Anti oc'ers just don't get it!

[IOC]

Anti-OC’ers and the Brady Campaign are successfully defeating Open Carry and the 2nd Amendment. Despite the evidence that every argument they have ever offered has been destroyed by facts and statistics, the misinformation advanced by anti-OC’ers and the anti-gun left has led to their success in eliminating OC in California and successfully defeating the effort to reestablish Open Carry in Florida.

Our conclusion: anti-OC’ers who claim to support the 2nd Amendment, actually promote and provide ammunition to the Brady Campaign and the anti-gun left.
Unfortunately, the argument has become Open Carry vs Concealed Carry, which it is not. We are devouring each other in an argument that should not be happening. We are brothers and sisters in the same battle to preserve our rights, and Open Carry is the beautiful, bold face of the 2nd Amendment.

Anthropologist Charles Springwood described it correctly when he said that open carriers are trying to “naturalize the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent, and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood.”I would encourage all who support Open Carry to not get caught up in the silly anti-OC arguments. They will never listen to the facts and statistics. When you see an anti-OC argument, send them a brief response saying, “Opposition to Open Carry is an attack on the 2nd Amendment”, and, since they are supporting the anti-gun left, send them the link to the Brady Campaign.

[email protected]
Open Carry is the Beautiful Bold Face of the 2nd Amendment

 

[SGB]

 

[Bikenut]

Good Post IOC.....

But I think things are much worse than anyone realizes because ...................

We do NOT have the ability to exercise the right to keep and bear arms anymore. That ability has been legislated out of existence.

The very fact that there is a call to the ATF to ascertain if the person is "allowed" to buy that gun means.... we are being given, or denied, permission... and that is an infringement.

I'm not sure about the laws of other States but here in Michigan the ability to exercise the right to bear arms does not exist. What does exist are laws that dictate who, where, and how, a gun can be carried. Even open carry is restricted in where folks can/cannot carry.

So folks.. take a good hard look at the laws where you live.... is the ability to exercise the right to bear arms restricted (infringed upon) with laws that must be obeyed in order to carry a gun?

 

[IOC]

Rich_S must be a shill for the Brady Campaign because his is the Brady Campaign's argument. It is a proven fact that if you don't exercise your right to Open or Conceal Carry, you lose it. And when you lose Open Carry, they start chipping away at Concealed Carry. Look at California and Washington State. Our visibility educates the public about OC. Anthropologist Charles Springwood defined it well when he said that open carriers are trying to “naturalize the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent, (which means everywhere) and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood.”
[email protected]
Open Carry is the Beautiful Bold Face of the 2nd Amendment

 

[Warbirds]

Edit

I need to clarify what I believe on this point.



Tony I think you are oversimplifying the issue and twisting the facts to attempt to back up your opinions.

Lets be honest in what happened in California, citizens of that state chose to make a very public statement and drew the attention of the press announcing that they were going to exercise their right to open carry. It drew nationwide attention. I cannot think of a worse place to fight that battle. It drew the attention of the very anti-gun crowd in California and resulted in a ban on OC, put in place by people that had probably never seen anyone OC outside of on of the publicized events. The only good that will come out of the fight is that it demonstrates that California is attempting to do away with the 2A and is essentially guaranteeing that an appeal will reach the Supreme Court. But good hell what a roll of the dice, if when the appeal reaches the SC if the status quo has changed we could see a ruling that effects the entire country.

I don't see Open Carrying as being a "Defender of the 2A" like in my opinion you portray yourself, nor do I think that my decisions to CC or to not carry at all as having any likely hood in losing my rights to carry. I do think that any action taken in public that is fiercely opposed by other groups has the chance to blow back in your face, I believe that California shows that OCing to "educate" doesn't always turn out how you want it to.

