See, when I see this guy I want to know what caused him to be so scared and paranoid of department stores. I also want to talk to a prostitute or perv or coffee just to see how they got to this point in their life, where the simple act if popping into a store made them want to carry 2 weapons. Some disconnect had to have happened in this guy’s life. Walking around with fear and suspicion just isn’t normal or healthy.
Well, if you watch the video, you’ll see that he carries his weapons “To protect *children *from criminals, drug lords, cartels, and other evil men” (paraphrasing). So he clearly isn’t very good at interpreting the world around him to come up with a reasonable picture of the risks he’s presented with.
In other words, he’s one of the crazies.
That’s an interesting quote; what thread did it come from?
It depends. Is there a Constitutional right to bear clubs? Can I carry one into a JC Penney? (Of course, I could visit the sporting goods department and grab a baseball bat.)
Don’t be silly; he’s carrying the gun to protect people from drug cartels.
Seems to be working.
Ya know, you’re right. I didn’t see a single cartel member there - unless they were hiding. Obviously we all need to carry ar-15’s to protect us from the growing threat of drug cartels invading our department stores.
We can’t let them get the fantastic daily deals!
I wonder what would have happened if another gun owner with a cc permit was shopping near the door when they see this moron walking in with an uncased assault rifle. I think it could easily end with someone injured at the very least.
I get the impression that anyone other than a cop who has to carry a gun around with him does so because he spends his life in a state of abject terror. He’s doing it because he’s afraid.
What a ridiculous generalisation.
Scared or paranoid, one of the two. You are not in a war zone, you are going to a department store, what do you think the risks are? I understand wanting a gun on your home, but walking around with one? Yeah I never understood that. If the gun is to protect yourself or perhaps other people around you, then I’ll say if you don’t feel safe in a department store (for example) then don’t go there. If carrying the gun is to make a political point, well then don’t be surprised if it sends out a different message than you might have hoped. Personally I see this guy walking with a gun, I’m assuming he is unstable and I can’t walk away fast enough.
Do people who carry a jerrycan of gas in the car live in terror/paranoia? People who keep a first aid kit in the car and house? A fire extinguisher?
A gun is just the same as these contingencies. One doesn’t need to live in terror of fire or suspect their neighbours are arsonists to think a fire extinguisher is a sensible investment, and a gun is much the same.
Your examples are either in your home or in your car, which is extension of your home. I’m talking about walking around with it. Different situation sorry.
I doubt you’ll get a good answer off one of them at least. Might make a few other people want to ask you the same question, in fact. 
I got it drummed into me as a kid never to point any kind of gun at anyone, and I’ve never even held a real one. I pointed an antique revolver with no barrel at my uncle, who used to do target shooting, and that got me a lecture on ‘never ever point any gun at someone you don’t want to shoot’. Anyone who doesn’t get that basic level of caution certainly shouldn’t be wandering around armed in public.
There’s a big difference between having a first aid kit, or a (safe) jerrycan of gas, in your car, and carry a rifle strapped to your back in a department store.
Nobody is going to get freaked out because you’ve got a first aid kit. Or a fire extinguisher.
But walking into a department store with a large, instantly visible gun is quite possibly, and understandably, going to cause a panic.
My biggest worry in a case like this would be that some other person Exercising His Second Amendment Rights is going to decide that he has to do something about this, and hold the other guy at gunpoint, or worse.
Really not a good situation.
No, it isn’t. Not legally and not in any other way. You don’t lose the right to protect yourself if need be just because you’re not in your home.
@ Saintly, to put it bluntly, it’s not his problem if people freak out. So they’re not used to seeing someone carry an assault rifle - doesn’t mean it’s not allowed. I can certainly understand WHY they’d freak out, but considering we live in a rather large society, we have to accept that others may want to do things that make us uncomfortable.
Another gun owner could certainly do what you say, but in that case they’d be in the wrong, not this guy. We can’t just ban everything that might lead others to freak out or overreact.
So he is not carrying for safety, he is carrying simply to make a political point. We do ban things like fake bomb threats and yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre. We ban some things that might cause overreaction. He may be making a point that is crystal clear to him, but that point to the rest of us is open to translation. So to people like me, he looks scared and/or paranoid.
He’s not a safety nut carrying a fire extinguisher on his back, that would look foolish. It’s an aggressive move towards the people around him. Aggressive actions towards innocent people can be banned quite easily.
Fake bomb threats and crying wolf-fire serve no purpose except to scare. Carrying a gun does serve a purpose.
He did absolutely nothing aggressive. People could choose to interpret it as aggressive, but then you could choose to interpret anything you like as aggressive. Your choice to interpret it as such does not make it fact, and even if you honestly believe it is aggressive - well, tough. The guy’s right to defend himself from an actual threat supersedes your right to not be subjected to imaginary threats. And really, if you think carrying an empty gun is an aggressive threat, maybe you’re the paranoid one.
Not on Halloween, it wouldn’t.
Let’s see…
Fire extinguisher.
First-aid kit.
Tow rope.
Flashlight.
Tool belt.
Spare batteries.
Road flares.
If the law says you have the right to openly carry a weapon, then you should be able to openly carry a weapon. If you can’t actually do what the law says you have the right to do then you don’t really have that right. He’s making a point.
The U.S. is a very funny country. It prides itself on freedom. But then freedom in the U.S. often means that you are free to be and do whatever you want, as long as you look and act like everyone else. That’s not real freedom.
We have the right to bear arms. You may or may not agree with that right, but that’s the current law. So here’s a guy exercising his legal right, but because it’s not something so-called “normal” people do, he must be bad and he must be stopped. He didn’t threaten anyone. He didn’t harm anyone. He didn’t do anything illegal. And yet everyone is throwing a fit.
Walking around with a rifle in JC Penny doesn’t bother me. Not practicing good gun safety bothers me though. I will very strongly agree with those criticisms. With freedom and rights comes responsibility, and not following the basic rules of gun safety is definitely not being responsible. I don’t have any problem with all of the posts in this thread that are based on gun safety. Those, IMHO, are perfectly legitimate complaints.
But the people who complain that “ooh, guns scary” and that he’s in their face, he’s not in your face. He’s in public. He didn’t come knocking on your door. You don’t want to see guns in public because you don’t like guns. In other words, you don’t want someone to have the right to do something just because it’s not something you like and isn’t something you would do. The freedom to do anything you want as long as you don’t do anything we think is weird isn’t freedom. It’s conformity.
Two quotes come to mind:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana
(I think those quotes are correctly attributed, but I’m not a quote geek)
OP asked what would possess someone to carry like this, I hypothesized fear and/or paranoia. Yes a person should be able to protect himself and his family in his house and car, although I feel that if he feels the need to carry in the local JC Penney, then he should look within and honestly calculate the risk he’s taking.
Personally, I’d rather have open carry than concealed carry, that way I know who to walk away from. I do believe carry a gun is aggressive. A) I don’t know if the gun is loaded just by looking, I’ve never carried such a weapon and B) If I saw a person like that, my 1st thought “who is he here to take out” not “who is he here to protect”.
There is no doubt in my mind that no matter the weapon, he is openly showing it off to intimidate. Stalking someone by simply driving by their house over and over again, will cause the cops to come and have a little discussion with you. While it’s not illegal to operate a car, it is very possible to do it in an intimidating way. It’s not illegal to own a gun, but it’s very possible to show it off in an intimidating way.