If life provided perfect scenarios few, if any, of us would have to deal with you on these boards. But that is for another forum.
Regardless of occupation, being in a situation where lethal force has to be used to stay alive is a horrible, HORRIBLE thing I wish on nobody.
But if it happens I, like most street cops* realize that law abiding citizens carrying firearms are not a threat to their safety but may in fact be an asset. Not only an asset in a case of emergency, but an armed citizenry makes police work easier. We can only guess the number of robberies, rapes, burglaries, and murders that never happened because potential criminals were fearful of a potentially armed victim. How many more would be prevented if more people were armed in their homes and carrying in public? More crimes prevented, or thwarted in progress=less work for police, and an overall safer society!
*In almost 30 years I’ve yet to read any survey/poll that had less than a strong majority of street cops say they support citizens carrying in public
“Permitted” and “Supposed to” are, in fact 2 different things and does not help this debate.
Federal law HR218 “permits” law enforcement officers to be armed (there are restrictions) off duty. it has nothing to do with California law. Your post was all encompassing, and unless you can prove otherwise, incorrect!
Basically, I’m sorry that many people feel open carry is an attempt to threaten other people. It has been stated repeatedly that many people try to open carry specifically so that the mere presence of a gun does not make people threatened.
Me, I don’t really have a dog in this fight: what I shoot with doesn’t qualify as open or concealed carry. In theory, I think I could walk around most places with it over my shoulder.
But, generally, I’m of the opinion that anything not forbidden is legal, and if it’s legal to do something, someone’s gonna do it. As long as they’re safe about it, I’m not seeing the problem.
Supposed to and required are also two different things. The executive director of the Riverside Sheriff’s Association and others say should be, unless drinking etc.
Well, the pricks in the Columbine shooting were wearing their trench coat mafia outfits. The douches that were involved in the Hollywood Bank Shootout wore black fatigues, trench coats, body armor and masks, and the fuck stick in Omaha was wearing black pants and a black sweat shirt, so yeah some of them do wear costumes. If that is tripping you up too much, pretend I didn’t say it. If I see ANYONE, regardless of what they are wearing running around with a shotgun or a rifle shooting employees or customers of a store all the while disregarding the sign on the door asking people not to carry guns inside, this John Wayne would assume the worst and try first to GTFO. Better?
You mean lay down and give up to the cops? Sounds like a great idea to me.
Well, the pricks in the Columbine shooting were wearing their trench coat mafia outfits. The douches that were involved in the Hollywood Bank Shootout wore black fatigues, trench coats, body armor and masks, and the fuck stick in Omaha was wearing black pants and a black sweat shirt, so yeah some of them do wear costumes. If that is tripping you up too much, pretend I didn’t say it. If I see ANYONE, regardless of what they are wearing running around with a shotgun or a rifle shooting employees or customers of a store all the while disregarding the sign on the door asking people not to carry guns inside, this John Wayne would assume the worst and try first to GTFO. Better?[/quopte]
No, because you’re assuming that you would actually see who was shooting civilians. What if you hear gunshots from one room in a building, run out into a hallway and see three guys with guns. What if you see one of those guys draw a bead on another guy. How can you tell if he’s a mad killer or a hero shooting AT the mad killer?
Then how do the cops know which one is the killer?
I’m not assuming anything. I said if I were to SEE someone with a rifle or shotgun running around shooting employees or customers, I would think the worst. See, even in states where it is legal to carry handguns, most of the time open carrying long arms in malls, as well as shooting people with them, is frowned upon. If I simply hear shooting, if I can, I’m making tracks. GTFO = Get The Fuck Out.
Seriously? Everyone is face down and prone. Cuff em, zip tie them, and figure out who doesn’t belong. Here is a hint, the guy who is on the security cameras shooting people, or the one whose fingerprints match the gun that was used to shoot people is the bad guy…
I did nothing of the sort. You misread my post and thought you’d make mountain out of a molehill. The question is why police officers would be armed at a Police convention, and you know damn well they’d all be carrying.
Even if they had been, then obviously a number of other Columbine students were wearing black trench coats but not shooting anyone. A long coat would of course make it easier to hide a large gun, but long black coats were fairly popular among “alternative” young people in the '90s and lots of kids around the country had them. Heck, I was about the same age as the Columbine shooters and I’d owned a long black coat (technically a duster, not a trench coat) for years at that time, wearing it to school every day in winter. Several of my friends had similar coats. It wasn’t any kind of special criminal costume, it was just a fashion trend.
Choosing not to carry a gun is not a loss of a constitutional right, any more than choosing not to curse loudly at people in the street is a loss of freedom of speech. Choosing not to exercise a right doesn’t violate it.
If when somebody says “I wish you’d just leave that hand-cannon behind when you come and visit the public playground where my children are”, if you hear “I gonna come into your house and steal your gunzzors!!1!”, that strikes me as paranoia.
You are demonstrating complete incomprehension of my reasoning - is it too much to ask that people read for comprehension??
I think it’d be spiffy if people decided not to exercise their right to walk around with guns swinging from their belts like we’re still in Dodge City. Other people think it would be spiffy if people stopped being bothered by the sight of these swinging guns. The positions are exactly analogous - both are wishes that the other people would change their reactions and behavior, and neither speaks of mandating that change in behavior.
Yeah, yeah, I get that the gun-carriers are paranoid freaks who think that the mere suggestion that they voluntarily choose to leave their guns at home is literally equivalent to marching up and trying to wrench the weapons from their cold dead hands. What I want to know is, if nobody can make suggestions to them, what makes them think they have the right to suggest that anybody else change their perspective? I think that guns are dangerous weapons, and I think that the introduction of a gun into a situation inherently increases the potential for bodily harm to the people in the area. You disagree? Fine. You’re wrong - accidents happen. You think that the potential benefits of carrying outweigh the risks? Different debate - and as the guy not carrying the gun, and not knowing you from Adam when I see you in the line at Starbucks, how am I supposed to know you’re not the bad guy, about to rob the place? Clearly bad guys exist - otherwise there’s no benefit to carrying, right? So logically, when I see a person open carrying, that person is an increased threat, because they might be a bad guy. (Or careless or accident-prone - just this once.) That’s a logical position, regardless of any noise gun-toters might make.
Does this mean I want to ban public carry? Not necessarily. But it does mean that I’d prefer it if all the cowboys voluntarily chose to stop flaunting their manly status as a dangerous person. To claim this is an absurdly invalid viewpoint merely shows that you are unable or unwilling to view both sides of the issue.
I found much of this post incomprehensible. I was able to glean from your first sentence that you’re on the “Other people think it would be spiffy if people stopped being bothered by the sight of these swinging guns” side I mentioned. I think the rest of the post can be summarized as “fuck you, I’m gonna flaunt my guns in public anyway” - though it’s hard to be certain.
Funny thing about this is, you have two sides that both think the other is engaging in rude behavior: one is scaring the kiddies, and the other is, er, not being happy that the other is scaring the kiddies? How to resolve this problem?
I will say that faced with the contemptuous “fuck you” attitude you’re presenting, it does make a man wish it was viable in this nation of cowboys to use the law to slap you in the face.