Who said that? Certainly not me. My point in making that comment, was to add a neglected number of people who you may have passed on the street who’re potentially carrying firearms unbeknownst to you. And the neglected category are the ones you should fear above all others. The only folks with guns who’re demonstrably predatory - violent criminals.
A statement of fact that you’re prepared to defend, no doubt? I ask not because I’m terribly interested in whatever biased fantasy you might dream up, but only because this is GQ. Although in all honesty, this thread is way out of GQ territory. I won’t be responding here anymore unless it gets moved elsewhere, so don’t spend too much time documenting that paranoid fantasy of yours.
Pennsylvania Constitution Article I, Section 21 The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned. Crandolph, exactly what is your definition of “bearing arms”? Having a firearm locked in a box at home doesn’t sound like “bearing” to me. Where in your state constitution does it say this means the citizens right is only to defend themselves in their homes, and the right ends once the citizen leaves their property?
It appears to me that open carry is legal in Pennsylvania. What would you do if you encountered that? Hide under a rock?
And I’d like to know your feelings about HR218. Does it bother you that police officers on vacation may be walking around you armed, even though they have no law enforcement authority there? Or does the fact that they’re government employees somehow make them more trust worthy than the plumber that lives down your street?
So your point is that people only should have the right to use a gun to protect themselves in their homes, and not in public? According to the Department of Justice, in 2004 approximately 75% of violent crime took place outside the home. Carrying a handgun around Philadelphia would allow me to protect myself there. And I do have the right to do that:
Odds are you have never had and will never have a house fire, yet I bet you have fire extinguishers and fire insurance. Same reasoning for those of us who carry a handgun–better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
The 2 guys that damn near smashed my skull in with a piece of metal during an attempted mugging back in '93 didn’t have guns. I’m a bigger guy trained in defense tactics and I still couldn’t fight them off. Babble all you want about not needing a gun. Had I not had a Ruger P89 that scared them off, I may have ended up brain damaged…or worse!
At that time I rarely carried off duty. I Loved that Ruger, but man, it was a bitch to conceal: big & heavy. The only reason I had it on me that day was because I had been to a training session earlier in the day and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving in the car while I went to do some personal business. When these 2 pricks came out of nowhere & jumped me I had initially fought pretty good. I smahed ones nose in, and got good shot in the throat of the other. I also sprayed some cn tear gas (we didn’t carry pepper spray yet) but it didn’t do much but piss them off. They had a piece of metal that looked like a crowbar without the forked hook at the end and were whopping the living shit out of me with it.
Begining to end the whole thing lasted about 45 seconds but after the first 15 of me fighting the good fight I was thereon getting my ass kicked. Badly!
When I pulled that Ruger out they took off running. And I’m damn lucky they did because **IT WAS UNLOADED! **:eek: Like I said, the only reason I had it was because I had been to a training session a few hours earlier, and I had fired all range ammo at that. I had no rounds on me what so ever. None!
I hardly ever carried off duty at that time, but after that incident I went out and got a small off duty piece. It’s been 13 years and I’ve yet to have this happen again, but I always carry a pistol, pepper spray, and an off duty baton.
So, you had a gun on you and still had the shit knocked out of you? Yes, I can see how that was useful… of course if your assailants had guns and you pulled that unloaded one on them you’d likely be dead.
I can assure you that if someone were walking around “open carry” here that it would induce more panic than calm and people would likely call the police. It’s simply not normal for people to see anyone carrying a gun here unless they’re police or a criminal committing a criminal act.
Let’s not see stats on whether or not people know their assailants, let’s see some numbers on all of the people who defended themselves with legally registered handguns on the street in Philadelphia in the last 10 years. This is your positive assertion of how carrying a gun makes people safer in my city in GQ so let’s see the numbers. How many of those 28,000 permitted people have warded off criminals in the past ten years, just to pick a range? Remember, they live here every day, so that should be plenty of opportunity to protect themselves as you claim you’re doing when you swing through.
I’ve worked in the tourism industry here in the summer a few yearss when people are wearing T-shirts and shorts, I have seen tens of thousands tourists here and at no time have I ever seen any indication that any one of them was carrying a weapon so that they could go visit the Betsy Ross House or buy a cheesesteak. Please show me any citation that people commonly come here on vacation with weapons!
