Seized by the Manchester, New Hampshire PD for Open Carry

[Rich Lucibella]

Stating that liking stupid people so you can make it to the door really helps the pro-gun stance here. Let's all say that it's great to have a bunch of people around to use as shields so you can make it to the door.

Umm, lemme understand something. I believe that those who are unwilling and unprepared to defend themselves are simply stoopid. I also believe that the predators of each species spend most of their time munching on slow or stoopid prey. Finally, I believe this is a good thing from an evolutionary standpoint (though not a personally desired phenomenon) as it provides those who are either quick or not-stoopid with an edge.

Now explain to me, once more, just how I've hurt the RKBA movement by stating an evolutionary truism? Certainly, I may insult some stoopid people with my position. But I'm willing to spend about as much time trying to educate the willfully ignorant as I would administering medicine to corpses.
Rich

[Handy]

I dunno, Rich. Maybe the problem with your point of veiw is that those guaranteed rights you mention seem to be constantly under attack. At least right now, someone interested in preserving certain rights might be better served being a model citizen when practicing them.

Many of us believe that such a model citizen might work to encourage responsible behavior from other gun rights proponents to make sure that we, AS A GROUP, are demonstrating the overall societal benefits that we profess armed civilians will yield for all. A man defending his family with a legal revolver does alot more for the cause than someone winning a supreme court case about his sawed off shotgun.


Maybe someday we can exercise such rights without regard to diplomacy, but not right now. Right now, comments about not caring whether members of your society live or die are probably counter-productive. Our rights are based on the notion that what is good for one of us is of benefit to all of us. If the public perception is that armed citizens are a liability to those around them, then that right is going to make less sense to the unarmed, voting majority.

All rights are best preserved by practicing them responsibly. If not, you lose them. It's just like voting for a "president for life" - practice that right poorly and suddenly it's gone.

[tyme]

Handy, how do you preserve the right to open carry without exercising it? You think a right is a right because it's on paper? Because there's a law? In that case, let's worry no more about the RKBA. It's guaranteed to us by the Bill of Rights! Prudence demands that we not -actually- dare to carry weapons, but we have the right. There's nothing to complain about. Maybe by not exercising our rights today, sheeple will be more accepting of the carry of arms in the future.

A man defending his family with a legal revolver does alot more for the cause than someone winning a supreme court case about his sawed off shotgun

Are you serious?

Blacks sitting in the Blacks-only section of busses and trains surely did more for civil rights than Blacks winning court cases.

(And that was even worse in terms of stretching the limits of social acceptability. Blacks were breaking the law; MVpel did not.)

Maybe someday we can exercise such rights without regard to diplomacy, but not right now. Right now, comments about not caring whether members of your society live or die are probably counter-productive. Our rights are based on the notion that what is good for one of us is of benefit to all of us. If the public perception is that armed citizens are a liability to those around them, then that right is going to make less sense to the unarmed, voting majority.

How could it be acceptable to carry in the future without regard to diplomacy? What makes that future different from the situation in NH today? I don't think you mean that diplomacy can be ignored in that future, but rather that open carry may be diplomatic in that future. So diplomacy wouldn't be disregarded, but rather observed.

If this country's government were operating as it should, why should I care about the public perception regarding open or concealed carry? If the government is malfunctioning, I'd suggest that there are larger problems than worrying about whether a few citizen-units wet their Depends when someone like MVpel is open carrying.

[Rich Lucibella]

Maybe the problem with your point of veiw is that those guaranteed rights you mention seem to be constantly under attack. At least right now, someone interested in preserving certain rights might be better served being a model citizen when practicing them.

Ay, there's the rub. mvpel wasn't being a "Model Citizen", by your standards. So who's construct of "Model" shall we use to define "good behavior"? Yours? Mine? The Brady Center's?

