Statkowski
Regular Member
imported post
Gunfight at the O.C. Buffet
I love the Duke.
Love him.
In an extremely manly, “cowpoke across the campfire, never been to ‘Brokeback Mountain’” sort of way, of course. Pointing out that Curly’s new chaps would look fabulous with a gingham scarf and some silver spurs don’t make me no rhinestone cowboy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’ve seen every John Wayne movie innumerable times, even the bad ones. Like pizza, vacations and sex, even when the Duke is bad, he’s pretty good.
The Duke was a big man, and I’m sure he bellied up to his share of buffets in his day. And although he seldom went anywhere on the silver screen without a Colt on his hip (there was that one time in “The Sons of Katie Elder”), I strongly doubt the off-screen John Wayne ever sported a sidearm in a family restaurant.
That’s just what a group of gun owners did last week, however, strolling into Old Country Buffet in Dickson City with handguns on proud display. While the police report won’t be available until Monday, the basic facts are known.
Police were called to the restaurant on a report of patrons openly carrying guns. Said patrons didn’t appreciate being “hassled” and at least one was arrested, his gun confiscated. The patrons said they were within their rights to openly carry guns, and to refuse to show identification or permits, a position affirmed by the district attorney.
The cause
No charges were or will be filed, Police Chief William Stadnitski said, but the incident became an immediate cause celebre on gun-rights Web sites like Opencarry.org, where the gun owners were dubbed “The Dickson Dozen.” More than 20 openly armed members of the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association from across the state showed up at Tuesday’s Dickson City Borough Council meeting to protest their treatment.
Andrew Koch, who drove up from Pittsburgh, said the responding officers “embarrassed, oppressed, harassed and violated” the Dickson Dozen.
“These officers need to be disciplined, and criminal charges need to be brought against them,” Mr. Koch said.
Embarrassed, I can see. Harassed? That’s a matter of perspective. But oppressed? Violated? Please. I can’t speak for the Duke, but I bet even he’d say that for tough guys, these dudes sure whine a lot.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have a point, no matter how dull. While it may be criminally foolish to openly carry guns into a family restaurant and then tell police officers who dare to take notice it’s none of their business, it is apparently legal.
I’m no lawyer (sorry, Mom), but as I read the state statute, I don’t see anything that expressly affords the right to “open carry,” as it is called by advocates. Nor do I see anything in the statute that expressly prohibits it. The law seems to address concealed weapons only. If true, aren’t we really talking about a loophole, as opposed to a legal right? The result may be the same, but it’s a distinction, nonetheless.
Like I said, I’m no lawyer, but then I’m not all that interested in the legality of open carry. I can’t get past the absurdity of people walking around 21st century Pennsylvania as if it’s 19th century Texas.
While some gunslingers will adamantly disagree, a room in which there are no guns is safer than a room in which even one gun is present, no matter what color hat you’re wearing. This is just as true with other lethal instruments, such as the broadsword, catapult, rocket launcher and French horn.
Open-carry advocates argue that guns increase safety. If some maniac comes in and starts shooting up the buffet, they can return fire, thus upping the body count and increasing the chances of pegging the maniac.
COP: “Sir, did you shoot the waitress, or just the grandma and the busboy?”
MR. OPEN CARRY: “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern, fascist bullyboy!”
Similarly hard to swallow is the claim that the Dickson Dozen weren’t looking for any trouble, just all-you-can-eat barbecue riblets. Mmm. Riblets. Scanning Web sites like Opencarry.org, it’s clear that confrontations between advocates and police are on the rise, and not coincidentally. Advocates are pushing the issue, seeking attention they may one day wish they could shake.
I read a few accounts on the Opencarry.org message boards, including one from a Wilkes-Barre advocate who was stopped by a pair of police for openly carrying a gun in his neighborhood. One of the cops was annoyed, but the encounter ended amicably.