 

[Firefighterchen]

Rich_S must be a shill for the Brady Campaign because his is the Brady Campaign's argument. It is a proven fact that if you don't exercise your right to Open or Conceal Carry, you lose it. And when you lose Open Carry, they start chipping away at Concealed Carry. Look at California and Washington State. Our visibility educates the public about OC. Anthropologist Charles Springwood defined it well when he said that open carriers are trying to “naturalize the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent, (which means everywhere) and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood.”
[email protected]
Open Carry is the Beautiful Bold Face of the 2nd Amendment

What about Washington state? We can open carry I do everyday.

 

[Bikenut]

Edit

I need to clarify what I believe on this point.



Tony I think you are oversimplifying the issue and twisting the facts to attempt to back up your opinions.

Lets be honest in what happened in California, citizens of that state chose to make a very public statement and drew the attention of the press announcing that they were going to exercise their right to open carry. It drew nationwide attention. I cannot think of a worse place to fight that battle. It drew the attention of the very anti-gun crowd in California and resulted in a ban on OC, put in place by people that had probably never seen anyone OC outside of on of the publicized events. The only good that will come out of the fight is that it demonstrates that California is attempting to do away with the 2A and is essentially guaranteeing that an appeal will reach the Supreme Court. But good hell what a roll of the dice, if when the appeal reaches the SC if the status quo has changed we could see a ruling that effects the entire country.

I don't see Open Carrying as being a "Defender of the 2A" like in my opinion you portray yourself, nor do I think that my decisions to CC or to not carry at all as having any likely hood in losing my rights to carry. I do think that any action taken in public that is fiercely opposed by other groups has the chance to blow back in your face, I believe that California shows that OCing to "educate" doesn't always turn out how you want it to.

You do understand that a concealed carry permit is NOT the right to carry but is the exact kind of infringement that "shall not be infringed" refers to?

If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!

I am always amazed when folks equate a carry "permit"... a permission slip controlled by the government... with the "right to carry".

 

[Count-to-Nine]

You do understand that a concealed carry permit is NOT the right to carry but is the exact kind of infringement that "shall not be infringed" refers to?

If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!

I am always amazed when folks equate a carry "permit"... a permission slip controlled by the government... with the "right to carry".

I never thought of a conceal carry permit in this light. Thank you for the food for thought.

 

[Iam2Taz]

You do understand that a concealed carry permit is NOT the right to carry but is the exact kind of infringement that "shall not be infringed" refers to?

If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!

I am always amazed when folks equate a carry "permit"... a permission slip controlled by the government... with the "right to carry".

+1 This is EXACTLY the problem that few realize exists. So, for those who think the new state reciprocity law going through the house and senate is a good thing; what if, after passing such a law, they decide to void ALL carry permits because the holder would now have to pass a strict federal test? After all the federal government is mandating this change. Once you open the door to the clowns in DC, you've lost ALL control. You don't think that can happen?

 

[jsimmons]

You do understand that a concealed carry permit is NOT the right to carry but is the exact kind of infringement that "shall not be infringed" refers to?

If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!

I am always amazed when folks equate a carry "permit"... a permission slip controlled by the government... with the "right to carry".

Yep. Requiring a permit to carry reduces your right to a privilege, especially when you have no choice to open carry. We need to eliminate the paid permit system completely, or restore or right to carry openly for people that don't want to pay the state for the privilege.

 

[jg1967]

I never OC but I am also never taking any stance against it, whether in person nor here. I find it perfectly acceptable it's just not my personal preference. I have never understood why SOME people that CC feel the need to attack those that prefer to OC.

