activism by the results delivered, not by how gratifying they feel in the moment or how closely they hew to hardliner rhetoric.
DeleteI am judging by results delivered here in Florida with the tactics espoused by the people who are mocking the Florida Carry events.
DeleteZero positive results. SB 7026 on the negative side of the ledger.
Using your model loses in Florida even if it wins in Arizona. Simply not the same places, people or legislators. If you dive the archives here you're going to see I was once very critical of people like Open Carry Texas. Then they won. Everyone says that it was despite their antics, but the legislation in question had stalled for years. I could be a coincidence, but you cannot say that their antics actually hurt because it passed while they were out there doing their thing.
Also what these jerks are omitting was that this event was a RETALIATION!
ReplyDeleteThey (illegally) detained 6 men with pistols at GUNPOINT.....so the next group shows up dozens strong carrying rifles....and they're met by polite, professional officers.
Not only was that a good response, but they proved a point that the detention was purely politically motivated.
Further, anybody who's against open carry is saying that if you shirt rides over your gun when you bend down, or climb out of the car, or you caught printing, you get to go to jail.
Not only is that wrong, it's evil.
I think the perfect is the enemy of the good in these situations. The goal, to show that the intimidation involved in 6 folks with pistols being grabbed by the cops would not be accepted, was admirable. Do I wish they would have gone more understated, with less melee weapony goodness in the undertaking? Yup. But seriously, why condemn them on style? They got up and did something, they are in the arena (perhaps not as much as they have in their imaginations). I get Aesop and Tam's take, but I also think Angus has a point.
ReplyDelete