Open Carry

[ginnyfizz]

Very true, Grannywils. I have never, ever pulled a gun on a person (it IS difficult when you have to keep your firearms locked up as you do in the UK) and am happy to submit to licensing checks. I would however wish that our regulations here in the UK were less strict, such that were I to find an armed robber on my premises I could reasonably defend myself.

 

"Yes, this really is a pistol in my pocket..." (draws) "and no, I am most definitely NOT pleased to see you. So...GIT GONE!"

 

Just trying to make a serious point with a little humour. Such action could be risky, true, but if you go armed to commit robbery, I do not see why you should have any complaint if you happen upon someone who is licensed and probably a much better shot than you are.

[DarkeWolf]

THIS right here, was what I was talking about, with informing the public, and anti-gun public opinion.

I disagree that open carry will cause a massive backlash against gun rights. It might cause a backlash in the beginning, but once people start to get more familiar with it, they'll be more tolerant of gun rights and less likely to buy into the lies and arguments of the Brady Bunch(anti gun groups and individuals).

 

Syco- "The beginning". Ok, see... here's the point that you're not seeing. The beginning happened a long time ago. The beginning is the fight that we are already having to struggle against, just keep the rights given to us by the constitution.

The reasons why the public needs to be educated and shown the truth against the BS spread by the anti-gun paranoids, is because one day, these people could be the ones choosing whether we have that right or not.

I will take the Kansas ballot as my prime example. Right now, it is a battle between the pro and anti in AN OPEN VOTE. Forget the "beginning". RIGHT NOW, the rights of we Kansans is dependent on how many of the pro gunners vote against the anti gunners.

Because RIGHT NOW, that PUBLIC vote decides whether I, and every other gun owner in the state of Kansas remains a legal citizen, or a criminal. That vote determines whether or not we can even LEGALLY OWN a firearm in this state.

 

Now granted, I do understand that your comment is aimed in a different direction than mine. However, what I am saying is that as legal gun owners, we CANNOT think of anything other than the right here and now, and the future. Because right now is when the struggle is going on, and will continue to do so in the future.

 

Aurielius- after consideration, I think that my response to what you'd said earlier, is that it would be a matter of the situation, circumstances, and opinion.

[roquefort]

"With all due respect your knowledge of the effective range of a hand gun is sadly deficient. Effective range of most handguns is between 40-60 meters and spent range between 90-120 meters."

40-60m = 130-200ft; 90-120m = 300-395ft (roughly, but near enough).

 

Like I said, hundreds of feet, unless metres are very much shorter in the US. And to be honest I wouldn't relish being hit in the eye by even a spent round.

 

 

"Even though you present the caveat that you are aware that my comment was tongue in cheek, you then proceed to treat it as a serious statement of fact. Is the concept of a polite society backed by lethal force is an anathema or that just the exercise of 2nd Amendment rights abhorrent?"

 

I wasn't actually addressing your specific comment as it happens, just using it as a jumping-off point to question the validity of the often-expressed (with apparent seriousness) notion that an armed society is a polite society, since I think it's actually wishful thinking.

 

That you personally were writing this tongue-in-cheek is not really the point, since there are others who appear to believe it sincerely.

 

I don't live in the USA, and so don't really care one way or the other about the USA's approach to gun ownership and the Second Amendment, regarding that as a matter for US citizens. It slightly concerns me that there are some people in my country (UK) who want easier access to guns (other than shotguns), hence my interest in this topic.

[Syco21]

Syco- "The beginning". Ok, see... here's the point that you're not seeing. The beginning happened a long time ago. The beginning is the fight that we are already having to struggle against, just keep the rights given to us by the constitution.

The reasons why the public needs to be educated and shown the truth against the BS spread by the anti-gun paranoids, is because one day, these people could be the ones choosing whether we have that right or not.

I will take the Kansas ballot as my prime example. Right now, it is a battle between the pro and anti in AN OPEN VOTE. Forget the "beginning". RIGHT NOW, the rights of we Kansans is dependent on how many of the pro gunners vote against the anti gunners.

Because RIGHT NOW, that PUBLIC vote decides whether I, and every other gun owner in the state of Kansas remains a legal citizen, or a criminal. That vote determines whether or not we can even LEGALLY OWN a firearm in this state.