 

[IOC]

Tony I think you are oversimplifying the issue and twisting the facts to attempt to back up your opinions.
Lets be honest in what happened in California, citizens of that state chose to make a very public statement and drew the attention of the press announcing that they were going to exercise their right to open carry. It drew nationwide attention. I cannot think of a worse place to fight that battle. It drew the attention of the very anti-gun crowd in California and resulted in a ban on OC, put in place by people that had probably never seen anyone OC outside of on of the publicized events. The only good that will come out of the fight is that it demonstrates that California is attempting to do away with the 2A and is essentially guaranteeing that an appeal will reach the Supreme Court. But good hell what a roll of the dice, if when the appeal reaches the SC if the status quo has changed we could see a ruling that effects the entire country.
I don't see Open Carrying as being a "Defender of the 2A" like in my opinion you portray yourself, nor do I think that my decisions to CC or to not carry at all as having any likely hood in losing my rights to carry. I do think that any action taken in public that is fiercely opposed by other groups has the chance to blow back in your face, I believe that California shows that OCing to "educate" doesn't always turn out how you want it to.

I lived in San Diego for 30 years and Washington DC for 35 years. Finally, because of a recent Supreme Court decision, DC residents are now allowed to keep a gun in their home, but they have to jump through so many hoops and pay almost $500 in various fees, it is too onerous for most. In California, their rights have slowly diminished over the years as each county makes their own rules. Reading the following taken from a thread in USA Carry reveals how Californians have become passive, acquiescing, nonresistant, resigned, submissive and yielding over the years. This fellow actually says that they are "fortunate" because the Sheriff's is so "friendly" in have the following restrictions,
"We are fortunate to have a very CCW friendly Sheriff.
1. 1 year residency in SB county
2. Live in outside a city or within a city contracted with the Sheriff
3. Pick up application at main office
4. Four references and three letters of reference
5. Interview - good cause on application "personal protection" and nothing related to work.
6. Class/qualification
7. Neighborhood check to verify your character and that you indeed live in SBC
8. Issued CCW"

These kinds of restrictions are slowly creeping into many states and counties and, just like the metaphore, "How do you boil a frog? By turning up the heat slowly." it is happening all around us and the anti-OCers are turning up the heat. I hope good will come from the recent California vote to outlaw Open Carry and I hope gun rights advocates, the NRA and GOA, will target and defeat the legislators who opposed it.

Your statement, "put in place by people that had probably never seen anyone OC outside of the publicized events." is the problem, and that is why I founded Idaho Open Carry 5 months ago. Our visibility educates the public about OC. Anthropologist Charles Springwood defined it well when he said that open carriers are trying to “naturalize the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent, (which means everywhere) and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood.”
[email protected]
Open Carry is the Beautiful Bold Face of the 2nd Amendment

 

[BC1]

I never OC but I am also never taking any stance against it, whether in person nor here. I find it perfectly acceptable it's just not my personal preference. I have never understood why SOME people that CC feel the need to attack those that prefer to OC.

I've never understood why those who promote OC need to accuse the CC community as well. Is the glass half empty or half full?

 

[wjh2657]

Please stop equating Concealed Carry people with anti-Open Carry. I carry concealed for my own reasons . In Tennessee I can carry either way. I just prefer carrying concealed , but I have no heat at somebody else open carrying. We are now dividing ourselves into Open Carry Patriots and Concealed Carry Commie anti-gun liberals! We are slowly but surely devouring our own. This crap that there can only be two camps: the right one, mine and the wrong camp, everybody else crap has got to end.

 

[Warbirds]

You do understand that a concealed carry permit is NOT the right to carry but is the exact kind of infringement that "shall not be infringed" refers to?

If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!

I am always amazed when folks equate a carry "permit"... a permission slip controlled by the government... with the "right to carry".

I understand this is your opinion and I personally do not agree. Especially the part of "If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!" That doesn't make sense to me, it seems more like a rallying cry than a logical statement.

