Nor Cal OC dinner - input needed

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I have in the past spoken my mind about this, and stand by my position on the subject. However, I feel that since this will affect others (some of whom will be travelling 5+ hours to join us), I will leave it up to popular vote.

IF you plan to be at the OC dinner, please let me know what you think.

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The way I see it is that we shouldn't be asking permission since it is, after all, our right to carry.

However, any restaurant that we go to is a private venue, and it is their right to not allow guns in there either.

I believe that the right course of action would be to at least notify prospective venues of our intentions and inquire about their policies on carrying weapons, if any.

There is a restaurant in the city that I work in that I frequent for lunch and they have a "Code of Conduct" placard outside that specifically prohibits weapons inside the premesis.

If the venue doesn't have anything to say about it, great, we eat there. If they want to make a big deal about it, then they lose a couple hundred bucks and we eat somewhere else. It's their loss if they don't allow us in there. A venue may not have any restrictions on the subject, but I still think we should let them know out of courtesy.

The best way to win the hearts and minds of the people is to make it a positive experience for everyone. If you're rude about it, or just blow people off completely, they are going to think, "Oh, there goes another gun toting jack off."

When I carry, I try to be as nice as I can to everyone so that they can feel better about me carrying. If they ask why I'm carrying, I try to be as polite and courteous as possible and give them a real explanation and not this "because I can" BS. That way, I can leave knowing I gained the trust of another person, and they left thinking about how nice that guy was, maybe carrying a gun isn't such a bad thing after all. They have just as much right to ask me why I'm carrying a gun as I do to carry it.

Anyway, my .02.

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We have the right to carry.

Property owners and their agents have the right to ask us to leave.

The fact that people are coming statewide (and from out ofstate)complicates matters as it makes it difficult to coordinate if we must unexpectedly change venues. Which is why I think having more than one option would be a good idea. Being a Saturday night at dinner hour could make this a considerable hassle. I hate the idea of lobbying a business owner to make things smooth, but...

Im talking myself in circles...:banghead:

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Don't ask. If questioned, inform them of the nature of the group and place a big order. You could even tell them that their unloaded and CA law requires you to wear them openly as you don't have a LTC or a locking case etc...

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Juice wrote:

The best way to win the hearts and minds of the people is to make it a positive experience for everyone. If you're rude about it, or just blow people off completely, they are going to think, "Oh, there goes another gun toting jack off."

When I carry, I try to be as nice as I can to everyone so that they can feel better about me carrying. If they ask why I'm carrying, I try to be as polite and courteous as possible and give them a real explanation and not this "because I can" BS. That way, I can leave knowing I gained the trust of another person, and they left thinking about how nice that guy was, maybe carrying a gun isn't such a bad thing after all. They have just as much right to ask me why I'm carrying a gun as I do to carry it.

Anyway, my .02.

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This is where I disagree. Here's why:

Let's imagine a scenario where you come into the car dealership where I work. You're browsing our selection of vehicles while chatting with your spouse/friend/whoever. The conversation happens to be about politics or religion. I approach you and ask you to leave because I take offense to your discussion. In fact, I'm amazed at your audacity to come to my place of business and discussing controversial subjects without notifying me in advance... without making sure I don't have a policy against free speech.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? In this situation I think you would go to your local news editor and get a story splashed across the front page. Why do we treat our right to defend our lives like less of a right than free speech?

As I have said in other posts, I think that our attitude towards our own right will affect the attitude others treat our rights with. After all, if we feel we need to ask permission, maybe they feel permission should be required.

However, if the venue does have a problem serving me while armed, I would in this case compromise and leave my gun in the car. The only reason I would do so is because to me this meetup is all about networking. There will be plenty of other opportunities to win the fight for our rights; this dinner is about forming alliances in that battle.

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I don't think we should ask permission, certainly.

Even if we were going to check in advance to see if a certain location is OK, it would be better accomplished by informing them of our intention rather than asking for permission.

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CA_Libertarian wrote:

Juice wrote:

The best way to win the hearts and minds of the people is to make it a positive experience for everyone. If you're rude about it, or just blow people off completely, they are going to think, "Oh, there goes another gun toting jack off."

