Openly bearing arms, beachgoers cite their rights
Sounds surprisingly progressive (*real* “progessive,” not fascist “Progressive”) for California. But here’s where it goes south:
California allows people to openly carry guns in many areas as long as they are unloaded, though they can keep ammunition with them.
This is like the unconstitutional gun control laws of such repressive regimes as Chicago and Washington, D.C. where guns must be kept in a non-operational condition. A gun without ammunition is more dangerous to the gun owner than to the criminals. Behold the photo accompanying the article:
Firefighter Scott Brownlie wears an unloaded Colt M-4 Carbine slung across his back on a Hermosa Beach street.
Two things:
1: Not a particularly convenient form of carry. The gun is out of his way, it’s true, but getting to it would be problematic. Worse, it is right out in the open where he can’t see it, but where some criminal can gain easy access to it.
2: Damned thing is unloaded. It is at best a club, and not a very good one.
I am a holder of a Utah concealed carry permit, and often do go out and about with a small pistol (.45 caliber) somewhere on my person. It’s my opinion that as things currently stand, concealed carry makes more sense. If you are carrying concealed, there’s no visual difference between you and everyone else in the joint. But if you are carrying openly, criminals see (and target) you first. And if you are doing something as unwise as carrying openly but unloaded, you’re just asking for a box of trouble.
Now, if society could somehow be made to grow the hell up such that *most* people were packing heat at any one time, then carrying openly would make a bunch of sense, because there’d be a large proportion of people at any particular time and place carrying openly… and thus there wouldn’t be someone standing out as a target. Sadly, that’s not the society we have. As borne out by some of the quotes in the article (and by many of the commenters), there are a vast number of people in society who have chosen to live in abject error of inanimate objects.
8 Responses to “Close, California. But Not Quite Right.”
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“with a small pistol (.45 caliber) ” LOL 🙂
Their choice.
One wonders about the origin of that fear of firearms.
> One wonders about the origin of that fear of firearms.
I noticed right quick when reading the comments that at least some of the anti-gunners associated firearms with genitalia (“compensating,” blah, blah). So their fear of firearms, and their desire to firearms banned, can perhaps be linked back to some sort of Freudian issues.
> “with a small pistol (.45 caliber) ” LOL
It’s actually pretty small, only holds ten rounds (yay doublestack!). Now, my .44 would be problematic to conceal. Back when I had a .44 Desert Eagle, I could conceal that fairly easily with a shoulder holster.
The new XDm .45 has been calling to me since I first heard about it (already have the .40).
> I noticed right quick when reading the comments that at least some of the anti-gunners associated firearms with genitalia
I once heard a good line about that: “Who is the sicker individual? The person who views a gun as a sexual organ, or the person who wants to take everybody’s sexual organs away?”
“1: Not a particularly convenient form of carry. The gun is out of his way, it’s true, but getting to it would be problematic. Worse, it is right out in the open where he can’t see it, but where some criminal can gain easy access to it.”
We should assume then that the criminal is going to either:
1. Grab the M-4 and club the owner to death with it.
2. Travel up and down the beach with several different magazines of ammunition so that he’s ready to load any weapon he comes across.
This, if nothing else, allows easy spotting of the criminal…look for someone who is carrying a lot of ammunition…but no firearm.
This guy looks highly suspicious:
http://eter22.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/pancho_villa.jpg
3: Shoot him in the back with a Saturday Night Special and take the carbine
4: Stab him in the back and take the carbine
5: Club him over the back of the head and take the carbine
Carrying a large, obvious weapon that is just as obviously not loaded makes you a target. But the weapon does not help defend you unless you can get to it and *make* it loaded far faster than a criminal can cause you trouble.
While I’ve no trouble with my fellow man going about armed, for standard civilian purposes a long gun seems inappropriate. One rarely has cause to defend oneself at long range. And at short range a handgun is far more convenient *and* effective, while presenting less risk of bullets travelling half a mile downrange and striking the head of someone driving a busload of nuns and doe-eyed orphans over a bridge spanning a river full of burning radioactive AIDS-infected crocodiles.
Interestingly, the unloaded carry came about because of a Black Panthers protest in the 60s. Loaded weapons could be carried as lont as they wer visible and not pointed at someone. A group of the Panthers carried loaded rifles into the statehouse in Sacramento in May of 67. Very soon after they passed a law that guns had to be carried unloaded.