I lived in San Diego for 30 years and Washington DC for 35 years. Finally, because of a recent Supreme Court decision, DC residents are now allowed to keep a gun in their home, but they have to jump through so many hoops and pay almost $500 in various fees, it is too onerous for most. In California, their rights have slowly diminished over the years as each county makes their own rules. Reading the following taken from a thread in USA Carry reveals how Californians have become passive, acquiescing, nonresistant, resigned, submissive and yielding over the years. This fellow actually says that they are "fortunate" because the Sheriff's is so "friendly" in have the following restrictions,
"We are fortunate to have a very CCW friendly Sheriff.
1. 1 year residency in SB county
2. Live in outside a city or within a city contracted with the Sheriff
3. Pick up application at main office
4. Four references and three letters of reference
5. Interview - good cause on application "personal protection" and nothing related to work.
6. Class/qualification
7. Neighborhood check to verify your character and that you indeed live in SBC
8. Issued CCW"

These kinds of restrictions are slowly creeping into many states and counties and, just like the metaphore, "How do you boil a frog? By turning up the heat slowly." it is happening all around us and the anti-OCers are turning up the heat. I hope good will come from the recent California vote to outlaw Open Carry and I hope gun rights advocates, the NRA and GOA, will target and defeat the legislators who opposed it.

Your statement, "put in place by people that had probably never seen anyone OC outside of the publicized events." is the problem, and that is why I founded Idaho Open Carry 5 months ago. Our visibility educates the public about OC. Anthropologist Charles Springwood defined it well when he said that open carriers are trying to “naturalize the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent, (which means everywhere) and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood.”
[email protected]
Open Carry is the Beautiful Bold Face of the 2nd Amendment

In this case your logic of "educating" by way of OC is faulty and like I said it resulted in OC being banned in CA. Who voted for the ban? 48 anti-gun assemblymen and Governor Brown who signed the bill.
AB 144 Assembly Bill - Vote Information

Do you really think that OCing for education doesn't have the possibility of a negative effect as much as a possible positive effect? Going back to the 48 that voted for the ban, I will go out on a limb and say that no amount of OCing for education would have any positive effect on these people.

It didn't take very long, participating on this forum, before I decided that I really don't care how others want to carry. But, I have not yet bult up a tough enough skin for these "I OC so I am a Defender Of the 2A, pay homage" threads yet. Because as you can tell I see things differently.

 

[Firefighterchen]

Please stop equating Concealed Carry people with anti-Open Carry. I carry concealed for my own reasons . In Tennessee I can carry either way. I just prefer carrying concealed , but I have no heat at somebody else open carrying. We are now dividing ourselves into Open Carry Patriots and Concealed Carry Commie anti-gun liberals! We are slowly but surely devouring our own. This crap that there can only be two camps: the right one, mine and the wrong camp, everybody else crap has got to end.

Who exactly are you referencing? If it is the OP, there is no where in his post calling out concealed carriers, just anti-open carriers. He even states in his OP, that it has become CC vs OC, and that is wrong. There are two crowds, maybe one day there wont be, but right now there is definitely two crowds. Do you find it interesting, that you immediately felt like one side was attacking the other, when that was not that case? That is why I feel the two crowds will not merge for a long time. I do believe, that more OC people are also part of the CC crowd, but I do not feel that it is the other way around.

I never OC but I am also never taking any stance against it, whether in person nor here. I find it perfectly acceptable it's just not my personal preference. I have never understood why SOME people that CC feel the need to attack those that prefer to OC.

I've never understood why those who promote OC need to accuse the CC community as well. Is the glass half empty or half full?

While I do not feel the OC community is accusing the CC community nearly as much as the other way around, I am seeing it happen more frequently. I believe it is the way we are talking about each other. For instance, JG said, "SOME of the cc'ers attack OC." Followed by BC who said "I've never understood why those who promote OC need..." as if the entire OC crowd accuses the CC crowd. I feel SOME of the OC'ers accuse CC'ers, and MORE CC'ers accuse OC'ers, but it's never all of one crowd accusing the other crowd.

 

[BluesStringer]

Whether or not there was any controversy about the legalities of OC'ing here in Alabama, I would still choose to CC, but I support, in principle at least, anyone's right to OC, so I don't take the OP as being directed at me or people like me.

