Open Carry Flash Mob - Hampton Roads

Thundar said:

Twenty people on the boardwalk at the oceanfront all asking in a syncronized voice "What is your quest?"

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BWAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!

Having just re-watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail last week, I can't wait to see a bunch of OCers do this. Someone has to video it, and post it on YouTube...

Or walking down the boardwalk, etc.. reciting the constitution. That would make a funny You Tube video arrest.

what were they doing?

They were walking down the boardwalk with GUNS on their hips reciting the Constitution!

why did you arrest them?

people didn't like it one bit, so I arrested them for disturbing the peace.

administrator said:

Dreamer has a very valid point. I understand what you are going for but flash mobs have acquired a very negative connotation recently. The lack of control or even knowledge of the others who might turn up would make me think very carefully about such an idea! (And then I would run the other way. )

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I understand what John and Dreamer are saying.. I would never want to do anything that would put gun owners in a negative light. (like the best buy thing with OC might have made best buy ban gun owners from carrying... or something like that.. the freeze in place disrupted the cart driver, etc.) But maybe an Open Carry Kite Flying day at a popular park, maybe a SEGWAY tour while OC (Segways always draw stares anyway.. so it might be odd seeing a bunch of OC'ers on Segways). I might be game for something depending on what it is.. and/or I may think up my own creation (beyond the litter pick-up) for somethign fun up in Northern VA. Keep the ideas coming.

The Improv Everywhere Best Buy stunt turned me off to them pretty much forever. It's one thing to do this in a public area where you aren't interfering with anyone, it's quite another to gather 150 people to go into someone's store and disrupt it. This is the kind of thing that folks think is funny until it's your business that gets disrupted. I try to have respect for other people's property, as I expect them to do the same.

Balloon puppets for free? Free hot air balloons? the hugs idea was pretty funny.

Sounds fun but I would stay away from the term 'flash mob' as through news reports I equate it with petty larceny.

Thundar said:

Maybe some activity that keeps our hands busy to ensure that our non aggressive nature is evident.

If we were all juggling during a festival at Town Point Park, what do you think Norfolk PD would do?

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Knitting?

Ed what is this thing you talk about with Best Buy?

RedKnightt said:

The Improv Everywhere Best Buy stunt turned me off to them pretty much forever. It's one thing to do this in a public area where you aren't interfering with anyone, it's quite another to gather 150 people to go into someone's store and disrupt it. This is the kind of thing that folks think is funny until it's your business that gets disrupted. I try to have respect for other people's property, as I expect them to do the same.

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EXACTLY on point and what I meant.

jmelvin said:

Ed what is this thing you talk about with Best Buy?

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Watch the third video I posted on Page 1 of this thread and then read Red Knights Comments above this post

Wrong thread

ed said:

But maybe an Open Carry Kite Flying day at a popular park, maybe a SEGWAY tour while OC (Segways always draw stares anyway.. so it might be odd seeing a bunch of OC'ers on Segways). I might be game for something depending on what it is.. and/or I may think up my own creation (beyond the litter pick-up) for somethign fun up in Northern VA. Keep the ideas coming.

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I'd be ALL FOR an OC Kite Fly. I'm big into kites, and have a box full of them. When we go to Nags Head, I couldn't care less about the beach--I want to spend the day up on Jockey Ridge flying kites. Unfortunately, Jockey Ridge is a NC State Park, and carry in ANY mode is prohibited...

However, The Wright Brothers National Memorial is just up the road from there, and is a NATIONAL PARK, so OC is legal there. And although the wind is stronger at Jockey Ridge, it is more steady at WBNM, and there are a LOT more tourists milling around because you don't have to walk half a mile through shifting sands up a hill to get to it...

OC Kite Flying Day at the Wright Bothers Memorial.... Hmmmm... You might be on to something with that idea...

ed said:

Or walking down the boardwalk, etc.. reciting the constitution. That would make a funny You Tube video arrest.

what were they doing?

They were walking down the boardwalk with GUNS on their hips reciting the Constitution!

why did you arrest them?

people didn't like it one bit, so I arrested them for disturbing the peace.

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Although I absolutely LOVE the theatrical aspect of this idea, the fact is that publically reciting the Constitution while OCng in a group is pretty much going to GUARANTEE that you don't just get charged with "disturbing the peaace", but that a call is made to the local DHS office. They've published reports dealing with EXACTLY this sort of behavior and apparently the Feds see this sort of thing as a "clear and present danger".

