imported post
N6ATF wrote:
Found this in an 'open carry' Google search:
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/02/brady_campaign_petitions_starb.php
Highlight:
Last May, SW profiled a local Open Carry chapter whose members volunteered to pick up litter along Interstate 5 in Fife. The goal of the Open Carry movement is to destigmatize firearms and gun owners. If more and more people see someone carrying a handgun, behaving in a normal and law-abiding manner by shopping at the grocery store or drinking an espresso at the local coffee stand, the less regular people will have to fear from guns themselves--or so the reasoning goes. The Brady Campaign, however, contends the sight of a man carrying a Colt 1911 in a tactical holster only frightens and intimidates other coffee customers, particularly families with small children.
So do jittery hands make for itchy trigger fingers? Hamm concedes that there have been no incidents of violence involving lawful gun owners at any Starbucks. However, nervous java junkies with an anti-gun bent have called the police on folks legally open-carrying. Hamm said this is an unnecessary waste of the police resources--when an officer has to stop and question every time a pistol owner purchases a Venti Chai--and that they should leave their guns at home.
Mrs. Duck says, ''Again with the children!''
I say that this is beyond stupid. Nobody is that stupid by accident; it has to be on purpose. For ''the children'' to be a factor presupposes the idea that other adults care so little about children that they will perform their shenanigans (whatever that might mean) so as to endanger the kids. Notice that these delightful paragons of logical thought never call them kids. ''Children'' evokes a mind picture better for their purposes, namely thinking of these poor endangered waifs as being toddlers and such. ''Kids'' might make you think of teenagers. We couldn't have that. It might cause someone to think about the doctored statistics used by Fascist telli et al.
I also say people who think that they're too good to have learn about a subject should just shut up. The four rules of firearm safety include ''keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.'' Coffee nerves have nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact Gabe Suarez says to place your trigger finger specifically on a predetermined spot called the ''index point.'' On a 1911, for me, this works out to be the rounded back end of the slide stop.
Regarding the use of police resources, I think Hamm has it backwards. We open carriers are engaging in legal, indeed constitutionally protected, activity. We are not the ones calling on the police to squander resources, the hopolophobes are. If the police refuse to have the 911 operator ask sensible questions of the caller, such as ''what is he doing?'', it is hardly the fault of the open carrier.
MD