Some commentators on the advocate’s post weren’t as diplomatic. My favorite played on the paranoia of those who equate any police inquiry about their weapons with jackbooted thuggery: “I’m sure some of the Gestapo were polite, too — as they ushered the Jews to the trains to take them to Treblinka.”
Yahoo Ink
While I give the author credit for correctly spelling the name of the infamous Nazi death camp, I feel it is my duty as a semi-sentient being to point out that comparing a pair of cops checking out a report of a man walking around with a gun to accomplices in the most heinous crime in human history is not only unfair, it’s stupid. And it’s just the sort of flippant, childish and intellectually dishonest remark that allows critics to dismiss all gun owners as self-obsessed, weak-minded yahoos.
Most gun owners are anything but. Most gun owners are responsible, reasonable people who are happy to exercise their constitutional rights in peace and outside the spotlight. Maybe that’s why the yahoos always get the ink.
MEMO TO OPEN-CARRY ADVOCATES: Owning a gun does not make you a patriot. It makes you a gun owner. You may well be both, but neither is mutually exclusive. Conversely, my aversion to having you and your gun next to me in the buffet line does not make me a traitorous fascist, just a fellow American who doesn’t care to participate in your “Dirty Harry” fantasy and doesn’t appreciate you having an unfair advantage if there’s a scrum over the last chicken wing.
MEMO TO RESTAURANT OWNERS: If you seat Wyatt Earp and his posse near me and mine, I will exercise my right to get out of Dodge, and I won’t be back.
MEMO TO RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERS: I firmly believe in the Second Amendment. I come from a long line of hunters and gun owners. I am licensed to carry a concealed weapon in Pennsylvania, but I have never felt naked without one in a family restaurant. If you’re sick and tired of yahoos making all gun owners look like idiots, this seems like a golden opportunity to stand up and say so.
I assume you believe in the Second Amendment. Where do you stand on the First?
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, often goes off half-cocked. Contact the writer: kellysworld @timesshamrock.com
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19699848&brd=2185&pag=461&dept_id=422126
Feel free to make your comments known.
Gunfight at the O.C. Buffet
I love the Duke.
Love him.
In an extremely manly, “cowpoke across the campfire, never been to ‘Brokeback Mountain’” sort of way, of course. Pointing out that Curly’s new chaps would look fabulous with a gingham scarf and some silver spurs don’t make me no rhinestone cowboy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’ve seen every John Wayne movie innumerable times, even the bad ones. Like pizza, vacations and sex, even when the Duke is bad, he’s pretty good.
The Duke was a big man, and I’m sure he bellied up to his share of buffets in his day. And although he seldom went anywhere on the silver screen without a Colt on his hip (there was that one time in “The Sons of Katie Elder”), I strongly doubt the off-screen John Wayne ever sported a sidearm in a family restaurant.
That’s just what a group of gun owners did last week, however, strolling into Old Country Buffet in Dickson City with handguns on proud display. While the police report won’t be available until Monday, the basic facts are known.
Police were called to the restaurant on a report of patrons openly carrying guns. Said patrons didn’t appreciate being “hassled” and at least one was arrested, his gun confiscated. The patrons said they were within their rights to openly carry guns, and to refuse to show identification or permits, a position affirmed by the district attorney.
The cause
No charges were or will be filed, Police Chief William Stadnitski said, but the incident became an immediate cause celebre on gun-rights Web sites like Opencarry.org, where the gun owners were dubbed “The Dickson Dozen.” More than 20 openly armed members of the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association from across the state showed up at Tuesday’s Dickson City Borough Council meeting to protest their treatment.
Andrew Koch, who drove up from Pittsburgh, said the responding officers “embarrassed, oppressed, harassed and violated” the Dickson Dozen.
“These officers need to be disciplined, and criminal charges need to be brought against them,” Mr. Koch said.