At what point was the Constitution(s) replaced with [fill in the blanks]'s idea of "Model Citizen" behavior? I thought it was about limiting the powers of the State.
Rich

[Handy]

Tyme,

I never said "don't open carry", I said that we need to be careful with HOW we open carry so the practice doesn't become a liability to the cause.

And I stand by what I said about court cases. Being a success in court is good, but being a success in the court of public opinion is better. (You also need to refer to the actual examples I give - winning a minor point in court may or may not prevent an oppressive law, but they haven't so far.) We are not being oppressed in court, we are being oppressed by elected officials.


Rich,
Why is it that you think that a group can't have a standard of behavior without feeling like that standard came from the Brady Center? As far as I've ever seen, the gun community already does this. Are you also offended by the "5 rules of safe gun handling". Do you ignore standard range commands? (A Democrat might have written them, after all.)

Would mvpel have chosen differently had anyone ever made any intelligent suggestions to him before that night? Yup.

You are a community leader. You said you would politely correct someone doing something dumb at the range with a gun - why wouldn't you do the same in town?

And as I already said, personal responsibility is a good thing - but providing good information to make informed decisions is also a good thing. I can't see how making a strong suggestion is the same as trampling personal freedoms.


PS. You should take a look at that thread in General Handguns. 4 posts in and someone is already recommending an SASS rig.

[tyme]

So, where is this coordinated effort to make the public tolerant of open carry? Who determines where and when which people should open carry to make a difference? What happens when those people are hassled by police? You'd defend their actions but condemn MVpel's?

[mvpel]

Would mvpel have chosen differently had anyone ever made any intelligent suggestions to him before that night?

A suggestion such as "always check your concealment when you add or remove a piece of clothing" would have come in handy, indeed.

[Handy]

There isn't a coordinated effort, which is my point. We need one. Everyday writers and instructors go to great lengths about CCW technique. No one is talking about open carry. And if it becomes more legally acceptable, someone needs to start.

I don't "condemn" anyone. But there are better ways to do things. And no one is even talking about what they are. And Rich is making it sound like it is civil rights violation to have the conversation.

[Raccoon]

I have pursued this thread with great interest. Kudos to Mpvel for having stood up for his rights. I might have struck a more conciliatory tone and requested only a change in Department policy rather than a reprimand against the officers but then I wasn't "jumped" by public servants. Still, one can scarcely find fault with Mpvel's post-incident actions. Each of us has been endowed with a different degree of audacity.
But to my point...You must exercise all of your rights or you help inaugurate a bad "tradition" that gets lodged in the unwritten portion of our national and state constitutions.
Has anyone ever asked why concealed carry was in many jurisdictions illegal while open carry was legal but had fallen into disuse? Well, even during the days of open carry, carrying concealed was probobly regarded as underhanded...the kind of thing one would expect from gamblers and prostitutes. Open carry, for a variety of reasons, became rarer and rarer in polite society but in many jurisdictions was not actually bad.
Ironically, the Concealed Carry Movement is really just an effort to restore at least some part of our right to bear (instead of merely keep) arms. Open carry was subject to severe social taboos (which police often acted upon, in violation of the law).
The architects of the CCW Revolution probobly knew that their best shot was at legalizing concealed carry as a privilege. Decades of societal evolution had made this possible. Priviledged concealed carry had become the province of the Private Eye and the undercover cop rather than the gambler or the prostitute with a derringer. The pro-gunners thus tried to steep concealed carry in the law enforcement aura and they have succeeded admirably.
I'm not accusing Mpvel of anything when I point out the rhetoric he used in addressing Mr. Mara. Note that he called himself a 'fellow sheepdog' or something to that effect. Concealed Carry permit holders without realizing it, regard themselves as a privileged bunch, the part time protectors of society. I'm not saying that they see themselves exactly as law enforcement but instead as Mpvel said 'natural allies'.
While this rhetorical strategy has produced rich fruit it has its drawbacks.
1. Some CCW holders tend to believe that everyone should have their specialized knowledge if they even contemplate carrying a gun for self-protection concealed or otherwise.
This problem is not too severe because aside from a bit of elitism it encourages responsibility and ensures that active CCW's do not embarass the gun rights movement.
More importantly, no one and I mean no one on this thread has advocated making Open Carry illegal or dramatically increasing the training requirements to obtain a CCW permit.
2. Because some CCW holders do not consider the nature of tradition, they rationalize their discomfort with Open Carry by regarding Concealed Carry as the superior method in all regards, irrespective of the concrete evidence. They fail to consider that when Concealed Carry was beyond the pale, people who regularly engaged in Open Carry probobly touted the merits of their "responsible" method. Of course, back in those days, our rights were generally so secure that few had to be so self-conscious about gun ownership to even be so influenced by their sub-conscious. But let's lay aside the pseudo-psycho babble.
3. Some CCW holders do not appreciate that, by breathing the air of privilege rather than the air of unalienable rights they create a traditional and in some cases actually juridical environment where carrying firearms at all is a matter of privilege.

