Referencing this story in the LA Times where this man and wife with carry permits make a point of having their guns strapped to their hips when out and about shopping, dining etc. I’m not asking a legal question, but one regarding social manners.
If I had a child at a sporting team, and a parent who was not a Police officer or similar authority, was in the stands with a big hog leg strapped to their waist it would piss me off as bad manners. If there was birthday party, and one of the parents helping out had an exposed Glock on her belt this (to me) would be extremely off putting.
How would you deal socially with people that insisted on carrying "everywhere? I mean how could they not know this was intimidating and aggravating people in typically non-carry environments? Or is that the whole point?
It strikes me as a very odd thing for someone to want to do, and maybe aggressive in the sense that they’re trying to make people uncomfortable. There are a lot of guns in New Hampshire, about 1/3rd of adults have them, but you don’t see them. We don’t shoot people with them (NH had the lowest murder rate last year), we rarely let kids get a hold of them, and we have conceal carry laws which people seem to appreciate. The only time I ever see guns besides my parents’ are ones slung across the backs of hunters.
How is open carry going to help their cause, if indeed they’re striving towards more acceptance? It seems to me their methods will just worry people, not familiarize them with firearms.
Not answering a legal question, but AFAIK up here in Washington concealed carry means concealed carry. I think it is a violation to carry openly.
Re the OP: I think it is bad form. They’re trying to make a point. But in many places people who don’t know much about guns beside what they see on reruns of Miami Vice will be made uncomfortable. The open-carry people must know this, but they do it anyway. I think it’s rude.
Perhaps they view it as an analogy to a same-sex kiss in public. It makes people uncomfortable, yes. But is it bad manners?
Oh, but they’re different, I hear you say. No one can get hurt from a same-sex kiss; people can get hurt from being shot by guns.
But that’s a fallacy. While people can be hurt by guns, there is no rational reason to fear that a permit-holder will whip out a gun and start shooting; statistically, permit-holders are LESS likely to be the wielders of unlawful deadly force than the general public. So what this distaste amounts to is an irrational fear – similar to the irrational fear that viewers of same-sex public displays of affection feel. In each case, people are exercising their legal rights, and the objection comes from an irrational fear or prejudice.
Arizona has open-carry. If you own a gun (legally), you can, with a few exceptions, carry it pretty much anywhere in public, as long as it is visible. When I first moved out here, I used to see a fair number of people carrying. Now, not so much, but you still see it occasionally. I find it makes me somewhat wary, because I think the person carrying is trying to make a statement, and I’m not sure what that statement is. I’m a gun owner, and the only time I carry is when I’m camping…
It wouldn’t make me flinch, but I would keep a wary eye out even so. It may be legal, and I support their right to carry openly, but the tradition of openly carrying weapons in this country is in the past. It’s simply not something that is a good idea. Interestingly, where it is legal, you frequently hear stories of police officers stopping the person and demanding identification and/or the gun. A good bit of the time even the police are unaware of the law and some other person ignorant of the law called them with a “guy with a gun” story.
If that’s the way you want to roll, that’s your business, but mine stays concealed, law on my side or not. Period. The last thing I need is to waste an hour explaining the law to the police officer, have him potentially confiscate my weapon so I have to fight to get it back, or put myself in the position where I might be facing the wrong end of a policeman’s service weapon for little more than a show of principle.
Now you’re going to hear stories from the other viewpoint in this thread, but that’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.
Agreed, but why incite that fear? That’s not how to win friends or influence people, especially when passing a handgun ban isn’t too terribly difficult, albeit of questionable Constitutionality.
Keep it in your pants and everybody’s happy, you because you’re carrying and them because they’re blissfully oblivious.
I think it is absurd, rude, and plainly meant to intimidate someone, I don’t know who. I do find publicly display or brandishing of weapons intimidating and unnecessary, because the implication is that they are ready to spray bullets about in a culture where virtually no one openly carries. I don’t have this trouble with teh gays, because I know for a fact that they aren’t going to rape me up the ass if I bend over to pick up my dropped car keys. I’ve lived in San Francisco.
