Philosophical response to OC activists

[Totem Polar]

This article has been copied by enough FB friends that I am breaking my standing rule of avoiding using FB as a source and posting it anyways. Regardless of whether one agrees, it stands as one reasoned solution to the issue.

http://www.pqed.org/2014/06/how-shou...pen-carry.html

[BobLoblaw]

Great response. Thanks for sharing.

[RoyGBiv]

I lean towards public shaming.

[Mitchell, Esq.]

I am not going to deal with people's inadequate understanding of civilized behavior in urban/suburban America, combined with rifles/shotguns.

I'd leave too.

[Josh Runkle]

Is there a single instance where OC activists have changed public perception for the positive?

[RoyGBiv]

Is there a single instance where OC activists have changed public perception for the positive?

I doubt their strategy has been 100% without success. Unfortunately, I suspect they are rallying more folks like themselves. More people who "want what they want", without having the knowledge or skills (or restraint) to actually move the ball towards their stated goal instead of scoring points for the other team.

[JRB]

I have to say I fundamentally disagree with that response, and honestly it reads like an educated man trying to mask his own politics with some sort of intellectual-sounding rationale so loved by anti-gun echo chambers & get repeated by them ad nauseam because the facts are not on their side, so intellectual-sounding rationale and idealism are their only possible arguments.

It's cleverly done, though, in that such a response is a win-win for the hoplophobes.
If it becomes effective in dissuading OC, the conclusion is that a fear response to all weapons ever is justified.
If it isn't, it successfully makes OC just that much more counterproductive and disruptive to daily life, and encourages other businesses to adopt no-OC standards.

Plus it shows an understanding of public behavior - if a few people start moving immediately to the doors, the lemming effect of the average mouth-breathing public will encourage everyone else to do the same. This guy's idealized response is counting on the lemming effect to make a given group of people seem more anti-gun. A decent group leaves that actually disagrees with OC, other folks mistake that immediate action as perpetuated by something else, more people leave, and the Huffpo article will tout that a whole restaurant full of people were so sick of these violent inbred rednecks that everyone got up and left instead of tolerating a weapon in their midst, and the restaurant gleefully charged everyone's tab to some otherwise regular guy that decided to carry his Serpa-clad XD-M on his belt that afternoon.

The second reason I can't agree is the assertion that once you disagree with another individuals actions, and a somewhat-valid argument exists about concern for your safety, that group or individual's right to exercise those rights justifies leaving immediately and charging your bill to that person or group. Applying that same logic and behavior toward a group of young men wearing traditional middle eastern clothing & carrying a backpack would only elicit cries of horrible, shallow racism and yet both arguments are equally baseless in most instances - dipkittens with condition 1 Bubba-built SKS's at the low ready in burrito joints notwithstanding.

Ultimately it's a perpetuation of the hoplophobic misconception that all guns carried for any reason = bad/evil/dangerous/unsafe. While he mentions the absence of a legal standard for judging intent (IMHO, any legal standard for that would only make things worse) he uses that leverage to justify a continued baseless fear response based on nothing beyond the presence of a firearm. That is ultimately a loss for us, whether it dissuades open carry or not.

Is there a single instance where OC activists have changed public perception for the positive?

The average person in public assumes a man with a slung rifle in civilian/tacticool attire is 'another one of those OC kittenheads' instead of 'active shooter'.
A very small improvement, but improvement nonetheless as plenty of non-gun folks that see a guy with a rifle don't immediately conclude that a shooting/murder/etc is in progress.

It's still a counterproductive mess for all the reasons mentioned on this site and elsewhere. Speaking personally, if I see someone dressed business casual with a holstered sidearm in a good retention holster, I view that as the best possible type of OC and I could honestly see some validity to the argument the hard-core OC weenies have about 'conditioning' the public to accept firearms as commonplace and not particularly noteworthy.

But when I see guys in Moron Label t-shirts with AR's and SKS's at low ready in normal eateries, I just want to go full-NCO mode on why they're carrying at low ready, why is there weapon on fire, etc.
For that reason I'm grateful that I've yet to see it happen in person.


All told, I believe that OC is something that we need to deal with 'internally' as fellow gun enthusiasts, and if we want to change how OC is performed we either need to lead by example or start talking to these OC'ers and start taking the painful time to explain to them just how their actions are at best 'too much, too fast'.
Because if we let the anti's start dictating the response to OC, those cards will not fall in our favor nor will any legislative solutions to that 'problem' be lacking in unintended consequences for all of us.

[GardoneVT]

Is there a single instance where OC activists have changed public perception for the positive?

I'd say no, because for every person they convince there's three in the background convinced all gun owners are insane retards with no regard for others.

I worked a job once in a right to carry state, and one of the customers was openly carrying a Rock Island Armory 1911 in some abortion of a nylon holster. At that time California had just banned open carry, and in light of that I was determined not to be the guy who said to a patron he couldn't carry a gun.

That changed in a hurry, when Mr Rock Island pulled out his gun to play show and tell as other customers were in the store:and, simultaneously, raising my hackles while he carelessly lasered everyone in the building. Which included another customers two kids and wife.

It didn't help that the dude looked like Waingro from Heat. Let me say it was a lot of fun stopping my work to engage an openly armed and disheveled man to determine if I needed to put my back to cover and pull my concealed Beretta. Fortunately he was a nice enough fella, but that doesn't excuse the fact that he scared the daylights out of my paying customers - and with some justification. What's the social protocol when an open carrier lasers your family with their negligently handled weapon? Do you shoot them as the law permits? Do you initiate a conversation with a low intellect gun owner which could turn confrontational ?

Ultimately, the law of averages means someone's gonna see an open carrier one day and assume the worst, and when that happens it will be all over TV as proof all American gun owners are kids who need their ballistic toys taken away by Daddy Government.

[Robinson]

Ultimately, the law of averages means someone's gonna see an open carrier one day and assume the worst, and when that happens it will be all over TV as proof all American gun owners are kids who need their ballistic toys taken away by Daddy Government.

Yup.

[NickA]

Is there a single instance where OC activists have changed public perception for the positive?

I've never heard of one dropping dead while OC'ing, but it could have happened.