Open Carry

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

Something I’ve been trying to advertise to friends, push and support lately is the efforts and movements put forth by opencarry.org. I’m really hoping they can get open carry back in Texas, and everywhere else for that matter. If you haven’t heard of them, you can visit www.opencarry.org to see what they’ve done and are doing. I think it’s a good organization and I support them.

Texas seems to have quite a reputation for being gun-friendly, at least in my circles, but I was extremely shocked and upset to see the fact that they are one of the few states in America that outlaw open carry.

I doubt this is a crowd that I’d have to justify open carry to, but this is basically the way I see it. I have the right to defend my family, my self, and my property. Probably the biggest part of doing that is being prepared. Open carry is part of being prepared. You can’t take away someones preparedness to defend their families, themselves and their properties with the “justification” that it would give them the ability to harm others. It will not make others safer, what will make others safer is them doing the same, being prepared by training and carrying.

As you know, legislation and law can easily become void without a force behind it, law enforcement. The government is not a valid force or law enforcement to enforce laws that protect citizens from the government. The government will not fight itself to prevent itself from encroaching on others. This creates the need that is mentioned in the Constitution for a force that will enforce legislation protecting the rights of the people from the government. This force is the militia. The people themselves. People must be prepared to defend themselves from the government as much as anything else. As the writers of the Constitution put it, it’s necessary to the security of a free state. This is why we not only need to allow open carry, but we need to exercise it. Gun freedoms and the forming, training and arming of militias aren’t merely rights, they are necessities, they are responsibilities.

2

Ha, open carry. I’d be glad to even have my locked ownership rights acknowledged.

3

I misread the post and did not realize that it was about open carry of guns and not open containers of alcohol. In any event, I am for open carry of guns and open containers of alcohol provided the folks do not harm the persons or property of others.

The problem with open carry is that people in the gun lobby no matter how well intentioned want the rights of gun carriers, both open and hidden, to be able to bring the guns onto private property. This is a violation of the rights of owner of the property.

I am very much in favor of gun carriers and open container carriers to be able to carry these things onto government or commonly owned property.

4

Though I, without a doubt, support the rights of individuals to bear arms and defend themselves with them, I find something distasteful about openy carrying a weapon in public as sort of a badge of honor or to support some political tenents they hold, it just seems to me to be oh so uncivilized and brutish. I’m not offended by ti, nor do I believe that one wrong for doing so, but I just have an adversity towards the entire concept of carrying weapons openly.

5

There is a funny Ridley Report video about open carry in NH. I remember it from earlier last year. I think it was Dave Ridley, and he confronts the police while openly carrying on the sidewalk. While it is legal, they didn’t look too happy about it. Or that he called the radio station on his cell to give onsite reporting while the cops got more and more uncomfortable. [:)]

6

I adamantly support open carry. The more I think about it, the more furiously I want to support it. The more I think about it, though, the more I see the big picture, and the more I see how SMALL of a step it really is. To me, until we (here in the US) have fully armed militias (true militias) capable of competing with even the largest and most powerful of the worlds militaries, including our own, it’s not time to slow down. When I realize this… open carry is like a baby step. There are many steps after it.

As far as taking weapons onto another persons property… well… you shouldn’t be there period unless they allow it. Really it’s just a matter of the owners saying yes or no to you carrying.

Right now, here, with a CHL, I could concealed carry basically anywhere except the places that are restricted by law (most if not all government buildings, churches(which is just flat out dumb..), secure area of airport, etc), without the owner ever knowing… I think we need to keep in mind here that as far as encroaching on others in concerned, current laws are not necessarily against it, even when it comes to carrying firearms.

To be honest, I’m not well versed in all that they say about carrying on others property though, as I haven’t really heard anything about it, but I’m pretty sure most of what I’ve seen seems to suggest that they’re just as much supporters of property rights as they are arms bearing rights. But… Like I said earlier… If nothing else, I can tell you to leave completely, with or without you carrying… So… If it came down to it, it wouldn’t matter if you were armed or not, you’re getting off my property if I tell you to.

7

You’re truly a champion of man’s essential right to defend his property. I wish you the best.

8

Wouldn’t you rather do the reverse, and disarm “even the largest and most powerful of the worlds militaries, including our own”? Why would you try to match them in firepower? An arms race between gigantic superstates and their rebellious subjects sounds like a bad idea from the start, especially when you consider who is destined to win. :frowning:

Why would you fight the leviathon’s strength, rather than its weakness? You might be able to pull off a George Washington if you are fighting a foreign occupation government, and you have military experience, and you have the support of foreign superpowers (like France and Spain in the colonial age). In our situation, we would be better off using non-violent resistance a la Mahatma Ghandi (an anarchist) and Lech Walesa (anti-Soviet dissident).

9

No… First of all, how would you disarm them if not forcefully, and how would you justify it? As far as disarming or minimalizing our own, yes, that would be a goal. But other’s? How is that within my rights, to disarm another countries military?

I may not understand where you’re coming from.

Matching them in firepower is preparing to defend yourself from them, and is within your rights. Taking away their ability to attack you is encroaching on them, and is not.

It’s like saying we were justified to invade Iraq because they had WMDs… As if they don’t have the right to have them. And on top of that, we do, even though we, the US, are the only country to have ever used a nuclear bomb on another country. Heck, if anyone’s WMDs should be regulated by the rest of the world, it’s us, based on history of usage.