Maybe these people are making a political statement or trying to start a trend. In any event, being somewhat intimidated in public is the price of going out in public. Open carry like this would help me spot people not to chat up, and might inspire me to use my permit to cast a dirty look in public.
Y’know, if someone came into my workplace (gas station / c-store) with a gun on their belt, I believe my first reaction would be to call the police. It seems… wrong to me to just carry a piece like that. Irrespective of the right to bear arms, it just squicks me out.
If the question is how would I deal with such people in social settings the answer is I wouldn’t. They would not be invited into my home, I would not accept any invitation if I knew they were going to be present, and I would leave any social setting that they showed up at. There are all kinds of behavior that might legal, but still scream maladjusted freak.
I didn’t know Arizona allowed open carry; I was standing at the counter of a convenience store when a very large, very heavily muscled guy walked in with a .45 in a shoulder holster. I thought the clerk and I were dead men until the clerk and gun carrier slapped hands and smiled. I asked about the gun and they explained the law to me. I think I aged ten years in those few minutes.
I’m not going to argue with you about shopping or most of the other situations that the OP mentioned. I think you’re right, in those cases.
I’m far, far less happy with the idea of a parent helping to run a young child’s birthday party going around with an openly carried firearm. If the parent were simply observing, that would be one thing, but corralling children is a very demanding task, especially at parties where in my experience the groups of children will push the boundaries of acceptable behavior. It would seem to me that the risks of an inquisitive or frisky child trying to take the gun on a lark or joke (and espcially for those children from families where guns are known only through TV, vice having had good handling techniques drilled into them at a young age) would be unacceptably high, since the person wearing the gun will be focused on a very demanding task, already.
You may accuse me of prejudice, there, but I think that I’m just expressing prudence.
I would think, at least partially, to point out just how irrational that fear is. My dad, a serious gun collector (to the point of being a single-issue voter), is fond of telling one particular gun-related anecdote:
He took a co-worker shooting for the first time and afterwards went back to his friend’s house for dinner. Before eating, my dad gave his friend a lesson in gun maintenance (cleaning, etc.). His friend’s wife was extremely afeared of guns, never having been around one. As he tells it, he laid one of the guns on the table and then called the wife over and had something like the following (overly simplified) exchange:
Dad: So, what’s the gun doing? Wife: Well…nothing. Dad: And, are you scared that it will do something? Wife: No, of course not. No one is doing anything with it. Dad: Exactly.
The next time they went shooting, the wife went along. She ended up becoming a gun enthusiast, moreso than her husband, participating in matches and such. And of course, the moral of the story is that irrational fear is often the fear of the unknown; I’d think that (at least some) people who make it a point of open carry are simply trying to demonstrate the point that just seeing someone with a gun is not something to fear. Is that the only reason people open carry? Probably not. But, as the OP’s article says:
Yeah, but the wife knew the coworker wasn’t going to cause problems with said gun. I don’t know that about Joe Random Open-Carry - or, for that matter, Joe Random Concealed-Carry. I’m not afraid of guns, I’m afraid of assholes who don’t respect what they’re carrying.
And that’s a very fair distinction, and one I agree with: If you’re doing X to deliberately make people uncomfortable, then it’s bad manners, regardless of whether ‘X’ is same-sex smooching, opposite-sex smooching, or packing your six-shooter.
If they banned guns they wouldn’t frequent them. Besides, not all states ban them from bars, and none that I am aware of ban them from banks. The usual places are Post Offices, courthouses, Federal buildings, and schools (primary and secondary). Some place ban from restaurants that serve alcohol in any form, some from restaurants that derive a percentage of income from alcohol, and others, (like Pennsylvania) do not ban them from bars.
Everywhere else unnamed in the statute is fair game. All they can do is ask you to leave, no more.