In Conclusion:
CCW permits should only be seen as the wedge of a larger effort to restore all of gun rights both in theroy and in practice. I got my CCW here in Florida not to actually use it but rather to make a political statement. Someone here can correct me if I'm wrong, but in Florida to my knowledge I don't even have the option of Open Carry. I don't lose sleep over it.
But in a decade or so when CCW has been proven statistically to be, at the very least benign and at the best beneficial in terms of dealing with crime...maybe we can make some movement on Open Carry. Part of CCW is not merely to give people the option of self-defense but also to gradually make bearing arms in a peaceable manner increasingly socially and legally acceptable.
The gun rights movement must ever remain on the offensive. Submission and compromise have already paid their wages to our cousins overseas. I have not desire to work for and collect that paycheck. If you do not like how open carry is being restored in your state then get involved and organize the movement and channel its energies in a reasonable fashion. One of the key ways would be to help furnish people interested in Open Carry with good training.
We cannot walk in fear of the anti-gunners and what the media will say. If we give them nothing to feed on, then they'll make it up. We should not be heedless of the sting of controversy but neither should we cower before it. For tradition to change, norms must be violated, even if only a step at a time.

[Redondo]

Hawgleg44, I do not mean this as a slam at your "gun rights" beliefs in any way, but your mind set, that "legally" carrying a firearm, is foolish, is inviting attack, is totally foreign to me. I'm 53, have carried open, in several states that I have lived in, for many years. Perhaps it is more of a "your state's" attitude vs what "my state" finds acceptable kind of thing. I don't care what others think about my carrying a firearm! If it's legal, and I want to, I will. If CCW can prevent criminal acts, because a thug might not know who is armed, why does an obviously armed person, suddenly become the likely victim? If that's true, one of the major arguements used for CCW, just went out the window. Just because someone is uncomfortable viewing a firearm, doesn't make them right, in telling me, to HIDE mine.

[Handy]

Raccoon,

What an excellent, thoughtful and realistic post. Thank you.


I don't know if the "priveledge" aspect of CCW is the driving force in viewing open carry with skepticism, or if it is just the change in both the norms and structure of society since it was last common. Either way, I agree that CCW might well be the wedge that opens other public exercises of gun rights, to everyone's benefit.

[CGofMP]

MVPEL how about an update?

[Rich Lucibella]

Handy-
I don't object to you pointing out that open SOB carry isn't necessarily the safest mode. What I object to is making that the point of the story. I say again, within the context of this thread, who cares how he was carrying?

The point is this:
1) He was carrying legally.
2) He was detained and questioned by the police for it. (Which may or may not be acceptable. We've yet to hear their side of the story.)
3) If what he asserts is true, it was pure-D wrong.

