I like concealed carry because I like to know who is extraordinarily bad at risk assessment (Lowes? Really?) and an inflated opinion of their ability to judge when push has really come to shove, and if they are not walking around with their metal dongs flapping in the breeze I can’t laugh at them.
The OP specified concealed carry licenses. Requiring a license is, by definition, gun control, and the people who support unrestricted concealed carry (i.e. no license requirement) are, by definition, opposed to gun control.
I could not find a “these are our policy positions” section of the NRA website. But on the NRA’s legal site (here, click on “right to carry laws”) shows four states that allow concealed carry without a permit. Presumably with the support of the pro-gun side; certainly not with the support of the gun control side.
I’ll give the dogs as that is not unreasonable in the least. I only threw in Marmaduke for comic effect. And I’m all for situational awareness. But not to the point that I steer clear of people going about their ordinary lives.
Do you live somewhere where carrying an exposed sidearm would be considered “ordinary?” Because in my neck of the woods, we’d call that highly unusual.
I wouldn’t be “freaked out” but I would avoid him and I am an American.
Scared? I see guys walking around the street with M-4 carbines every day, you think I’d get scared by some pissant little 9mm? Gimme a break.
No, what I don’t like is people *displaying *their weapon. Ooh, you’ve got a gun. Big fucking deal. It’s the difference between carrying a condom in your wallet and taping a condom to your forehead - gonna do some fukin’ tonight!
So yes, I’m actually in favor of concealed carry. It’s less gauche.
I don’t know if “avoid” is the right word, but yes, interacting with you would make me rather nervous.
Whether as your server, a random stranger or something else.
I’d rather not be near someone carrying a weapon.
Well I thought that Yosemite Sam and Clint Eastwood were popular among the gun nuts: few normal people would think that an old guy talking to an empty chair would make for riveting television for example.
But I acknowledge that there are plenty of neuro-typicals among the gun-toting community. Studies suggest that gun owners who have manned up to the responsibility of attending a firearm safety workshop recently are only 11% more likely to drink and drive and 17% more likely to scarf more than 5 drinks on a single occasion, after controlling for demographics and the patterns are not statistically significant. Gun owners serious enough to attend classes are neither particularly responsible or irresponsible, just normal.
The problem is that AFAIK most gun owners don’t have a problem with handing out firearms like they were candy at gun shows: they think it’s a fine idea if hallucinating mental outpatients and homicidal ex-convicts should be packing their pockets with pistols, or at any rate they don’t see a need to curb such activities. Freedom, you know. Forty percent of legal firearm exchanges don’t require Federal background checks and the NRA loves this.
I wouldn’t have a problem with more well trained and well evaluated citizenry practicing CCW, if it were combined with mandatory federal background checking in practice. Everyone needs a hobby after all.
Atlantic Magazine: The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control)
Different countries, different styles. In Israel, you come out in the street, you will probably see quite a few fully-automatics, Galils or M-16s, carried usually on a shoulder strap (women usually carry either a Glilon or an Uzi - Alessan will correct me if I’m out of date with this, in my time Uzis were usually issued to women). But a handgun is usually carried much less openly, usually in inside-wasteband holsters. Seen some shoulder-holsters too. In fact, I really don’t remember there being a distinction between open carry and concealed carry in Israel. If you have a license, carry it however you want.
In the US, on the other hand, you never see someone carry an AK-47 on a shoulder strap :). But if someone wants to openly-carry, an outside holster is a must. If you have an inside-wasteband one, and it gets covered by a shirt or something, and you have no concealed-carry license, you’re in violation of the law - who wants that?
This is the correct answer.
I find it interesting that otherwise logical people suddenly become unstable when discussing a person’s right to carry a gun. All rationality goes out the door. It’s as if you’re talking to the anti-vaccination folks. It’s purely based on emotion; they have it in their mind that guns are evil, and you are insane for carrying a gun.
It basically comes down to hoplophobia.
And that would be me. Though I have a CHL, I believe in unrestricted conceal carry, i.e. I do not believe a person should be required to get a license to carry a concealed weapon. Having said that, I open carry 95% of the time. I live in Ohio, which means I do not need a license to open carry.
Sorry, that was poorly worded. I didn’t mean that YOU were scared, just that some folks would find it scary. I see how you could have read it that way. When I post from my iPad on the run my posts are often almost like text messages, and are even more confusing than normal. Again, my apologies…the key point I was trying to convey wrt you is that you aren’t an American, and so have a different outlook on things…and then convey that Americans ALSO have issues with civilians who openly carry, as you can see in this thread.
I think you have it backwards. The ones “chipping away” are the ones proposing gun restrictions eh?
Logic tells us that the person not carrying a gun is less likely to shoot us than the person carrying a gun. It’s not just the shooting thing, either. Since carrying a gun is not normal, it is not an illogical assumption that somebody with one hanging off their belt is not normal.
I also avoid people who are wearing black lipstick, who have mohawks, are wearing saffron robes, or carrying swords. They might want to bite me, push a safety pin through my earlobe, ask if I love Krishna, ask me to help them rescue a princess, or ruin me through. You might want to tell me how much you hates that wascally wabbit.
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Registration is a necessary precondition to confiscation.
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I have a Constitutional right to bear arms and an inherent human right to defend myself from harm. If I must ask the Government for permission, then by definition it is not a “right.”
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I object to the *concealed *part. Open carry creates a visible deterrent.
But since we live in a world where criminals carry guns, the question of whether they should is irrelevant. The fact is that they do, and the only thing you can control is what you do to defend yourself.
I trust my ability to handle a gun safely and correctly. It’s other people I worry about.
I’m curious to see how those demographics were controlled, because those drinking stats also sound like “my hometown”–that is, I’d expect that you’d find heavier drinking AND driving and heavier binge drinking AND firearms ownership are all correlated with rural life.
I can’t argue with this, myself. I see no inherent restriction on the freedom to keep and bear arms if such training and evaluation were made at least as available as typical training/evaluation for automobile licenses.
Regarding “fear”, the biggest divide to me seems to be between the people who consider carrying a gun indicative of “fear of being unarmed” vs. those who see it as “preparedness for unlikely but extremely dangerous events” vs. those who see it as “utilizing my rights to their fullest”.
I have a concealed carry permit that I haven’t used in years, personally. Even when I did carry, I never had to draw the weapon and even most of my friends do not know I carried. However, I haven’t had to use the jack in my new car, or the first-aid kit and road flares. I haven’t had to use my homeowner’s insurance.
The actual debate, stripped of pejorative language, seems to be asking where we should draw the line between “reasonable precaution in the face of a low-probability high-impact scenario” and “irrational or fear-driven overreaction to a low-probability scenario”?
Perhaps you might consider how you might cause people like Der Trihs and **RNATB **to trust your ability to handle a gun safely and correctly.
Since that’s the crux of the issue, neh? You’re the “other people” THEY are “worried about”. The more people who trust that the average firearms owner is actually responsible and capable, the less chance their is that firearms will be regulated more strongly.
In my state, CCWs are required to attend training.
Even absent a legal requirement, anyone who would want to carry without being professionally trained is a hazard to himself and everyone around him.
Exactly. I have no doubt that most gun owners are reasonable, responsible people. However, my ability to distinguish between those people and Plaxico Burress on the street is necessarily limited. It’s the same reason I practice defensive driving.