Not sure who you are lecturing on the situation in CA, everyone here knows its stacked. Secondly, you should reread the post you quoted, no one is saying they wont ban long gun carry, in fact they may ban it regardless if a single person LGOCs.
While you're no doubt correct that the Legislature
may attempt to require all firearms to be locked up except when employed in some otherwise lawful act (e.g. licensed carry under PC 26150, hunting, in the home for self-defense), your statement can easily be viewed as a clever attempt to preemptively shirk responsibility for cause and effect. I think it's irresponsible to allocate responsibility for AB 144 (and its predecessors) solely upon those who chose to UOC. It's equally irresponsible to allocate none. The same will hold true for whatever comes from the practice of unloaded long gun open carry.
The point is that just because there are those that seek to take your freedoms does not mean you should shy from excersizing them.
No, but purposefully ignoring the dynamics of warfare is imprudent leadership.
If you don't like the stacked deck in CA, leave!
I'd rather stay and fight for the people who can't simply vote with their feet. To each his own.
It is not getting better there in terms of having any hope of electing representatives with conservative values.
I don't disagree. I don't believe civil rights are a uniquely "conservative" platform component; I also don't think they are a "liberal" platform component. Both seem to infringe on rights and expand government powers when it suits them. (Disclosure: I'm a libertarian.) The majority of the voting public may continue to demand expensive programs that it cannot afford, but that doesn't preclude better representation of fundamental civil rights (including gun rights and self-defense) by the elected officials. The state might very well go broke, but that doesn't mean we cannot preserve people's right and ability to defend themselves by pushing the politics of self-defense to our favor. (Yes, that's an ambitious goal, but not an impossible one.)
EXACTLY! How many years have the "big" gun rights groups in California been saying "don't go ruffle feathers", just wait "two more weeks", etc. over and over again... Meanwhile the VAST VAST majority of Californian's remain unable to defend themselves in public...
And with the ban on UOC, even fewer will be able to carry guns. I suppose you think that is a net win?
Enter the OC movement (focusing on CA for now since if we consider the OC movement anywhere else in the country it TOTALLY blows all your arguments out of the water since there have been no bans on OC outside of CA since the OC movement went mainstream and the VAST majority of the OCers are carrying LOADED and LONG GUNs on occasion)... No one was OCing for the sake of preventing a ban.
How many of those states had either (A) constitutional protection of open carry, (B) a political dynamic favorable to gun rights, and/or (C) some substantive period of time with shall-issue (or "constitutional") carry to affect the public's understanding of bearing arms as something which does not cause shootouts en masse? The question is not rhetorical.
People were OCing because it was the best available, legal, means they had to defend themselves
Those are certainly
some reasons; explain the practice, then, in those areas where loaded carry was available to law-abiding residents.
PLUS it had the added benefit of being a great conversation starter which lead to literally thousands more people learning about their 2A rights and becoming active in the 2A community (whether they chose to OC or not).
Define active. How are you measuring this "activity"? I'm honestly curious to see the data on this. (Note: I don't mean to imply that I question the assertions, and I'm sure you're correct on some level. It's the "thousands" and "active" qualifiers I am curious about.)
Lets be honest for a minute, the anti's didn't ban open carry because soccer moms were scared of seeing guns, unless you believe the bull **** they say to justify their gun control measures. They banned it because they want power and they want to limit our ability to effectively educate gun rights to the people. People that are educated about their rights (regardless of whether they exercise them) are a THREAT to the CA political establishment AND THEY KNOW IT.
I think the first statement is disingenuous; however, notwithstanding that I think the tone of your subsequent statements are more conspiratorial than necessary to explain the actual politics of guns in California (largely a class issue of LE establishment and union protectionism vs. "civilian" self-reliance), I agree that the ban does reflect the government securing more power to itself and silencing a manner of protest.
Yes, I say EFFECTIVELY because how many other 2A rallies in CA garnered such media attention in the last decade? The few SBOC events I had the privilege of organizing received TV news coverage and print coverage more than I can count, resulting in literally thousands of people learning about their 2A rights in California. The last "2A" rally I saw attempted by another pro-2A rights group occurred in down-town LA and barely got back page print press on one (maybe two) outlets, how's that for effective??
We've created an environment in which millions of Californians can now arm themselves with loaded guns. We've undermined core anti-gun arguments in public and in courts. We've challenged law enforcement officials to follow the laws they took an oath to uphold. That, to me, is measurable effective product.
I don't dispute that open carry in California has had some positive effects. I don't understand why you would argue that the volume of press clippings, or the page number from which they came, is the proper measure of success. If you agree that the mainstream media outlets are generally actively anti-gun, wouldn't it hold that editors/producers of that ilk would ensure the most effective pro-gun news would be 'out of sight' on the "back page", or suppressed entirely?
-Brandon