Download and read the MIAC report. It's chilling...

Petty harassment by some local tin star is one thing. But when the Feds get involved, you're talking about a WHOLE different ballgame.

And judging by the recent report the Washington Post published (Top Secret America) about 1 in 300 people in the US are now working for DHS through InfraGuard, so it's not just cops you have to worry about when you act like a "patriot". It's CEOs, executives, government contractors, clergy, teachers, business owners--there is an all-out effort to brainwash these "upright members of society" into a "surveillance state" mentality, and report on their neighbors or people they see in public who may be "engaging in anti-American behavior".

And among the heinous acts that DHS deems a danger to the US are things like flying a Gadsden Flag, or talking fervently about the Constitution...


While I think the idea of "flash mob" type public theater is a GREAT idea, and would get a lot media coverage, PLUS give us some really fun and engaging video that could potentially send our message "viral", I maintain that if such an event were to occur, it should probably be an "empty holster" event, to ensure that no OCers end up like Erik Scott...

Although the more passive things like "trash pickups" or "kite day" don't make for exciting video, and perhaps are not as engaging for the uninformed spectators, they are also a lot less likely to give the "authorities" an excuse to pull out their ticket books, or worse, the cuffs, tazers, and teargas...

The MIAC Report has pretty much been discredited and DHS has come out publically and said it was not something they supported.

Of course all that happened after the harsh light of publicity was turned on and complaints were lodged with congresscritters on both sides of the aisle.

If the object of the exercise is to publicise OC and the fact that even a sizeable gathering of OCers is really nonthreatening, then I would suggest an early dinner and a post-pradnial stroll along the public path (so as to ensure against an inadvertant trespass). No chanting, no sign-carrying, nothing but good company and quiet conversation amongst a group of like-minded individuals.

If you want to engage in some other ativity (kite flying, model boat racing, feeding the pifeons in the park, etc.) then just go ahead and schedule it, publicize the event so folks who are interested know when/whee to show up and what extra gear to bring. Yes, it's "sort of" like a flash mob but without the "evil conotations" that flash mob entails.

Words, folks, have meanings. Be aware of that.

stay safe.

The interesting thing about the term "flash mob" is that it was invented by performance art groups (generally theater students, or groups of out-of-work actors) in NY and LA several years ago to describe their new method of infiltrating a bunch of actors into a large public space (like a park, or a train station, or a mall) and then suddenly having them all come together for a huge performance of some sort (usually something very silly or absurd) to sort of mess with people in a playful, absurdist way, and they when it was over, they'd just fade back into the crowd like nothing happened...

When gangs of rowdy teens in some large urban areas (like LA) started using social networking (like Twitter) to gather big crowds of their rowdy, lawless, irresponsible friends to go on senseless rampages of looting, vandalism, and assault, for some reason the media started calling these activities "flash mobs" too. They were anything BUT...

Calling these social-networking driven acts of mass teenage mayhem a "flash mob" is like calling a Boy Scout Camp a concentration camp. Sure they both involve sub-standard housing. Sure, there are men in uniforms at both. And sure there are mottos over the gate at both, but the REASON and intended OUTCOME of the two couldn't be more different.

And similarly, sure a theatrical flash mob and these social-networking-driven race riots have a few things in common. They both involve large groups of people. They both force the public to interact with these pre-planned activities. They both use social networking, new media and other technologies to plan, coordinate, and carry out their actions. But they are NOT the same thing, the do NOT have the same intent, and they don NOT even remotely have the same desired outcomes.

The reason the term "flash mobs" has a bad rap isn't because of anything the people who actually do REAL flash mobs have done. It's because the media--in their infinite capacity to call a heart a club--has applied the term to something that is completely unrelated, and turned it on it;s head to mean something it never meant...

The first video below is a real flash mob. The second link is just a bunch of punk kids raising hell. But the media calls these two events by the same name...

[video=youtube;7EYAUazLI9k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k[/video]

[video=youtube;LcfJA8FQrIM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcfJA8FQrIM[/video]


I'd like to think that the real reason this term has been confused by the media is because they are just illiterate politically-correct idiots who can't call a race riot a race riot, and don't have the intellectual ability to come up with a new catchy term to describe something they don't understand.

