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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jan/02/texas-open-carry-gun-laws
Packing heat in plain sight
It's frightening enough that Americans can carry concealed guns. Should they be allowed to wear them in the open too?
Comments (71)
Quite aside from the question of why she was even carrying a gun (to defend herself, she said, even though in Austin, a city of just under 750,000 people, there were just 30 murders last year, compared to, say, the London borough of Lambeth, population 273,000, where there were 23), at least she'd left it in her car. The law in Texas states that you must conceal your gun if you own one. But a group of gun advocates is targeting lawmakers here to get them to permit wearing handguns in plain view.
The Texas legislative session begins in mid-January. In the meantime, the people behind the website opencarry.org have placed ads on billboards and taxis in cities across the state to make sure Texans get all hot under the collar about the issue. One of the site's founders, Mike Stollenwerk, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Get ready for a showdown in Austin come January." He insists that the open carry movement is "sweeping the country".
But why, in a country where gun ownership is enshrined in law, are there people who want to have them on display? Surely as long as the man standing next to you in line at the grocery store isn't visibly packing heat, you won't start sweating and making for the nearest exit. Back in 1999, a friend and I hitched a ride in a Long Island suburb, and five minutes into the journey we realised our driver was wearing a pistol. It turned out he was a plain-clothed police officer, but the damage to my nerves was already done. I think if Americans must exercise their right to bear arms, they should do so in private where it can't hurt anybody (or have I missed the point?).
I decide to call Stollenwerk to find out more. Stollenwerk is a retired Lt Colonel from the US army, and he is currently studying for a second career in law at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he's also the founder of the pro-gun-law student group called the Georgetown Law-Militia.
When I tell Stollenwerk my theory that I'd feel far more comfortable not knowing someone has a gun on them, he calls me an ostrich. "You prefer to stick your head in the sand – that if you don't know about it you won't be scared," he says. "But think about it for a while. Think: 'Maybe some of my neighbours and friends do carry guns. And I might like it someday if there's an active shooter in Wal-Mart and they disrupt him while I run out of the front door.'"
I ask why it's so important to him and his followers to be able to carry a gun in full view. "It's straightforward," he says. "You can walk around with a shotgun on your back in a mall. (I ask why anyone would want to do that, but I think he is just making a point.) But we're talking about handguns which the supreme court has said recently are the quintessential self-defence weapon."
Essentially, Stollenwerk says the gun laws in Texas are all messed up. He owns a house just over an hour from Austin in Killeen. He says that if I visited him there he could take his coat off and display his gun, but I couldn't "because Texas law says you can only carry a handgun openly on land you own or control".
He says it's fairly easy to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Texas if you're over 21, but you can carry a concealed weapon if you're travelling in your car without a background check, permit or training. "And that's weird," he says. "You can't even take your coat off in your car if you have a gun underneath. It must be concealed."
Stollenwerk understands my unease about open carry laws. He says he was in the army "forever", but the first time he went to a gun rights meeting in Virginia and saw people "with guns tucked in their pants", he was a little shocked too. "I was like, this is cool but it's new, it's a little bit different", he says, adding that the point of the open carry movement is to get "gun carry out of the closet."
Open carry was always viewed as the honourable way to bear arms, Stollenwerk says. "We want reform and we want to enforce our rights. There are six states that ban open carry completely, and Texas is, oddly, one of them. But Texas is pro-gun. Most of the south is pro-gun. And the south has more gun carry restrictions than the north or the west, believe it or not." He says almost 15,000 people have signed his online petition to decriminalise open carry.
Opencarry.org, which has a picture of a sultry looking woman standing with her arms folded wearing a gun in a holster, includes a quote from anthropologist Charles Springwood of Illinois Wesleyan University. Springwood says open carriers are trying to "naturalise the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood."
In a nutshell, the arguments boil down not just to a desire for the law to be clarified and cleaned up, but to whether it's a more effective deterrent to see a gun on show than if it's concealed. Ultimately though, Stollenwerk thinks people should have the right to choose, and he concedes that even the pro-gun lobby disagrees on which is preferable. He likes to compare this to the Miller Lite commercial in which two people argue whether the beer is best because of its great taste or because it's less filling.
On one internet discussion board, someone calling himself Grassy K Badge Man says: "I am a supporter of firearms, but not really in social settings", while Marksman says open carry is not good from a strategic standpoint: "You don't want to give a violent criminal the tactical advantage of taking out the biggest threat they can openly see first. The vast majority of police officers carry concealed while off duty. It's no longer customary to carry guns openly in American society; therefore, there is no reason to draw attention to yourself by making others nervous when you don't have to."
Steven Gunn (that's his real name) of the Gun Violence Prevention Centre of Utah, believes open carry is about "pure ego" and simply results in "inconsiderate boors walking around on the street carrying firearms openly, (most of whom) are trying to make a statement about the second amendment".
I tend to agree. Although I sympathise with Stollenwerk that the law needs clarifying, I think if people must play with big boys' toys, they should do so at a firing range or otherwise keep them under lock and key. If our friend had turned up and put her Glock on the kitchen counter while she enjoyed dinner, I think I would have been more than a little nervous – particularly if I'd said something to offend her.
Current time is 02:11 pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jan/02/texas-open-carry-gun-laws
Packing heat in plain sight
It's frightening enough that Americans can carry concealed guns. Should they be allowed to wear them in the open too?
