Wow, someone actually answered me! Thank you Bricker.
Now my (last, I swear!) question back to you is… wouldn’t the reason it’s happened on so few occasions in modern times possibly be due to carrying remaining concealed? If all at once you could find them easily in such places, would that change things considerably?
Originally Posted by pkbites
*I don’t have a problem with open carry, and I don’t think most OC’ers are trying to be rude or intimidate anyone. It’s just a prefered mode of carry. Those are opinions, though, which won’t be changed by any debate.
*
Disagree all you want, but MY opinions on this issue won’t be changed by any debate.
Yes, I know what you meant, but I guess you didn’t know what I meant.
Note to self: do not post while drinking a 22 of Arrogant Bastard Ale.
Also: Never post to GD again.
If I knew how and could be bothered I’d make this post my sig.
I just want to step in and applaud Bricker and Chimera here. I don’t think I have anything to say that would add to the topic (as of page 3).
I do hope we all remember Dio’s love for and trust in the police to solve all our problems. And I hope we remember it in future discussions with him.
That said, I am curious as to if he thinks carrying a longarm in a locked case around with you is openly brandishing it. As far as I can tell, he does. (See: hunting season, McDonald’s.)
Give me a hard challenge, next time, man.
If I may presume to answer for Bricker:
It is convenient in our state to use the number of concealed-carry permit to see if there is an actual problem with carry in general, as we have a number for those people who have sought and obtained permits. That does not mean that open carry presents problems where concealed carry does not - if it did, we might have seen fit to require a permit for this as well.
As it is, no permit is needed for open carry - even in Arlington, Pyongyang on the Potomac, since state law and not municipal ordinances apply for this. I’m sure if Arlington’s county board had their way, they’d make the county a handgun-free zone - but the state does not allow them to do so.
As others (and maybe you) have said (sorry, too lazy to go back through and attribute properly); Strange that these people who usually hate the police suddenly become the biggest supporters of police when it comes to issues like this one.
The fallacy is that they believe it is the responsibility of the police to protect them, when in fact, there is requirement for the police to protect anyone! The Police are there to attempt to prevent crime from occuring by visible deterence (like Security Guards) and to deal with the aftermath of crimes and attempt to resolve them.
I’ve posted this story many times on this board, I guess one more time will not hurt.
I lived in Minneapolis for 17 years. For 11 years, I had a house in north Minneapolis, in a neighborhood which went downhill rapidly from when I bought the house in the summer of '91 to when I sold it in January 2003. Five times I had to display a firearm to prevent someone from attempting to break into the house while I was quite obviously home. I never fired my weapon, I never pointed it at them. I merely displayed it.
The last time: I woke up to a rhythmic thumping noise. I laid in bed for several minutes attempting to figure out what it was. Finally, I got up and walked over to the stairs, which were right above the back door. At this point I saw that there was someone below, repeatedly throwing his shoulder into my door, attempting to break in. It was a steel core door, so I knew I had some time. I got dressed and went downstairs, walked over to the window 5’ from the door and yelled at the guy to fuck off. He looked at me - was obviously on drugs - and went back to bashing my door.
So I grabbed the largest butcher knife I owned and called 911. While on the phone with them, I yelled out that I was talking to 911. The guy stopped, looked in the window, and went right back to bashing the door. OK, I’m not a small man. I’m holding a knife with a foot long blade and I’m on the phone with the cops. And this doesn’t stop the guy. :dubious:
At that point, I told the 911 operator that I was going to get my gun. She insisted that I remain on the phone. I said there was no way in hell I was going to stay there and let the guy kill me just because SHE wanted me to remain on the line. I suggested the cops might want to get there before I had to shoot the guy.
I went upstairs and had to dig around for a while to find my .357 magnum, because I had recently reorganized and put a lot of shit away. Then I had to find the ammunition. The guy was still banging on my door the entire time. Got the gun, loaded it up, walked down and held it up (barrel up, held sideways to show it clearly) and said “Just wanted you to know what’s waiting for you if you get through that door.”
The guy took off like a rocket. Didn’t run through the open gate, but jumped the 4’ tall fence, stumbled and kept going down the alley.
Forty Five Minutes Later, a single cop car drives down the alley…and keeps right on going!
If I had not had a gun and the guy had gotten in, I would have been dead on my floor for DAYS while that guy and his crackhead friends looted my house and partied over my dead body.
I will never again trust the police to protect me from anything. (Especially not the Minneapolis Police, even moreso after dealing with several retired MPLS cops being my corrupt bosses on my last job!)
Oh, and on the subject of their prowess with firearms, I used to shoot next to a lot of cops at the gun range. Don’t make me laugh. They suck. That’s why you hear of stuff like the gun battle at the MSP airport about 10-15 years ago where the cop fired 21 shots and only grazed the suspect’s arm. If anything, I fear that I’d be in MORE danger from incompetent firearms handling by police officers than by taking the matter into my own hands.
I didn’t say I had limitless trust and faith in the cops, I’m just saying, in a vaccuum, I would trust a cop over some random, fat creep with a gun.
That’s hardly my biggest problem with him.
Besides his dishonest arguments - which we have noted above - I don’t understand how he can criticize the courage (or lack thereof) of others when he has made it perfectly clear that he possesses none of that quality himself.
His behavior in this thread is just one example - but a pretty clear one.
So those of us who choose to carry for whatever reason are being lectured on our manhood by an admitted coward. So put all of that together and I’m inclined to dismiss all of his contributions to this thread, such as they are.
No, I’m just not going to be mocked for my supposed lack of courage simply for not being terrified of going to the grocery store without a gun.
But the one doing the mocking here was you. I didn’t see anyone else doing it. Gun owners don’t generally tell others they should own or carry guns - they understand that that’s a personal choice.
Some of us were mocking you for your idiotic arguments, but you earned that.
Pardon my ignorance - but a snap doesn’t sound like that much of a hindrance to a normal kid, even a younger one. Is there something I’m missing here?
I didn’t say a word until the gun fetishists had to start in with the usual, baseless memes about non gun-carriers being “fearful” of guns.
Brilliant!
Of course, when people carry guns everywhere you don’t have to intentionally shoot people to do them great harm:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/3967975/detail.html
And I’m not sure if it happened in NewHampshire, though I think it did, but there was a case a few years ago of a woman killed by a hunter while she stood on her back porch holding a white oven mitt. He thought she was a white tailed deer. He was VERY sorry afterward, I’m sure that was a great consolation to her kids.
Fair point.
My initial post was a geenric, country-wide observation. As we began to discuss details and statistics, I began to focus on Virginia, for the simple reason that I know it well. But if we were discussing another state, say, right next door in Maryland, it is accurate to say that anyone legally carrying a handgun, openly or otherwise, needs a permit to do so. So the disparity relates to the evolution of the discussion from the general to the specific.
Cite?
Just one post.
Any post.
??
I think that’s the crux of the matter. If I’m just carrying a sack of potatoes around with me, or what have you, I seem eccentric, but harmless. There’s not much danger is someone with questionable judgment having a sack of potatoes. However, the idea of sharing public space with someone whose judgment is suspect, and is equipped to kill me before I could react to the threat, is a troubling one.
Yes. I have several holsters. The snap is designed to require a pull straight up, and a fair amount of force to dislodge it. It’s not something that a kid could simply reach over and undo without some effort, and the force required would be absolutely and immediately noticeable to the person wearing the firearm.