No one has attempted to defend his mode of carry as being preferred...only his right to do so without being branded "irresponsible". This entire side-track should have been a 3 or 4 post exchange, not a reclassification of the thread as "safe modes for open carry".
Rich

[Raccoon]

Thanks for the kind words Handy. You hit upon an important point. You say you don't know because, you realize it is a bit of both. I think that privilege aspect informs the changes in societal norms and norms inform it in return. That is why I brought this up. If we are more conscious of what we are doing and why we are doing it we can be more effective in using CCW and other improvements to the exercise of the 2nd Amendment to this country to their fullest effect.
Given that gains for the pro-gun side are often so few and far in between we cannot afford to 'rest on our laurels' and squander them.
As for changing tradition by promoting Firearms Carry in all of its aspects, we must remember that it is but one facet of a larger effort to grow the gun culture and change society. Our firearms freedom as we have it this country is either a freak of social evolution, a blessing of Almighty God or both. We cannot in good conscience waste that gift. Given that no other society has enjoyed the degree of freedom we possess there is no guarantee that if we fail to preserve our rights that this freedom will ever, ever rise again in a different form.
We are the stewards of a priceless treasure, God's bequest to all mankind. I am confident we will be called to accout before His throne for how generous we are in sharing it out and how careful we are in keeping it safe. According to scripture: Much will be demanded of those to whom much has been given.
For those who aren't particularly religious I would point out that bequeathing our gun rights to our children in excellent shape is one of one's best shot at immortality short divine intervention or getting into Disney World's Hall of the Presidents.
Right now we are fighting a domestic battle with politics and with equally important little things like teaching a friend to shoot guns for the first time. One day we will need to share gun rights with the whole world. We don't have a choice. If we try to 'fort up' and merely hold on to what we already have we will lose. Rights will become increasingly restricted (and increasingly less precious) privileges that will be revoked.

[gyp_c2]

...it's this over and over...

And if it becomes more legally acceptable...

...it can't BE any more legal...

[Handy]

Not everywhere, it isn't.


Rich, I hadn't realized that your comments were only in the context of this thread. Mine certainly weren't, as my first "objectionable" comment was about such carry becoming more common. My only comments that directly pertained to mvpel were responses to others.

[Quartus]

Not everywhere, it isn't.

Well, that's kinda the point, Handy. It is perfectly legal where MVPEL was doing it.

[Handy]

Actually, it's not. All my comments were of a general nature, not about NH, but about our country.

[FirstFreedom]

A man defending his family with a legal revolver does alot more for the cause than someone winning a supreme court case about his sawed off shotgun

Wowsa. I'm glad you typed that, so I can illustrate how that is the most errant, 180 degree, flat out incorrect statement ever written, IMO. Sorry, but it is. There is nothing on earth that even comes within a universe of importance to the RKBA as winning ONE big, important RKBA case in the SCOTUS. Everything else is temporary/fleeting, and makes us have to fight, fight, fight the losing battle another day, and another and another. If the SCOTUS, in one or more court cases, announces a specific, individual, fundamental, strict-scrutiny-protected, 14th-amendment-incorporated RKBA, then the game is pretty well OVER. Hundreds if not thousands of illegal laws in the 50 states will immediately fall, and we can then defend that protection from here out. One case is better than 100 years of constant lobbying/proselytizing/you name it. Now, having said that, the problem is that the SCOTUS, contrary to their oath of office and life appointment which in theory insulates them from political pressures, have proven that they in fact ARE a political body, swayed by the political winds (see Griswold, Roe, etc) of the day, and therefore, all the public/rhetorical battles are important so that the SCOTUS members themselves will see the prevailing political winds in our favor and therefore actually vote to uphold the constitution, rather than brush it aside by giving some "rational basis" lip service or something like that which ignores the fundamental nature of the RKBA. The ONLY thing that matters ultimately is the views of the SCOTUS members and thier law clerks, which are unfortunately skewed improperly by the political climate. That's why I agree with attacking the RKBA issues in the courts primarily, which is why supporting the Second Amendment Foundation is so important, but in the meantime, the political battles via lobbying and public discourse are important too, as is the kind of community involvement that the NRA does, such as Eddie Eagle, police shoots, whathaveyou. You hit the nail squarely on the other side - the pointed end.