But I think perhaps there is something a little more sinister behind this co-opting of a harmless term for what was originally a harmless event, and giving it violent, negative connotations. I think perhaps the non-violent, fun, wacky, absurdist expressions of creativity displayed by the "original" flash mobs of the theatrical type are actually seen by the System as a GREATER threat to the status quo than violent race riots, because they immerse the general public in an unexplainable event that is non-threatening, and they make people think, ask questions, and critically examine what they believe to be their reality.

Theatrical flash mobs where people sing and dance to "the Sound of Music", or dance like Michael Jackson's zombies to "Thriller" are the sort of non-approved entertainment that the System is most afraid of. They are sudden, everyone ends up smiling and enjoying the spectacle, and it gives people a reason to talk to each other, discuss their perceptions, and compare notes as to what their perceived reality actually is.

And that, dear friends--an awake, aware, and communicative public--is FAR more dangerous to the System than any "dirty bomb" or "race riot" because it causes people to actually THINK and TALK TO EACH OTHER rather than cower in their living rooms and be fed their reality through a cable...

The control of information IS the control of reality. When the System loses control of the flow of information, they lose control over society, and THAT is what this is REALLY all about...

skidmark said:

The MIAC Report has pretty much been discredited and DHS has come out publically and said it was not something they supported.

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Well, believe what you will. The MIAC folks continue to get Federal funding to do this sort of research, and continue to be involved in LE education and disseminating information to the LE community.

The only thing that REALLY came out of the shakeup at MIAC and DHS was that MIAC started using MUCH better security and stopped posting these reports for general access by the public and the media.

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist...

skidmark said:

Of course all that happened after the harsh light of publicity was turned on and complaints were lodged with congresscritters on both sides of the aisle.

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But this report was distributed throughout the LE community for over a year before it went public. Nobody from a Sheriffs office or a Metro PD complained. No sworn officers reported this as offensive or out-of-line. The just gobbled it up with all the other "training memos", and saw it as one more set of excuses to over-reach their authority to enable them to harass law-abiding citizens who were making the jobs of their masters difficult through legal, constitutional means...

skidmark said:

If the object of the exercise is to publicise OC and the fact that even a sizeable gathering of OCers is really nonthreatening, then I would suggest an early dinner and a post-pradnial stroll along the public path (so as to ensure against an inadvertant trespass). No chanting, no sign-carrying, nothing but good company and quiet conversation amongst a group of like-minded individuals.

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I have some VERY good ideas for actions along these lines, but they don't involve kites or picnics...

How about several dozen (unarmed) guys in khaki pants and black t-shirts with the word "POLITE" on the back showing up to a Federal Court building during a police brutality hearing, and standing around on the front steps of the building and breaking into a really campy chorus of "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" with choreography?... :banana:

Dreamer said:

The interesting thing about the term "flash mob" is that it was invented by performance art groups (generally theater students, or groups of out-of-work actors) in NY and LA several years ago

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These may have been the first intentional exploits of the concept, but the term "flash crowd" first came to my attention in a SciFi story of the same name by Larry Niven in the 70's. He imagined it as a consequence of the invention of a practical method of transporting people using teleportation booths, a newsworthy event would cause people to teleport in from all over the world to see what was happening. A few years ago he had a book signing in DC, and I recall him saying that the concept was not original with him, and as far as he knew dated back to the 40's.

Need a Good Audience

How about a group of OCers walking on the beach in the toe-deep water from 1st Street to 31st Street (and back, maybe)? The audience would be a great cross-section of Americans. Most other places the audience would be other Virginians, many of whom are starting to get used to the idea of OC. As states go, VA is already very gun-friendly. But if your audience is from all over the USA, those are people who will take that message back home. No chanting. No singing. No signs or banners. Just a bunch of OCers walking down the beach as it is our right to do. Of course, everybody would have a pocketful of OCDO & VCDL literature available if asked about what it is the group is doing.

vbnative73 said:

How about a group of OCers walking on the beach in the toe-deep water from 1st Street to 31st Street (and back, maybe)? The audience would be a great cross-section of Americans. Most other places the audience would be other Virginians, many of whom are starting to get used to the idea of OC. As states go, VA is already very gun-friendly. But if your audience is from all over the USA, those are people who will take that message back home. No chanting. No singing. No signs or banners. Just a bunch of OCers walking down the beach as it is our right to do. Of course, everybody would have a pocketful of OCDO & VCDL literature available if asked about what it is the group is doing.

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Sounds fun. I vote for this one??

vbnative73 said:

How about a group of OCers walking on the beach in the toe-deep water

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with "oil spill search crew" on our shirts...

oil spill search crew. That is damn funny.