Once again, I’m not an anti-gun crusder. In addition to the reasons I cited above as to why people have the right to own a gun, I could add protecting yourself from a tyrannical domestic government or target shooting. And again, neither of those reasons are forwarded by visiting Philadelphia with a handgun. Do you have a right do so? You do. Is it total overkill (no pun intended)? Yep.
If we want to extend the fire metaphor this isn’t carrying fire insurance or having a fire extinguisher, but walking around town with a fire ax and a tank of oxygen. Firemen carry those because they are likely to encounter fires, and police carry guns because they are likely to encounter crimimals (even then it’s very rare for them to have to fire their weapons!). If you’re not looking to buy or sell crack, or you’re not looking to respond to 911 emergencies you’re as likely to need the gun as the tank of oxygen and the ax. You might encounter a fire too, but come on…
I have respect for police as professionals with training and some degree of restraint who are called specifically to trouble scenes for a living, and who have to account to superiors for every missing round. Yes, I do trust those people relatively more than Joe Blow who gets nervous visiting the city. My police also live here and work here and know the difference between a dangerous situation and a horrible misreading of the social terrain which could get innocent people shot.
I manage to leave the house every day - living in this big American city that seems to scare some of you - without carrying a billy club, gun and pepper spray (! - what, no tazer? Lacking a tazer, do not feel unsafe? How about chainmail?) so perhaps I’m not the one who should be accused of holding “paranoid fantasies.”
Incidentally I’ve been all over the Third World, lived and worked in Bosnia and a number of other places where people walk around openly with weapons, and although I don’t get freaked out by the site of them I realize that they represent more of a chance of misunderstandings to escalate into serious violence than they do the chance of keeping reasonably-acting people safe.
It is nearly impossible to estimate how many defensive uses of handguns there are in the United States each year. I have seen estimates ranging from 25,000 to 2.5 million. The fact is that most do not end with shots being fired, so do are not recorded in the statistics.
I do not see why anyone needs to justify to you why they carry a handgun. As long as they are not breaking the law, it is not harming you.
Like most anti-gunner your extemely ignorant of the law.
Simply having a physical altercation is NOT justification for threatening leathal force.
It wasn’t until I had been knocked almost senseless that I had a reasonable belief that I was in danger of death or great bodily harm. Ignoramuses like yourself think people carrying are whipping it out at every instant. If you had any training in defesive tactics you would know why it took a bit for me to draw.
of course if your assailants had guns and you pulled that unloaded one on them you’d likely be dead.
Which is exactly why I changed and started carrying (loaded) all the time. Of course, it is legal for me to carry. The bad guys will carry whether it’s legal or not.
I can assure you that if someone were walking around “open carry” here that it would induce more panic than calm and people would likely call the police. It’s simply not normal for people to see anyone carrying a gun here unless they’re police or a criminal committing a criminal act.
According to what I’ve read about the law, there is no violation for open carry in Pennsylvania. If it’s not illegal exactly what would the police there do? I suggest you visit opencarry.org. You’ll find that open carry there is more common than you think. Of course, they may not be carrying in the suburb of Fantasyland or on Lollipop Lane.
I manage to leave the house every day - living in this big American city that seems to scare some of you - without carrying a billy club, gun and pepper spray (! - what, no tazer? Lacking a tazer, do not feel unsafe? How about chainmail?) so perhaps I’m not the one who should be accused of holding “paranoid fantasies.”***
At this time I am not allowed to carry a Taser. I wouldn’t carry one off duty if I could as it does not fit easily in one pocket as my pistol/pepper spray/baton do. Interesting how you call an off duty cop paranoid, even though he has presented past experience as to why he does. I have respect for police as professionals with training and some degree of restraint who are called specifically to trouble scenes for a living, and who have to account to superiors for every missing round. Yes, I do trust those people relatively more than Joe Blow who gets nervous visiting the city
Intersting. Cops tend to have higher degrees of depression, divorce, alcoholism, and suicide than most other professions. You sure you feel comfortable with them carrying off duty? Perhaps we should be disarmed too. My police also live here and work here and know the difference between a dangerous situation and a horrible misreading of the social terrain which could get innocent people shot.
You need to read HR218. It allows off duty officers to carry in all 50 states. How comfortable are you with officers from 1000 miles away with no enforcement authority walking around your city armed?
Once again, I’m not an anti-gun crusder.
