imported post
daniel.call wrote:
I was joking about the assualt weapons being the only proper weapon for self defense. I was not joking about the socially acceptable part. Here are my questions.
That's what I thought. It wouldn't make sense that you were kidding about the socially acceptable part. Someone should explain that to ole moodyMalum....
daniel.call
wrote:
HankT
wrote:
Larry McCoy, owner of Larry's Gun Shop ..."It is not socially acceptable," McCoy said. "You just don't do that."
I can go along with that statement. It makes a lot of sense to me. Common sense is what needs to be imbued in the characters who want to walk around residential or populated public places with loaded assault rifles.
I recently purchased an AR, a very nice pre-ban Colt HBAR, andhave absolutely no desire to walk around my neighborhood with the dman thing. I think anybody who does have such a desire is kind of, well, you know...
Worse, thoseopen rifle carry "educators" in populated areasare gonna hurt my gun rights in some way, I just know it. And I don't really like that.
I agree with Larry. It ain't socially acceptable.
Here are my questions.
(1)What is it about an "assualt weapon" that makes it "wrong" to open carry it?
(2)How will someone legally oc'ing an AK hurt your gun rights? (3)Why wouldn't the same complaint be valid from the cc crowd when they complain about people who oc pistols?
Well, let's use the bae story that started this thread. A young man, early 20s, is walking around a residential neighborhood, with kids, adults and gardeners about. Let's say the layout is like this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-31,GGLG:en&q=oakwood+lane,+mobile++al&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl
Let's eliminate the B.S. tangents like
"There could be an AK repair shop right down the corner, how do you know, huh?" and the
"He could've have been just walking 10 feet from his house to his pickup truck and some nosy neighbor with binocs spotted him!"
Let's keep it simple. The guy was just walking around the residential neighborhood. He had a loaded AK. Didn't point it at anyone. Didn't fire the weapon. (Note, I am not trying to nail down the exact details of the OP's news story, just trying to set up a discussion example. This example could be a young guy in his early 20s, say PackininVB walking through a mall in VB or in a Wal-Mart, as he wanted to do a month or two ago. It'd be very similar with respect to my answers to your three questions.) He is in full view of men, women and children in the area. No one has ever seen a man carrying an AK through the neighborhood before.
(1)Three things, IMO. One it scares some ofthe residents of the neighborhood. They see a man with a rifle and they will be concerned about what the guy is doing or going to do. Next, it will concern almost all of the residents. Those that are not scared will still be concerned about what the guy is doing. Lastly, the cops will be called and will show up. All three of these things willincur costs. Coststo the residents (scared or not), coststo the PD, and costs to the guy with the AK.
There is insufficient justification for all these costs (assay, a post-Katrina lawless state would do). Who is going to pay for them? All ofthem? Including the costs to the AK bearer (which includes the slight possibility of injury or death). I don't believe the ever present need for
some measure of self-defense protection justifies the costs that are being incurred. Alternatives abound.
(2) There are conceivably 2 kinds of people who walk around with AKs in residential (or Wal-Mart or a mall): Legal carriers who mean no one any harm and illegal carriers who do mean harm to others. LE or citizens responding to the AK bearer cannot immediately determine which of the two categories applies to the guy depicted in the story. So, it has to be responded to. If the practice of walking around a residential neighnorhood is repeated, it will again be responded to. After a while, both responding citizens and LE will decide that this is too much, to have to keep responding to the AK guys. So, it will pop in their heads to regulate or ban such behavior. In the process of regulating or banning such behavior, it will occur to them that a man carrying an AK is not the only thing that will incur the exact same costs. They will think of these other things and then will say, "We're banning/regulating the carrying of AKs in residential neighborhoods (and wal-Marts and malls), now is the time to
also regulate/ban ___activity A, B, C...X,Y, Z___. So let's do that, too.
The AK guy will adversely affect my gun rights because I happen to do C. Or G. Or X.
(3) It may be. But ony in more extreme situations is it actionable. One has to compare the normal vs. the aberrant (not necessarily "wrong," "socially unacceptable," "unjustified," or "illegal"). If one compares the normal (some people armed, say, CCing) vs. a guy walking down Oakwood Lane with a loaded AK in broad daylight, I'd say that is a pretty extreme difference. If one compares the normal (all people who CC in public) vs. the "aberrant" (all people who OC), it is not that much of a difference. Especially, if the general public becomes more and more aware that OC is quite legal in many places and is not much different structurally than CC.
Now, here are my 3 questions for you.
(1) Do you believe that the young man in the story was
"right" to walk down Oakwood Lane as he is reported to have done?
(2) Do you think that the
only question that should be relevant is whether what he did is "legal?" (Setting aside, for a moment, the questionable use of the disorderly conduct concept)
(3) Do you believe that the 4 year old, the gardner, and any other persons who viewed the AK man on Oakwood Lane had a legitimate basis on which to be "scared?"