Gunners go wild

The fashionable accessory for summer, for Texas and Somalia.

It's a good think they have open carry of long guns in Texas, because now we get to see exactly how mature responsible gun owners behave. An inactivated Marine known only by James (Marines hate the term "former Marine," and it is inaccurate. Also he doesn't want pro-gunners to harass him) viewed and videoed an Open Carry demonstration:

 What he saw there struck him as especially provocative. Not only had the open-carry activists come to a typically relaxed, family friendly part of town, they were displaying intimidating firearms just three days after a major gun massacre in Southern California. What he didn't anticipate was that they would soon be pursuing him for several city blocks with cameras of their own, harassing him and later posting the footage online, where they would also level homophobic slurs and violent threats against him.

 [Article Continues]

These Second Amendment cavaliers were members of Open Carry Texas and Open Carry Tarrant County. The former recently had members thrown out of several restaurant franchises for trying to force their open-carry rights down the throats of people there. That was their inauspicious comeback after getting some embarrassing attention from stalking and harassing women.

James gets earns their ire immediately; he doesn't hide his contempt for the gun demonstrators, but he also makes a point that the very act of sitting in a family oriented part of town with rifles for no good reason, such as an invasion by Cuba, (and three days after a mass shooting) is provocative in itself.

My compliments to him. He has guts openly defying people who are blatantly armed for no reason. From the safety of my keyboard, I'll add a less courageous but no less cogent point that there is no way to open-carry politely. In an ordinary civil situation without police, there aren't too many acts ruder than flourishing a firearm for no good reason. It's definitely far worse than chewing with your mouth open, or picking your nose and wiping it on somebody else.

I'm seeing where this movement is going: open-carry is the Second Amendment right to not only be politically incorrect but also to throw away all etiquette. Because how can you get more rude and hostile than openly displaying a gun for nothing? That's certainly more rude than wearing your pants halfway-down.  

Without good reason, what an openly-carried rifle says to me is that the carrier is determined to get his way . . . or else. Though he might be bluffing. Any conversation has automatically been moved to the point of the argument where there's a threat of violence. It might take a bystander's stress some time to catch up, but it will raise the tension level. It makes every exchange a bit like a stick-up. Assurances that they're the good guys and I'm in no danger unless I'm a bad guy is like being told nothing bad will happen if I don't make any sudden moves. 

The guns don't communicate the protectiveness that these guys insist I should feel. I highly doubt that too many people around them feel safer. And people are not going to get used to this. It might be true that there won't be a mass shooting in their presence, but how likely would one be without them? I don't think they understand mass shootings, or even crimes in general, are still statistically rare events. Having these armed guys around for protection when nobody asked them is like trading an slight chance of getting murdered for the definite company of a stick-up man, albeit, probably a nice one.

As Al Capone said, "You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word." A guy with a rifle doesn't have to be pushy to get what he wants. The push comes from his piece. Unless someone opposing him also has a rifle. Then you have the possibility of a gunfight.  

So, this is what open-carry really means: the right to be a douche bag, and an asshole, the right to bully and harass with impunity. Because as we know, everybody's willing to stand up to somebody with a gun, and an open-carrier would never overreach propriety in a disagreement.

To OCT and OCTC: you're making this too easy for us gun rationalists, and you're even shocking your fellow pro-gunners, who thought all their peers in the movement were sane and are now getting a rude awakening.

And I have to final suggestions: if you really believe guns have such a beneficent, protective effect, go to one of the high-crime ghettos and give out guns to any of the beleaguered, honest people who have to live there. Also, try to remember your belief in firearms when any African Americans walk into your neighborhood open-carrying rifles.

UPDATE: 6/2/14/6:47 p.m.: For a moment, I feel like a mind-reader and fortuneteller. Reread the second-to-last paragraph, the part about other pro-gunners discovering their peers in the movement aren't as sane as they thought.

The NRA has chimed in about OCT and OCTC antics as a second part of the cited article. The NRA is unhappy:

As a result of these hijinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises (more information can be found here and here).  In other words, the freedom and goodwill these businesses had previously extended to gun owners has been curtailed because of the actions of an attention-hungry few who thought only of themselves and not of those who might be affected by their behavior. To state the obvious, that's counterproductive for the gun owning community.

More to the point, it's just not neighborly, which is out of character for the big-hearted residents of Texas. Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners.  That's not the Texas way.  And that's certainly not the NRA way.

The NRA agrees with me! There is no polite way a civilian can open-carry a gun for no good reason. Hell, it's even frightening when law enforcement and the military carries guns.