Apathy amongst gun owners on the subject of Open Carry is a killer for our cause!
Some are turned off by the stories of people carrying rifles and shotguns into libraries to make a point. Other are turned off by videos of open carriers driving around town actively looking for police officers to approach while they have people pulled over in hope of eliciting an improper police response. Some even buy into the silly "first to be shot", "someone will take your gun", "surprise advantage! I have a gun!", "guns scare the sheepole" rhetoric of the gun banners.
Regardless, we as the most visible gun owners, need to act as ambassadors for gun rights and our cause to normalize carry.
This guy did it right:
[video=youtube;Z-vUYeJXSrA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vUYeJXSrA[/video]
He just walked to the auto parts store and recorded the results when his rights were violated. He didn't go chasing the police around. Still, some supposedly pro-gun people blame him for causing the police to overreact. It is ridiculous but that is the attitude we have to rise above and refute by our unimpugnable actions.
Civil rights leaders in the 50's and 60's didn't go chasing police around or acting outrageously to provoke a police response in an attempt to further their cause. They rode the bus or boycotted the bus, they sat down at a lunch counter, they attended schools and colleges. Passive resistance and a large base of support won their rights.
We don't have the numbers necessary to march on Washington. We're not the tea party, we don't have enough voters in our ranks to force the issue unless we gain the support of all gun owners. As a movement, we have to be smarter in our methodology.
P.S. FSA, Florida Police Chiefs Association, and the Florida University Police Chiefs all came out to oppose open carry and campus carry. FSA was just most vocal but at the end of the day, they are not the ones who really got the bill killed.
Our real problem was the Florida Retail Federation and aggressive behind the scenes lobbying from Publix.
1st off, this here is way off-topic for the post, but ok here we are.
This clip-I have to disagree- on a couple of points.
1) its audio -only. End of story.That right there kills most of whatever this yahoo was trying to demonstrate or prove.
One cannot tell, by the audio alone, what visual indicators this clown was giving to the LEO or others. Posture,body language, overall appearances etc.
We have only his word that he was being a perfectly normal, reasonable yahoo on the street. However polite or otherwise his own voice-(it is assumed)it may have been.
Based solely on this-we cannot determine-for fact-a damned thing.
Either he was being unlawfully hassled by an ignoramus yahoo cop, or he may well have been standing there looking like a complete lunatic and giving that officer a great deal of anxiety. Dont know either way.
We also dont know if prior to this recording beginning, if this clown did anything to deliberately provoke any of this or not.Zero Zip.
2) 2-party consent. Penn is a 2-party consent state. The recording itself is entirely illegal. If one of the atty's in that state, or the PD's themselves, ever get around to realizing that, or deciding to prosecute that-as they fully can under their state's laws, clowns like this can end up with more than just gun/tresspass/conduct charges.
Do this on or near a Federal property or facility, and you've just added some TITLE 18 violations. Big NO-GO.
Consent does not mean "i eventually get around to informing the other party im recording". Consent means=other party agrees.Without that consent-illegal. private convo or not.
End of story.
So, why break/violate one law while trying to raise attention on behalf of, or seeking to gain, another? Bit self-destructive,no? How can we, as legitimate, law-abiding, pro-gun citizens go on and on about our rights, and wanting this or that law in our favor, if we go around breaking other laws?
Protest? Fine, we have that right in this country. Demonstrations also. Organize one, follow proceedures for properly, and lawfully, doing so.
Keep in mind also these boneheads in D.C. and DHS we have now. Boneheads who are quick to label returning veterans as "potential terrorists" and would no doubt use activities like this and others to further slam the Pro-2a folks out here. To further give folks the impression of "gun nuts".
It's self-destructive, and undermines the causes, I think.
Especially when folks in states who already have the right to carry are doing this when we are trying to even get that right at all.
You guys post about wanting stats of crime (or lack of) and other effects of other states with OC,to use as arguments in favor of our getting it. But these kinds of things also provide the other side with things to show folks like Boggy and company things to oppose us with.