Comments (71)
-
- Alex Hannaford
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 January 2009 17.00 GMT
- Article history
Quite aside from the question of why she was even carrying a gun (to defend herself, she said, even though in Austin, a city of just under 750,000 people, there were just 30 murders last year, compared to, say, the London borough of Lambeth, population 273,000, where there were 23), at least she'd left it in her car. The law in Texas states that you must conceal your gun if you own one. But a group of gun advocates is targeting lawmakers here to get them to permit wearing handguns in plain view.
The Texas legislative session begins in mid-January. In the meantime, the people behind the website opencarry.org have placed ads on billboards and taxis in cities across the state to make sure Texans get all hot under the collar about the issue. One of the site's founders, Mike Stollenwerk, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Get ready for a showdown in Austin come January." He insists that the open carry movement is "sweeping the country".
But why, in a country where gun ownership is enshrined in law, are there people who want to have them on display? Surely as long as the man standing next to you in line at the grocery store isn't visibly packing heat, you won't start sweating and making for the nearest exit. Back in 1999, a friend and I hitched a ride in a Long Island suburb, and five minutes into the journey we realised our driver was wearing a pistol. It turned out he was a plain-clothed police officer, but the damage to my nerves was already done. I think if Americans must exercise their right to bear arms, they should do so in private where it can't hurt anybody (or have I missed the point?).
I decide to call Stollenwerk to find out more. Stollenwerk is a retired Lt Colonel from the US army, and he is currently studying for a second career in law at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he's also the founder of the pro-gun-law student group called the Georgetown Law-Militia.
When I tell Stollenwerk my theory that I'd feel far more comfortable not knowing someone has a gun on them, he calls me an ostrich. "You prefer to stick your head in the sand – that if you don't know about it you won't be scared," he says. "But think about it for a while. Think: 'Maybe some of my neighbours and friends do carry guns. And I might like it someday if there's an active shooter in Wal-Mart and they disrupt him while I run out of the front door.'"
I ask why it's so important to him and his followers to be able to carry a gun in full view. "It's straightforward," he says. "You can walk around with a shotgun on your back in a mall. (I ask why anyone would want to do that, but I think he is just making a point.) But we're talking about handguns which the supreme court has said recently are the quintessential self-defence weapon."
Essentially, Stollenwerk says the gun laws in Texas are all messed up. He owns a house just over an hour from Austin in Killeen. He says that if I visited him there he could take his coat off and display his gun, but I couldn't "because Texas law says you can only carry a handgun openly on land you own or control".
He says it's fairly easy to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Texas if you're over 21, but you can carry a concealed weapon if you're travelling in your car without a background check, permit or training. "And that's weird," he says. "You can't even take your coat off in your car if you have a gun underneath. It must be concealed."
Stollenwerk understands my unease about open carry laws. He says he was in the army "forever", but the first time he went to a gun rights meeting in Virginia and saw people "with guns tucked in their pants", he was a little shocked too. "I was like, this is cool but it's new, it's a little bit different", he says, adding that the point of the open carry movement is to get "gun carry out of the closet."
Open carry was always viewed as the honourable way to bear arms, Stollenwerk says. "We want reform and we want to enforce our rights. There are six states that ban open carry completely, and Texas is, oddly, one of them. But Texas is pro-gun. Most of the south is pro-gun. And the south has more gun carry restrictions than the north or the west, believe it or not." He says almost 15,000 people have signed his online petition to decriminalise open carry.
Opencarry.org, which has a picture of a sultry looking woman standing with her arms folded wearing a gun in a holster, includes a quote from anthropologist Charles Springwood of Illinois Wesleyan University. Springwood says open carriers are trying to "naturalise the presence of guns, which means that guns become ordinary, omnipresent and expected. Over time, the gun becomes a symbol of ordinary personhood."
In a nutshell, the arguments boil down not just to a desire for the law to be clarified and cleaned up, but to whether it's a more effective deterrent to see a gun on show than if it's concealed. Ultimately though, Stollenwerk thinks people should have the right to choose, and he concedes that even the pro-gun lobby disagrees on which is preferable. He likes to compare this to the Miller Lite commercial in which two people argue whether the beer is best because of its great taste or because it's less filling.
On one internet discussion board, someone calling himself Grassy K Badge Man says: "I am a supporter of firearms, but not really in social settings", while Marksman says open carry is not good from a strategic standpoint: "You don't want to give a violent criminal the tactical advantage of taking out the biggest threat they can openly see first. The vast majority of police officers carry concealed while off duty. It's no longer customary to carry guns openly in American society; therefore, there is no reason to draw attention to yourself by making others nervous when you don't have to."
Steven Gunn (that's his real name) of the Gun Violence Prevention Centre of Utah, believes open carry is about "pure ego" and simply results in "inconsiderate boors walking around on the street carrying firearms openly, (most of whom) are trying to make a statement about the second amendment".
I tend to agree. Although I sympathise with Stollenwerk that the law needs clarifying, I think if people must play with big boys' toys, they should do so at a firing range or otherwise keep them under lock and key. If our friend had turned up and put her Glock on the kitchen counter while she enjoyed dinner, I think I would have been more than a little nervous – particularly if I'd said something to offend her.
Current time is 02:11 pm