 

Now granted, I do understand that your comment is aimed in a different direction than mine. However, what I am saying is that as legal gun owners, we CANNOT think of anything other than the right here and now, and the future. Because right now is when the struggle is going on, and will continue to do so in the future.

I believe you may have been severely mislead about the nature of the ballot regarding gun rights in Kansas. The ballot is to (re?)introduce to the constitution the right of the people as individuals to keep and bear arms. Even if the ballot does not succeed, it will not illegalize gun ownership. The ballot initiative is simply to make it so that it's harder, if not down right impossible, for anti-gun laws to be passed in Kansas. I think this is actually evidence of what I was saying earlier and what I said below(something I wrote shortly before discovering the nature of the ballot and thus before writing this portion of the post).

 

While open carry might have been around since the beginning of time, this is the beginning of the offensive for gun rights. Up till just the last few years, gun rights have been on the defensive. It'll be a tough, uphill battle. But I do believe now is the best time to fight that battle, that we have the best chance of succeeding and that it's worth the risk. I honestly believe that open carry will help to normalize guns and gun owners. Because whereas before you didn't really know who owned and carried guns, you were susceptible to the stereotypes portrayed by Hollywood and the Brady Bunch. However, now that people are seeing more and more that gun owners are regular, everyday people, they will not so easily buy into the anti-gun spin. Already more and more people are warming up to pro-gun legislation, as evidenced by the increasing popularity of open carry in states that had previously banned it as well as the increasingly popularity of college carry.

[ginnyfizz]

No need to be sarcastic, roquefort, your remark about "unless metres are very much shorter in the US" is just not helpful and is plain rude.

 

Since I am British and would like easier access to handguns, I have to assume that you are addressing me when you say it concerns you that "there are some people in my country (UK) who want easier access to guns (other than shotguns)hence my interest in this topic."

 

Just WHY exactly should this concern you? Have you made up your mind, probably without meeting any genuine sportsmen and women, or country folk, that we are all a bunch of slavering lunatics who want to go on a Rambo style rampage? You are quite wrong. Yes, there is always the odd bad apple gets through the application process. But if the police do their checks thoroughly, it mostly ensures that the lunatics do not get a shotgun certificate, let alone a firearms certificate which would license them to possess rifles. The only people who use sidearms at the moment are livestock slaughterers, including hunt masters and staff, and veterinary surgeons, as well as your local knackerman/abbattoir slaughterer. And if you think that is fun and for loopy sadists, you should have tried being involved with the foot and mouth cull a few years back, as I was. You had to possess a very stable and controlled mind to focus whilst cattle and sheep crashed to the ground in their hundreds. (I was recording numbers whilst a friend of mine who is a hunt master was wielding the bolt gun, but I have despatched livestock with a pistol and a rifle on occasion).

 

These are people who use handguns in the course of their business, and then there are sporting hand gun users. Like our GB pistol shooting team who are unable to train at home and have to go to France because of the hysteria that you get over handguns here.

 

The people who might hurt you with handguns or guns other than shotguns as you put it, roquefort, already have access to them - illegally. They mostly buy pistols or sawn offs in a pub or back alley and have little knowledge of how to handle them, hence are highly likely to cause collateral damage - sawn offs tend to spray the shot around a bit - as well as hitting their mark. You assuredly would not be in any danger from Ginny with a Magnum.

[DarkeWolf]

 

I believe you may have been severely mislead about the nature of the ballot regarding gun rights in Kansas. The ballot is to (re?)introduce to the constitution the right of the people as individuals to keep and bear arms. Even if the ballot does not succeed, it will not illegalize gun ownership. The ballot initiative is simply to make it so that it's harder, if not down right impossible, for anti-gun laws to be passed in Kansas. I think this is actually evidence of what I was saying earlier and what I said below(something I wrote shortly before discovering the nature of the ballot and thus before writing this portion of the post).