[Fred Hansen]

...it can't BE any more legal...

Even Jefferson came up with "... a more perfect Union." Technically he was incorrect, but everybody knows what he meant.

[Handy]

FirstFreedom,

You're aware that this trial has already happened? Early in the 20th century a man arrested for making a sawed off shotgun went all the way to the supreme court.

The court found him guilty, but their reasoning was fairly pro-2nd Amendment. The court's decision was that the 2A was there to defend the individual's right to keep and bear weapons appropriate for miltary defense. Since the sawed off shotgun was not viewed as a military weapon, laws against them were deemed Constitutional.

Now I ask you: If the Supreme Court already ruled, less than a century ago, that 2A was there to preserve your right to a military type weapon, how is it that we have an assault weapon ban?????



And if the Supreme Court destroyed the GCA tomorrow, what legal impediment would there be to congress passing a new one next week? (None, congress doesn't have to make Constitutional considerations when voting on laws.)



Based on that, I'll stick with what I said; the court of public opinion is more powerful. Laws are immediate, court decisions are few and far between. Every firearm case that has gone in front of the court in decades has failed to address any of the core issues or caused any major state or federal laws to fall. But every time a citizen stops a crime and gets good press, that takes the wind out of those who lobby for more restrictions.

That's the situation we find ourselves in today. The assault weapon ban may fail to be renewed, not because of much of a Republican effort, but more because the anti-gun crowd has lost steam.

[mvpel]

A correction - the Supreme Court didn't rule the law constitutional, they ruled that they could not make that determination without sworn testimony as to whether a sawed-off shotgun was a military weapon, and remanded the case to a lower court for further hearings which never took place.

[Handy]

Thanks, mvpel. So did the guy do time?

[TallPine]

IIRC, the guy "Miller" was dead by the time the case reached the Supreme Court, which is why there was "no evidence presented" that the sawed off shotgun was protected by the 2A.

[Arc Angel]

What’s perfectly legal, and also what makes good sense, or even good manners isn’t always the same thing. It’s perfectly legal to open carry in my home state, too; but, as far as I’m concerned, it would take a real, ‘horse’s feedbag’ to walk up to, ‘Pat’s King Of Steaks’ in South Philly while open carrying. Besides, now, you have to worry about getting all that gooey dripping cheese and onions all over your carry piece! (Unless, of course, you’re carrying SOB; but, then, the guy standing in line behind you may end up with a free cheese steak!)

Is open carry legal in Philadelphia? Yes! (If you have a CHL.) Is open carry: Smart, practical, realistic, courteous, or personally safe to do? No! It’s not. If one of Philadelphia’s, ‘Finest’ doesn’t reflex out of long force-of-habit and, ‘pull down on you’, then, one of the South Philly’s thousands of druggies will, probably, whack you over the head and run off with, both, your lunch and exposed carry piece!

This, ‘horse’ has been beaten to death, ‘4 ways from Sunday’. It is, now, capped by MVPel, himself, with the sage comment;

‘A suggestion such as "always check your concealment when you add or remove a piece of clothing" would have come in handy, indeed.’

Wise words from the very guy who started this whole thing. Too bad he didn’t come to this conclusion sooner. Look: it’s perfectly legal to breastfeed a baby in public; (Yeah, it’s a federal law.) but, would you want your wife to do it? (Or, more appropriately, would you want her to do it in South Philly!)

IMAO, always keep your fly closed and your piece well-covered. Unless, of course, you have a chronic need for attention, enjoy taking, ‘little risks’ at public expense, and like to start large heated arguments upon which to nourish your ego.