Friday, May 23, 2014

Op-Ed: “Open Carry” Activists Score Yet Another Own Goal

 Open Carry Chipotle

I’ve owned and shot firearms since my age could be measured in single digits. I’ve actively engaged in firearms competition since I was in my teens. I’ve carried a lawfully concealed firearm on my person pretty much every day of my adult life.

I’ve been an NRA instructor since my 20s, and have personally taught a great many people—many of them women overcoming the horror of sexual assault—how to handle firearms safely and, if necessary, to effectively stop a deadly attack upon themselves or their family.

I’ve been an NRA Life Member for something like a couple of decades, and consider myself a Second Amendment absolutist. Not only do I think universal background checks would be a bad policy to adopt, I think all current background check systems are a laughable and useless infringement on the rights of the law abiding that have zero impact on denying access to guns by prohibited persons, and should be banned forthwith.

I think that anything other than Constitutional Carry, in every state, as well as the District of Columbia and every territory that answers to American sovereignty, is an inexcusable affront to the very fiber of the United States Constitution.

I also think that anybody engaged in the practice of “Open Carry in YOUR FACE!!!” (henceforth “OCIYF!”) is behaving like a jackass.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know where the writer is from or where he grew up but where I came from open carry is not at all out of the ordinary, nor is it common place but it's not looked at in a negative way as long as the armed guy isn't brandishing his arms. Heck when I was in high school we took our rifles and shotguns to school hanging in a gun rack in the back window of our pickup trucks so we could hunt on the way to and from school.
    The principal would walk out during lunch and ask to look at our guns and admire them and tell about his own. Even today hunters often have their deer rifles and shotguns laid across the transmission hump in the car or truck with the muzzle pointed into the passenger seat floor board.

    If the writer went out west, particularly down in the border states he'd find almost everyone (outside of the larger towns) armed at all times. I carry a knife in my
    pocket at all times and have since I was a pre-teen boy. it's not a weapon, it's a tool
    and so is a firearm. It only becomes a weapon when you use it as one. No different from a rock, stick or tire iron.

    By the way Brock, I see where one of Edgecombe Counties finest got a little trigger happy in recent days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. as long as the armed guy isn't brandishing his arms

    I believe he was referring to this.

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    hanging in a gun rack in the back window of our pickup trucks so we could hunt on the way to and from school.

    When I came back east after many years in Vietnam and the west coast, I asked my friend "Cowboy," who just happens to be my black mechanic - only in Eastern NC :), why no one ever had rifles in the gun racks and he stated because they would be stolen! :) Certainly not the way I grew up.

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    I carry a knife in my pocket at all times and have since I was a pre-teen boy.

    I carry two and remember that my mother taught me that a boy should always carry one.

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    I see where one of Edgecombe Counties finest got a little trigger happy in recent days.

    Yes, rare here and below are two from our local paper. Thanks.


    http://www.dailysoutherner.com/local/x1396858052/Deputy-fatally-shoots-weapon-wielding-man

    http://www.dailysoutherner.com/local/x1667063359/Deputy-s-name-released-in-shooting

    ReplyDelete