Open Carry

[Surenas]

Political rallies are the best to bring guns to. That way everyone can see my baby (when I get it of course).

I know that from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It's the show up of the young Hezbollahim during the often daily funeral services. They take heart from the shooting mass and sing their Shuhada song in an endless loop, sucking guts for their actions to come - the terror against Israel. Nothing good comes from people that gather together, armed and trigger-happy.

[MeNoChinese]

Political rallies are the best to bring guns to. That way everyone can see my baby (when I get it of course).

... Nothing good comes from people that gather together, armed and trigger-happy.

 

Of course nothing can be good either when armed men gather and are trigger-happy.

[Chaosblade02]

I think you might be missing the point. Obviously a lack of guns does not mean a lack of crime. Having stricter gun laws also never really affects the criminal element. Crime happens even when guns are not available, guns just make it easier to commit crimes, both violent and non. If people were desperate, they would go around robbing stores at fist-point... They might not get very far doing so, but there would undoubtedly be those who would try.

 

Additionally, the point of training with a firearm is more about being able to practice trigger discipline and NOT shoot unless absolutely necessary. No, training isn't needed to kill anyone, as evidenced by the thousands of accidental deaths caused by children finding their parents handguns every year, but that does not mean we should let anyone who wants to carry around a weapon in broad daylight. Even in the "wild" west, this usually ended badly. By requiring training and some reasonable background check, not only do you have a means of tracking who bought weapons if there is ever a crime committed with that weapon, but you make it harder for unstable individuals to acquire those weapons. No, it still won't stop the criminal element, but it requires everyone else to either deal with the criminal element (which requires personal connections, money, and a chance of being killed yourself) or dealing with the the regulatory laws which are in place.

 

As for the topic of this debate, it is not about the right to own a gun, but rather arguing if it is right to be able to go carrying that weapon in open view everywhere you go. If you cannot understand the implications of each and how they differ, then any sort of debate on the matter will only lead to a meaningless argument of semantics.

 

I would however like to point out that indications suggest that:

In Texas it is already fully legal to openly carry a long gun, loaded or unloaded and there is no license for it, mandatory or otherwise.

Doesn't seem to be the case as just recently there was an instance of a shooter threat on a Texas college campus simply because one of the students was walking around with a prop. Clearly the law in this case does not apply to either private, semi-private, or reasonably populated places. Had the threat been real, and what you say about being able to openly carry a weapon be true, this action would not have been reported and someone would almost certainly be dead.

 

After all, if seeing armed individuals becomes commonplace, it becomes harder to know of a potential threat until AFTER someone is dead. Sure, that person may be gunned down by a fellow student after the action has occurred, but that is a little late. Having multiple armed people who don't know what is going on can also lead to a chain-reaction of deaths as people shoot the person who happens to have shot the gunman, or similar. If you stumble down a hall with your weapon drawn and come across 2 armed students pointing their guns at each other and a third one dead, how likely will you be able to know who did what, much less who won't end up taking advantage of the confusion caused by your arrival and start shooting. No, a lockdown situation doesn't necessarily mean lives are saved, but at least in those instances it is clear who is the threat.

 

As for your comment on security... The men involved were doing what they were told to do. If you want to blame anyone, blame the security company for not empowering those under their contract. The argument about security being there simply for the sake of discouragement instead of action is another debate entirely, and speaks more about an unwillingness to compromise than anything. It's not perfect, it'll never be perfect, but it's better than nothing all things considered.

 

Even in the old west, many towns did not allow open carry, and you had to hand your firearms with the local sheriff before you could enter town, and then take them as you leave, if you were a visitor. Everyone knows a bar full of drunks with 6 shooters is bad news, and it didn't take them long to figure that out,