We are so fighting now, I’m posting on my LiveJournal that we’re having a blood feud until you decide if it’s lowercase “a” or uppercase “A”.

It is obvious and beyond any reasonable doubt that the egg came first. The egg, however, did not cause the chicken.

Meanwhile VA has proven beyond a doubt that open carry activism works.

Who’s side are you on Sebastian?

Locally we’ve had a the local high school agree to create an air gun range at the school. That opens up the possibility of having a shooting team at a school that probably hasn’t had one for a generation.

I’m not disagreeing that people need to be exposed more to guns and shooting, that’s how you’re going to affect cultural change, the question is whether open carry an effective, or even if one concedes it’s effective, is it the most effective means to accomplish that, and I don’t think it is.

The original frustration expressed in my post is that a lot of people want to put time and energy into open carry activism, and I have to applaud them for doing something at least, but I question whether the energy wouldn’t be better invested in something else. You should know by now I’m not a cheerleader for our side. I think any movement needs to be constantly questioning what it’s doing. We don’t have enough people willing to get involved to spend a lot of time and energy over something that’s not remarkably important or effective. I think we can disagree on whether it’s effective, but the process of questioning is something that needs to happen.

Like what?

I don’t think it’s really a chicken and egg problem a whole. The problem with open carry is that it has the chicken and egg problem.

If you can make the public more accepting of guns as part of the culture you might be able to change some of those fundamentals. What I was originally arguing in comment 52 is there are other ways to get the topic into the popular culture that don’t have the same problem.

Likewise, I hear people constantly berate the NRA. I’ve long held the viewpoint that there are different type of military units. Furthermore, any war involves two elements “strategy” and “tactics”.

The one is more over-reaching upon an entire campaign and the logistics involved. The other is more in the dirt. A failure to have a good quality on either will lose one the war.

Without a good strategy, your soldiers will win small battles but the war will be lost. If you’ve got a good strategy, but your soldiers are untrained in tactics. They will lose the key battles that must be won.

I look at the NRA akin to the Army. It’s big, it’s a bit slower than other branches. The NRA focuses on strategic relationships. Working politicians, not burning bridges. Being able to keep the soldiers fed and supplied.

GOA, should be akin to the Marines. Smaller, faster, and a bit more gutsy. Instead of wasting words attacking the NRA. GOA should be noting where the NRA can’t attack for fear of burning what may be a weak bridge, but a bridge none-the-less. And they should put the pressure. (Good cop/Bad cop tactic.)

While I support Open Carry, and do believe it is our right. I am also aware that it can stir up a hornets nest. Often such stirring results in a) 2nd Amendment supporters becoming more active b) hoplophobia.

Their are advantages and disadvantages to be weighed and considered. For example, I think the case of the AR worked to our advantage. One, it put the media in a bind, showed them as deceitful, etc. Two it showed that this is an issue that affects all demographics. Other times it’s going to give the left the sound bites they want. Hoplophobes are going to jump on it.

It’s tough, we’re forced to play a bitter chess game, where the other side doesn’t have to abide by the rules. Ain’t an easy game to win, and often we’re fighting for a draw.

But I think all sides need to be cautious about tearing down each other.

The obstacle you’re going to encounter for getting more people to do it are fundamental, and aren’t easily overcome. Just to list some of those:

1. It attracts attention of law enforcement in many jurisdictions. This problem is one that I think can probably be overcome even by a small number of people open carrying, Virginia being an example, but I don’t think this had lead to a tremendous number of new people open carrying, because it’s not the only issue:
2. Many establishment prohibit carrying firearms. Not an issue if you’re concealing, because what they don’t know won’t hurt them. When you’re advertising you’re armed, you don’t have the option of don’t ask don’t tell.
3. Many people believe it’s tactically unsound, and there’s a good argument to be made that it is
4. Your spouse has to be supportive of your choice to open carry, and most aren’t going to be unless they are gun people, or very supportive of the cause.
5. Most people spend most of their day on the job, and most employers prohibit guns on company property, or while on the job.

If you can’t get a lot of people openly carrying, it’s going to be very difficult for that practice to become normal. As I said, I think you can probably overcome the law enforcement problem, but in terms of affecting serious social change, I just don’t see enough people doing it that it becomes normal practice in all circumstances. I think you can probably get circumstantial acceptance of open carry, but in some settings, it’s going to rub some people the wrong way, and not all of those people are going to hysterically afraid of guns.

How can you make carrying guns normal if you’re not going to carry guns?

As the public becomes aware that OC is legal and there are no shootouts more and more will accept. After all Arlington and Fairfax are about as liberal as they come and they have come to accept it, especially with police saying that it is OK to OC.

Initially in Va there were people who called 911. The operator proceeded to ask more questions to see if it was a real concern and then when not, educated the caller. That reinforces the idea it OK to carry and there needs to be more than just a gun seen to get the police to react.

I agree that the media generally presents issues in a sensational light, and not often favorably on gun issues, but why drag open carry, which is not what is at issue in this situation, into the debate, and make it part of the debate? Maybe that wasn’t the intention, but that was the result.

Basically Pa is a northern state with a lot of people that had the views formed in the 1970’s and 1980’s. This view was that guns are bad. These council members would prefer no guns to guns but know that is not possible. So they scream and try to make laws on the fringe. The report theft law is stupid but it is a law against the gunnies and hassles legal owners more than it affects crime.

As one of the comments indicated the counsel person who made the most noise was an ardent anti gun person.

The implied statement of carrying to a public meeting is that the OC person says I will fight any anti gun laws and prepared to back it up. It also says that these people are active and will work to vote out any council member that restricts his gun rights or enacts laws to hassle a gun owner.

VCDL has made it a practice to open carry at city and county hearings and despite the few anti gun members on the councils it has been very effective to the other council members. Really it shows that gun owners and OC people will act politically to any attempt that attempts to restrict their ability to own and carry.

A few scared council members have attempted to ban carry at meetings and have been stopped. VA has been strengthening it. Preemption and gun owners have been holding localities to the fire on that. PA is squishier on protecting preemption, but Scranton anti gun council members.

Sebastian, just because the writer focuses on the OC does not mean that that was the message that those attending that meeting took away. The council figured they would have a fight legally and decided better to table a bad law than push it through whether legal or not.

Do not take counsel from the media that presents this in the most contentious manner. It is in the interest of the reporter to make the most dramatic effect of his article and the OC being more unusual was his device.

OC is in infancy and people can get used to anything as long as their fears are not reinforced. Since those that OC are not brandishing and firing on the public. Fears are not reinforced.

I would give more credence to Sebastian’s view if he were present at the meeting rather than taking a reporters article as his information source on what people were concerned about in that meeting.

A holstered gun is not a threat when a law enforcement officer has it on his belt; why does it suddenly become one when the citizen carrying it doesn’t have a uniform, or at least a nice, shiny badge? Simple, it doesn’t — even if some elected officials and most Authorized Journalists believe otherwise. Pandering to their irrational fears helps keep gun owners in the ghetto.

Stop trying to judge your effectiveness by how much you like your own reflection in the media’s funhouse mirror. this is especially true when you see the media being the willing accomplice of elected officials trying to change the subject from “we want to break the law,” to “you meanies, you’re scaring me.”

THIS.