Embarrassed, I can see. Harassed? That’s a matter of perspective. But oppressed? Violated? Please. I can’t speak for the Duke, but I bet even he’d say that for tough guys, these dudes sure whine a lot.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have a point, no matter how dull. While it may be criminally foolish to openly carry guns into a family restaurant and then tell police officers who dare to take notice it’s none of their business, it is apparently legal.
I’m no lawyer (sorry, Mom), but as I read the state statute, I don’t see anything that expressly affords the right to “open carry,” as it is called by advocates. Nor do I see anything in the statute that expressly prohibits it. The law seems to address concealed weapons only. If true, aren’t we really talking about a loophole, as opposed to a legal right? The result may be the same, but it’s a distinction, nonetheless.
Like I said, I’m no lawyer, but then I’m not all that interested in the legality of open carry. I can’t get past the absurdity of people walking around 21st century Pennsylvania as if it’s 19th century Texas.
While some gunslingers will adamantly disagree, a room in which there are no guns is safer than a room in which even one gun is present, no matter what color hat you’re wearing. This is just as true with other lethal instruments, such as the broadsword, catapult, rocket launcher and French horn.
Open-carry advocates argue that guns increase safety. If some maniac comes in and starts shooting up the buffet, they can return fire, thus upping the body count and increasing the chances of pegging the maniac.
COP: “Sir, did you shoot the waitress, or just the grandma and the busboy?”
MR. OPEN CARRY: “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern, fascist bullyboy!”
Similarly hard to swallow is the claim that the Dickson Dozen weren’t looking for any trouble, just all-you-can-eat barbecue riblets. Mmm. Riblets. Scanning Web sites like Opencarry.org, it’s clear that confrontations between advocates and police are on the rise, and not coincidentally. Advocates are pushing the issue, seeking attention they may one day wish they could shake.
I read a few accounts on the Opencarry.org message boards, including one from a Wilkes-Barre advocate who was stopped by a pair of police for openly carrying a gun in his neighborhood. One of the cops was annoyed, but the encounter ended amicably.
Some commentators on the advocate’s post weren’t as diplomatic. My favorite played on the paranoia of those who equate any police inquiry about their weapons with jackbooted thuggery: “I’m sure some of the Gestapo were polite, too — as they ushered the Jews to the trains to take them to Treblinka.”
Yahoo Ink
While I give the author credit for correctly spelling the name of the infamous Nazi death camp, I feel it is my duty as a semi-sentient being to point out that comparing a pair of cops checking out a report of a man walking around with a gun to accomplices in the most heinous crime in human history is not only unfair, it’s stupid. And it’s just the sort of flippant, childish and intellectually dishonest remark that allows critics to dismiss all gun owners as self-obsessed, weak-minded yahoos.
Most gun owners are anything but. Most gun owners are responsible, reasonable people who are happy to exercise their constitutional rights in peace and outside the spotlight. Maybe that’s why the yahoos always get the ink.
MEMO TO OPEN-CARRY ADVOCATES: Owning a gun does not make you a patriot. It makes you a gun owner. You may well be both, but neither is mutually exclusive. Conversely, my aversion to having you and your gun next to me in the buffet line does not make me a traitorous fascist, just a fellow American who doesn’t care to participate in your “Dirty Harry” fantasy and doesn’t appreciate you having an unfair advantage if there’s a scrum over the last chicken wing.
MEMO TO RESTAURANT OWNERS: If you seat Wyatt Earp and his posse near me and mine, I will exercise my right to get out of Dodge, and I won’t be back.
MEMO TO RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERS: I firmly believe in the Second Amendment. I come from a long line of hunters and gun owners. I am licensed to carry a concealed weapon in Pennsylvania, but I have never felt naked without one in a family restaurant. If you’re sick and tired of yahoos making all gun owners look like idiots, this seems like a golden opportunity to stand up and say so.
I assume you believe in the Second Amendment. Where do you stand on the First?
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, often goes off half-cocked. Contact the writer: kellysworld @timesshamrock.com
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19699848&brd=2185&pag=461&dept_id=422126
Feel free to make your comments known.