 

While open carry might have been around since the beginning of time, this is the beginning of the offensive for gun rights. Up till just the last few years, gun rights have been on the defensive. It'll be a tough, uphill battle. But I do believe now is the best time to fight that battle, that we have the best chance of succeeding and that it's worth the risk. I honestly believe that open carry will help to normalize guns and gun owners. Because whereas before you didn't really know who owned and carried guns, you were susceptible to the stereotypes portrayed by Hollywood and the Brady Bunch. However, now that people are seeing more and more that gun owners are regular, everyday people, they will not so easily buy into the anti-gun spin. Already more and more people are warming up to pro-gun legislation, as evidenced by the increasing popularity of open carry in states that had previously banned it as well as the increasingly popularity of college carry.

 

Syco- You are actually indeed very correct. The wording on the ballot and some of the statements in regard to this vote were very misleading.

On the ballot it reads something to the effect of "The right of the individual to own firearms". After reading your comment and then digging deeper into the amendment, this is actually a vote to CORRECT an issue that was made in the early 1900's. Where it was enacted (tho hardly ever enforced) that only a malitia could bear arms, and even then, only in defense.

So you're very right in that its actually a fight to gain more freedom to gun owners.

I VERY MUCH appreciate the correction. THANK YOU!

[roquefort]

'Since I am British and would like easier access to handguns, I have to assume that you are addressing me when you say it concerns you that "there are some people in my country (UK) who want easier access to guns (other than shotguns)hence my interest in this topic."'

 

I wasn't addressing you personally at all, and I have no problem with licenced handguns used for competitive shooting. You assume too much.

 

'Just WHY exactly should this concern you? Have you made up your mind, probably without meeting any genuine sportsmen and women, or country folk, that we are all a bunch of slavering lunatics who want to go on a Rambo style rampage?'

 

No. I am "country folk". I live in north Cumbria, surrounded by farmland, and my nearest neighbour (a sporting shooter) was sorely hacked off when handguns were banned some years ago, and I sympathised. As I said, guns for sporting use are OK by me, and I opposed that blanket ban.

 

'..you should have tried being involved with the foot and mouth cull a few years back, as I was..'

 

We're digressing, but I wasn't directly involved. However that sickening business was going on all around me, and a good mate had his handful of sheep rounded up by the army for slaughter & dumping at Great Orton. The sound of captive bolt guns is not unfamiliar to me.

 

My opposition to handguns in the UK is purely to do with the idea of them being carried for personal protection. Assuming that you agree with such carrying, would you also argue for a universal right to carry straight razors, or flick-knives (for example) for personal protection? They would, after all, be less of a potential danger to passers-by.

[Syco21]

I am curious as to why you feel that there'd be so much danger to you if people were allowed the tools to protect themselves from attackers while outside of their homes?

[Vagrant0]

My opposition to handguns in the UK is purely to do with the idea of them being carried for personal protection. Assuming that you agree with such carrying, would you also argue for a universal right to carry straight razors, or flick-knives (for example) for personal protection? They would, after all, be less of a potential danger to passers-by.

Why stop there? Why not allow open display of any bladed weapon? Why does it only have to be limited to guns? If I wanted to walk around with a 7 foot claymore strapped to my back (just for protection) and wander around Walmart, why can't I? When it comes to defense, why guns and not other weapons which can be just as dangerous to anyone who decided to attack you?

[ginnyfizz]

Seven foot claymore? I was under the impression that claymores tend to total well under five feet in length including blade and grip. I will verify this with a friend of mine at the Royal Armouries. Anything that big would not be a very practical form of self defence, now would it? (I can certainly speak to that, since among the many things I have done in the course of my horsey pursuits is wield a cavalry sabre during a Charge Of The Light Brigade re-enactment.) It would certainly be too cumbersome to carry around Walmart or any other supermarket. Believe me, they aren't easy to twirl around.

 

That's why a handgun would be the practical choice. Roquefort, this thread is about hand guns. It is irrelevant and impractical to drag razors and flick knives into the argument. The system of gun licensing is already in place. Arguing for the right to carry bladed weapons as personal protection would bring in the awful prospect that some bright spark in the Elf and Safety Department ivory tower would decide to bring in laws to restrict the ability of chefs, butchers, fishmongers and the average housewife or house husband to potter along to their local catering supplier or cookshop and buy themselves a nice set of Sabatier knives, all the better to produce fresh food that didn't come out of a packet.

 

*Grabs huge French cooks knife and lays about some hapless root vegetables, all the better to make a yummy beef stew....*