That said, I see a couple of problems with the OP. One, I believe it is possible for genuine 2nd Amendment proponents to think OC'ing imprudent, without them being validly tied to the Brady Campaign's ideology. Having been the victim of that exact blatantly obfuscatory accusation in recent days in the current (and past) reciprocity thread, I can tell you it is not a good tactic for getting people to jump on your bandwagon. It's purposely insulting, demeaning and impugning one's motives, and it certainly doesn't open up the door to understanding or unity amongst gun owners or carriers of either preference. In fact, it slams the door in one "side's" face, when the fact is, there should be no "sides" in the first place.

The second problem I see is using California as the example of what "anti-OC" people have reaped. The fact is, CA never was an open carry state. If you hung a gun off your belt, it had to be unloaded, and the very existence of that unloaded gun on your belt was seen as implied consent by you to LE to be searched, detained, questioned and otherwise harassed. For all of the good an unloaded firearm would do you, you'd be ahead of the game to carry a brick around in your holster and not give cops the implied consent to harass you. In any case, being forced to only have an unloaded weapon on you is not the same as open "carrying." The words "the right to carry" as it pertains to exercising our 2A rights, at the very least, has to imply the carrying of loaded weapons, or else carrying has no meaningful impact at all as far as furthering our rights. CA's "open carry" status was no less a sham before the new restrictive law than it is now under that law. Open carry never existed in CA to begin with.

Blues

 

[Bikenut]

I understand this is your opinion and I personally do not agree. Especially the part of "If you must have a "permit" to carry then you have already lost your right to carry!!!!!!" That doesn't make sense to me, it seems more like a rallying cry than a logical statement.
-snip-

Actually a person can never really "lose" a right simply because we are born owning rights just by being... born. However, it is possible, (and has already happened to a great degree) for a person to lose the ability to exercise a right due to "infringements" of control placed upon actually exercising the right.

Such as...

No one ever loses the right to carry an "arm" in a concealed manner. We are born with the right to carry "arms" in any manner we wish. The infringement is the government assuming control of who, where, when, and why, a person is "allowed" to exercise the right... and punishing anyone who actually exercises the right to carry an "arm" in a concealed manner without the permission of the government. It is the "permission" embodied in a "permit" that is the infringement.

However if a person cannot exercise the right without permission then they have "lost the ability to exercise the right" to the control of whoever gives or denys "permission". And, just from a practical standpoint, if it is impossible to exercise the right then the right has been "lost" because even if you have it you can't use it anyway.

Infringement - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

in·fringe·ment
noun \in-ˈfrinj-mənt\
Definition of INFRINGEMENT
1
: the act of infringing : violation
2
: an encroachment or trespass on a right or privilege
Examples of INFRINGEMENT

<any government action limiting freedom of speech is an infringement of the U.S. Constitution>


Some... ummm... light? reading...

Link Removed

Link Removed

 

[IOC]

+1 This is EXACTLY the problem that few realize exists. So, for those who think the new state reciprocity law going through the house and senate is a good thing; what if, after passing such a law, they decide to void ALL carry permits because the holder would now have to pass a strict federal test? After all the federal government is mandating this change. Once you open the door to the clowns in DC, you've lost ALL control. You don't think that can happen?

Contrary to the false claims of some, these bills would not create federal gun registration or gun owner licensing, nor would they allow any federal agency to establish a federal standard for a carry permit or impose gun control restrictions of any kind.
It is better to have reciprocity and fight to keep the law clean than to not have reciprocity and be restricted in carrying. Anything that frees up the carrying of our guns benefits the 2nd Amendment and pisses of the Brady Campaign and anti-gunners.

[email protected]
Open Carry is the Beautiful Bold Face of the 2nd Amendment

 

[Deserteagle]

Going along the lines of some others here, let me point some things out.

OC is not inherently better than CC.
CC is not inhernetly better than OC.


If you use your power to vote in favor of the 2A, than you are standing up for your rights, no matter how you use them.