:dubious:
I’m neither an “anti-gunner” nor ignorant of the law. I certainly know that people can get a permit to carry a gun with zero “defensive training”, which is likely just as well for them as it appears to consist of drawing an unloaded weapon after getting a beating… Had you been beaten further the same violent people could easily have made off with your gun. “Great.” On the other hand I fear that most people who feel they shouldn’t leave the house without a gun are going to err on the side of not using enough restraint with an actually loaded weapon.
I think I’ve clearly stated that I see a number of scenarios in which it’s reasonable for someone to have a gun but I don’t think simply visiting the city is one of them. Visiting the touristy areas of the city is a ridiculous one; it’s about as safe as can be. This isn’t the public perception but it’s true. I’m talking here as a person who has enjoyed firing a variety of weapons on a range for the hell of it, and who has lived in this city for decades. But I don’t own a gun myself and don’t see the need. There’s a difference between having a right to something and that thing being useful or positive in a particular situation. Finding that happy medium doesn’t make me any more of an anti-gun zealot than suggesting to someone that they stop shouting “TITS!” at a funeral makes me an anti-free speech zealot.
I’ve also stated that you have a right to carry a gun but I don’t think it’s wise or useful to do so walking around this city, especially in an open fashion. It is considered provocational whether you like it or not. It’s that disturbance of the peace and escalation that might arise from that situation which becomes dangerous here.
This is not a “gun culture” place other than for pockets of criminals in certain neighborhoods. This isn’t Texas and it’s not Potter County; if people see you carrying a weapon here, you’re the one who will be considered the “lone nut” and someone will call the police. I would attract your attention to this Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association chat post:
I see that no one has any stats on people with permits to carry successfully defending themselves on Philadelphia streets. Let’s try anecdotal evidence then. Assuming there are 28,000 people with permits who leave the house once/day(this isn’t even counting the hundreds of thousands of legally heat-packing tourists I’m oblivious to, which should work to your advantage), that gives us at least 10,220,000 “opportunities” for those people to defend themselves with legal firearms annually.
Now, can we show one anecdotal instance of this happening per year in each of the last ten years? I’d take 10 instances out of what I assume would be about 102,000,000 “opportunities” in the last decade give or take, and I’ll spot you all the tourists. (It would in fact be interesting to read one anecdotal account of any tourist here successfully defending themselves against attack with a legal firearm; I do go on vacations and such and could’ve missed a news item, but don’t ever recall reading or seeing one of this sort …)
If we can’t show that any given Philadelphian have that annual 1 in 10 million or so chance to defend themselves annually then I think maybe we can admit that coming to Phiadelphia with a gun is a bit of overkill.
Regarding that simply carrying a gun is not sufficient reason for the police to stop someone:
I am surprised that your cite says that the Philadelphia police will fabricate charges because someone who was licensed was opening a handgun. Seems like a recipe for an unlawful arrest lawsuit.
I think that part of carrying a handgun is being aware of your surroundings and avoiding places that you are likely to need it. Also surely you agree there is crime in your city. Why doesn’t each of those have the potential of being prevented by the carrying of a handgun?
When you learn to read go back and look at my post as to why I had an unloaded weapon. When one goes to training [for the department I work for] one is commanded to arrive with NO ammunition. Range ammo is used, and only on the firing line. Hence, when one leaves the training one also has an unloaded weapon.
On the way home I needed to stop and do some personally business. I felt uncomfortable leaving it in my car, even locked in the trunk. So I packed it.
THAT is why I had an unloaded weapon.
Your inference that I’m stupid for carrying an unloaded gun is really starting to piss me off. When you learn to read you’ll understand why I was carrying that pistol, and why it was unloaded. You’ll also see that the entire thing took less than a minute. If you’d ever been in a real streetfight you’d know why it took 45 seconds before I was able to pull that weapon.
Your idea that only in “gun culture” places are people CCW is a fantasy. Folks
are legally carrying all over the place, including Philly. And yet your world hasn’t ended, has it?
Bensalem is in the suburbs, neither in the City nor County of Philadelphia. It’s in Bucks County, where I’m sure more people have guns. They also tend to have one heck of a whole lot more money and property than people in the city.