When I carry, I try to be as nice as I can to everyone so that they can feel better about me carrying. If they ask why I'm carrying, I try to be as polite and courteous as possible and give them a real explanation and not this "because I can" BS. That way, I can leave knowing I gained the trust of another person, and they left thinking about how nice that guy was, maybe carrying a gun isn't such a bad thing after all. They have just as much right to ask me why I'm carrying a gun as I do to carry it.

Anyway, my .02.

Click to expand...

This is where I disagree. Here's why:

Let's imagine a scenario where you come into the car dealership where I work. You're browsing our selection of vehicles while chatting with your spouse/friend/whoever. The conversation happens to be about politics or religion. I approach you and ask you to leave because I take offense to your discussion. In fact, I'm amazed at your audacity to come to my place of business and discussing controversial subjects without notifying me in advance... without making sure I don't have a policy against free speech.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? In this situation I think you would go to your local news editor and get a story splashed across the front page. Why do we treat our right to defend our lives like less of a right than free speech?

As I have said in other posts, I think that our attitude towards our own right will affect the attitude others treat our rights with. After all, if we feel we need to ask permission, maybe they feel permission should be required.

However, if the venue does have a problem serving me while armed, I would in this case compromise and leave my gun in the car. The only reason I would do so is because to me this meetup is all about networking. There will be plenty of other opportunities to win the fight for our rights; this dinner is about forming alliances in that battle.

Click to expand...

I agree with your scenario, I am also against asking for permission, which is why I voted no in your poll.

I do believe, however, that we should give the venue the courtesy of informing them of our intentions and give them the opportunity to respond without causing any issue. Like I said previously, I think the best way to get to people is to be as positive as possible about what we are trying to show.

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Juice wrote:

I agree with your scenario, I am also against asking for permission, which is why I voted no in your poll.

I do believe, however, that we should give the venue the courtesy of informing them of our intentions and give them the opportunity to respond without causing any issue. Like I said previously, I think the best way to get to people is to be as positive as possible about what we are trying to show.

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I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt by not even asking. Let's assume they're not going to ask us to check our rights at the door. Let's stop expecting our rights to be trampled. After all, if we can't act like being armed is a 'normal' thing to do, then how can we expect them to view our right?

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Again, I don't think we should be asking permission. I'm not askin', I'm tellin'.

If it were me calling, it would go as follows:

"Hi, I'd like to make reservations for a party of 10 at 6pm. This is an event for an organization that exercises their right to openly carry firearms, so we will be armed for this event. If this is going to be a problem, I'll make arrangements elsewhere."

Now the ball is in their court. I just told them we're carrying, if they want to deny us, that's their loss.

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I will leave this decision to minds more thoughtful than mine. If all I get out of my drive is the chance to shake hands with all of the other individuals open-carrying in this state, I will be able to drive home happy. q

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Juice wrote:

Again, I don't think we should be asking permission. I'm not askin', I'm tellin'.

If it were me calling, it would go as follows:

"Hi, I'd like to make reservations for a party of 10 at 6pm. This is an event for an organization that exercises their right to openly carry firearms, so we will be armed for this event. If this is going to be a problem, I'll make arrangements elsewhere."

Now the ball is in their court. I just told them we're carrying, if they want to deny us, that's their loss.

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We can put the ball in their court when we show up at the door. Then they have to choose between losing a party of ten paying customers or allowing us to exercise our rights. If we 'warn' them in advance we make it too easy to say "no."

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I definitely see your point. I just don't want us to have to find another location on a whim for getting kicked out of somewhere. It's going to be awesome getting everyone together, so I want it to work out OK.

I don't have any problem showing up without prior notice, just as long as we all realize that we might have to relocate. However, based on my OC experiences here, I doubt we'll have any trouble at all. I only brought it up in the first place as a precaution.

Although, a 911 call for men with guns (plural) could be an interesting experience.

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Juice wrote:

Although, a 911 call for men with guns (plural) could be an interesting experience.

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It happened on the east coast... in a much more conservative place than we'll be in. Could happen.