10

By refusing to join the military. By agitating for cuts in the defense budget. By using various techniques to reduce the amount of tax revenues the government receives (e.g., reducing consumption). By distributing anti-war propaganda. By participating in international forums similar to the World Tribunal on Iraq, only without the nasty anti-American, pro-Arab bias.

If you think the you disarm the state by force, you are mistaken.

Disarming foreign nations could be achieved through pressure from governments and the private sector. Boycotts, propaganda, and diplomatic peace gestures (peace negotiations, arms control).

I don’t have any utopian notions about convincing foreign states to pound their swords into plowshares. If we can just convince them not to make as many swords, we will have had a (small) victory.

Try reading up on non-violent resistance practiced in history. Characters like Lech Walesa and Mahatma Ghandi who practiced non-violent resistance and achieved their goals.

11

To be honest, I’d probably do what I could to reduce this countries military, though probably not eliminate it, but not other countries. Matching them in power would not be a difficult task if we had the militia that we should at this day and age. If every family was armed and trained properly, all of the militarise in the world couldn’t successfully occupy America. Many military experts will agree that to occupy a country that’s being defended by guerrilla forces, you need at least 6 conventional soldiers to every guerrilla. Now think about how many adult males we have in this country. If they were armed and trained, we could defend this country against the world, without having a military at all. I’d still have a military, though, because that’s your offensive force. Once someone starts a war with you, you are now fighting a defensive war, but that doesn’t mean you never attack… You’re at war, and attacking is part of it.

I guess the point, though, is that I don’t think it’s necessary, right, effective or efficient to make part of your defense strategy the disarming or minimizing of other countries militarise. It’s like you’re tricking them into giving up their right to do the very thing you’re doing. If anything, I’d try to educate them to do exactly what I think this country should do. Rely on the militia for defense. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it poses practically no threat to your own country, because a militia is a defensive force. Once that happens, you’ve not only done the right thing, but you’ve probably accomplished what you would have tried to by tricking or pressuring them. Once they are educated and see that the militia is a countries best defense, they will probably minimize their military on their own. The difference being, again, that they’re doing it because it’s no longer needed now that they have the militia, not because they were tricked or pressured into doing so. There’s no guarantee, of course, but if this country had the proper defenses in place, it wouldn’t really matter.

12

Wow. That’s a pretty well-thought-out response. Let me try to answer that.

I agree. If you are thinking about a “gun behind every blade of grass” strategy, then yes, we could defeat an invading army. By “match” I meant match their weaponry. I don’t think a free market could (or should) spend $300 billion each year on high-tech weaponry.

Attacking the enemy on his soil only legitimizes his propaganda and provokes more attacks against you. You should follow the libertarian model of warfare instead: when the enemy comes, we fight; we he goes, we plow.

If I were in charge, I might have an assassination force, but I would never bomb foreign cities. Even one civilian death is too many.

You’re assuming that foreign states do not want to have aggressive militaries, and only want to defend themselves from attack. History has proven that is not the case.

13

I can’t tell if that’s sarcasm or not. :frowning:

Either way, you do make some good points. Definitely some things to keep me thinking.

14

I’m not. I’m very sincere.

That was my response to yours!

15

That’s your state indoctrination talking. :wink:

A person who is openly armed is not only announcing to any would-be attackers that he is willing to defend himself, but is also saying to everyone else around him, “I will protect you from aggression”. It is not uncivilized or brutish. It is precisely the opposite.

16

You might like this [the chapter on guns]

http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-release138pdf?.pdf

And in general stuff from the IEA; their winter reading list included Human Action, Good Money [Selgin], Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles [that was merely to show where their loyalties lie, rather than to advertise those books - most people online here have read them anyway]

17

Here’s a current case in the news

Fox News Clip on You Tube: Gun carrying mom divides community

18

I have an interesting update… I posted a similar thread on another forum, and I was VERY surprised to see that it seemed as though the main reason the people who responded would choose not to open carry is because they did not want to be viewed as having a responsibility to help those in need around them by being prepared to defend those people. Amazing, isn’t it? That not just one person, but two or three people on the same, small forum would honestly choose not to open carry to avoid responsibility to defend other people. Shocking, really.

I honestly might prefer to concealed carry in many situation, except when I was representing the militia, in which case I would not only want to open carry a handgun, but a rifle as well, but either way, I think it’s a right that people should be able to freely exercise(unless they were on someone else’s private property, of course, in which case the owner would have the authority to tell them not to carry at all). I think it should be an option. There may very well be a lot of people that would open carry for less than noble reasons, be it to seem bad a.., or whatever, but if you want to be safe and secure, the answer isn’t to try to outlaw open carry and ATTEMPT to take away other people’s ability to harm you, which you wont ever be able to do, but the answer is to carry yourself, and prepare yourself to be able to defend yourself, and make sure that IF someone DID try to harm you, YOU would be able to STOP them.

Anyway, I mainly just wanted to express my distaste that some people would actually choose not to open carry because they didn’t want people to know that they were prepared to help in certain situations, because they didn’t want the responsibility to help. To me, that just seems pretty low…

Edit: boy, sometimes I wish I had opportunity like that to speak on national tv. If I had just a little bit of time to prepare something to say, man, I could give America an earful. Not derogatory, rude, or aggressive, but just the truth. You know, I’ve never really liked watching things like the Presidential debates, or listening to talk shows, because in most cases I don’t have a chance to respond or speak. I can think of numerous times that I had PLENTY to say at certain times during things like the debates, or in the case of the lady in the video. I would have said a lot more than “it’s my right”. Though that should be enough, imho…

Edit again: I’m reading that chapter on firearms right now… So far, I like it.