I’m familiar with the “gays carrying guns” article which appeared in the Philadelphia Weekly. I read that article when it came out (it was a cover story with a pink uzi on the cover; kinda attracts the eye…) I have to say that I found the claim of pipe-wielding youths chasing the gay gun activist down the street (we don’t know which street) to be a bit convenient when I read it the first time. 13th St when the (gay) bars let out, and for about an hour after, is a very busy thoroughfare and packed with gay people and transvestites. A group of youths going there and picking out *one guy * as a/the “faggot” (this is like going to Iceland and saying “Hey it’s a WHITE GUY - get him!”) … then announcing that they’re going to “get him” to give him the opportunity to run… and him outrunning the gang to his car (seems strange that in a densly packed area with a lot of open businesses this would be the first place to run) … and not only beating them to his car but having enough time to unlock it and pull a gun… at the time this made me emit a huge :dubious:. That’s far from a bad neighborhood and it’s simply not normal to have gangs of pipe-wielding youths running rampant. In fact there are no other reports of gangs of youths going to 13th St. to gay-bash… apparently the one and only time this has happened in a good number of years they happened to have picked a gay gun activist out of the crowd - what are the odds? Curious as to whether or not a police report was filed on that one, and the Weekly isn’t really known for it’s hard-hitting investigating journalism (free weekly) … but OK, I’ll credit it anyway.
Logan’s in Philadelphia, we don’t know from that article if the guy had a permit or if he’s a resident of the city, but both seem likely and we can credit that. I have no clue why any of you as a visitor would be walking around Logan of all places as that’s miles from anything of tourist interest and a depressed neighborhood where one would expect to find more street crime.
OK, so that’s 2 instances of (at least self-reported) successful self-defense by the law abiding in the city in the past decade of the sort we’ve been arguing about. Thus far that gives a resident of the city about a 1 in 51,000,000 chance at using the gun successfully for its intended purpose over a decade assuming people leave the house packin’ every day and do leave the house every day, remaining in Philadelphia.
Still waiting for the news item in which the tourist in Center City (this is all but redundant, not much reason for tourists to be elsewhere) needs the gun. And has one.
As far as the police: it should be pretty clear from their behavior that walking around with a gun here is considered both unusual and considered more likely to do harm than good. No, it doesn’t look like this is legal. Yes, it does look like this approach violates rights. But it is the practice, and I’m not delusional about how carrying a gun is regarded here. You would be the one considered a danger to the community, and maybe to yourself. The buzzword to get a 911 call answered at top priority here is “gun.” If the Philadelphia Police considered the general public carrying firearms to be an effective crime-fighting method that brought more order than chaos they would react differently. A question becomes why you think you know more about this than the local police.
Yes, the question was answered quite well. It should have died days ago but for the hijack by Crandolph, but what the hell, it’s been a while since we’ve done this. What’s it been, three whole days? :rolleyes:
Actually if it weren’t for me I don’t believe you’d now what actual, on-the-ground Philadelphia Police response to open carry is, and from a gun owners’ website no less.
Maybe you’d like to write to the fellow who runs the PA Gun Owners Association website and tell him he’s not credible.
I’m still waiting for this flood of (even anecdotal) data on all of the crimes that were warded off in Philadelphia by people walking down the street concealed (or open) carry with permits. Thus far even without spotting myself a single tourist and crediting what I find to be a hard to believe tale from the gay gun advocate (this should have been a major story here with dozens of witnesses had it happened - there are also police stationed at the location this is supposed to have happened at every night in order to protect gays from bashing specifically) I figure about a 1 in 51,100,000 chance of successful defense if those 28,000 people do carry every day. If we do get another 8 cases verified in the past decade that’d give us about a 1 in 10,200,000 chace of the gun being useful.
If we’re going to arrange our behavior according to those odds then you probably never want to get into a car again, although you might consider air travel with major carriers. And don’t forget lottery tickets, those are beginning to look like a good investment…
I wasn’t asking about open carry. I have no intention of carrying openly anywhere at any time. Therefore, your answer in the context of GQ was irrelevant.
The question, as posed, was this:
Note the word concealed. Further note that your opinions on my psychological state or my requirement do demonstrate “need” were not pertinent, and were therefore superfluous.
Indeed. That doesn’t change the fact that Crandolph started the debate with this:
OK, a couple of days later still waiting for the data that suggests any carry gives one a better than 1 in 50,000,000 or so chance of defending oneself here…
This aint what you are looking for, but while I lived in Philly I personally was never asaulted. Why? Well, I think it was because I walked with an air of confidence. I looked unafraid. Why? Well, I was packing. The gun was not obvious, but it gave me self confidence that made “bad people” eager to choose another target.