IMO, the ones carrying a rifle are usually looking for a confrontation. They almost always are also carrying a video camera when doing so. Many will say that they are just doing so to protect themselves IF a confrontation with police happens. I feel like they are HOPING a confrontation will happen. Especially when they are walking up and down the streets as though they are on patrol. It's one thing if they're going about their business, out on an errand, going someplace, or whatever. But the ones who walk up and down the street in busy areas seem like they are trying to elicit a response from the public. While it's true that they are free to exercise their rights in any way they see fit, I still believe they are hurting the cause.
I'm occasionally one of "those people". I don't carry a recorder hoping to get into a confrontation, I carry it in case I get into one. A GOOD day open carrying, regardless of location or choice of weapon(s) carried, is one in which there are NO confrontations, people ask questions and become educated, and the recorders never come into play.
HOWEVER......I do not EVER carry, even in my daily carrying of a pistol, without at least one, and often several, recording devices for audio and video. Depending on the location, I may be carrying my IPhone with audio/video capability and a recorder APP that cannot (short of the device being destroyed) be turned off without a passcode, a clandestine audio recorder that would not be noticed except on very close inspection, and a wireless mic and transmitter set up that will transmit audio to a remote recording device that someone else can carry in a locked bag. AND a second person using an audio/video recorder from a discrete distance.
NONE of these are because I'm looking for a problem but there are jurisdictions in which the likelihood of a problem is such that it would be irresponsible not to be fully prepared to use technology to make sure the TRUTH is the story told before the court. Just read about MKEGals case and you will see the value of a recording.
Just the other day I was in Portland shopping. As I ONLY open carry, I was doing so that day. One of the technology devices I use is a police scanner. I heard a MWAG call go out and it was my location. I put down the products I had intended to purchase and walked out the door.....AVOIDING CONFRONTATION...... even though I had three separate recording devices (two audio/video).
Bottom line.....some of us are actively involved in activism to further the cause and we PUSH for our rights. That pushing is what allows others to go about their day unmolested.
I don't agree with that premise at all. Most defensive shootings happen at close range where a handgun of reasonable caliber will be enough to stop the threat. If you are shooting at distances so far that you need a rifle to be able to put accurate rounds on target, then I believe you are no longer using it for defensive purposes, but instead offensive. The only time I can see that not being the case is if you live in rural areas and have a decent sized piece of property.
And when your door is kicked down in the middle of the night by men wearing masks and carrying M16's, are you going to want a handgun or your AR15 and a few magazines of M855 62 grain steel core? I know what I keep handy (and it's much more than an AR15) because the number of incidents of masked intruders illegally breaking into homes are on the rise.
Of course there is compromise. There is ALWAYS compromise. People are carrying around ARs because they have been demonized lately. But I don't think they are truly a defensive weapon out in public. For defending your home, sure, if you really think you need that. But in public, not so much. Perhaps I should walk around with a Barrett M107 slung over my shoulder. Hey, it's my right, right? Can't tell ME what I can and can't carry in public, right? Everything in life is about compromise. It doesn't mean you give up your rights, it just means you don't throw it in people's faces.
And compromise is not what has gotten us where we are now; anti-gunners having a stronger voice than us is what's gotten us where we are now.
Compromise most certainly is the reason we are where we are. Were it not for that national "gun rights" group having capitulated and compromised over the last decades and accepting "reasonable" gun control measures, we might still have our rights. You know, when I was a kid in California I used to go out hunting with my younger brother. At 14 I had my own shotgun and it was kept in the trunk of my car, AT SCHOOL, WITH AMMO, and not a single law was broken. At 16 I walked into the hardware store, plopped down the money, and walked out with my Winchester 1200 pump shotgun and 2 boxes of ammo. That was then the weapon in my trunk, in the school parking lot, and never a law was broken.
How many felonies would that represent, for how many people, now that all these compromises have been allowed?
ME.... possession of 1st shotgun.....possession of second shotgun.....possession on school grounds
FATHER......allowing a minor unsupervised access to firearm (two counts, one for each shotgun)
Hardware store employee....... Transferring a firearm to a minor.
Welcome to the product of compromise
And I agree there, THAT is the time where you should especially exercise your rights, in front of the very people who would take them away.
Yet some (are you among them?) criticize the man who brought the AR15 to the Ashland City council study session.......a time and place where you yourself say "is the time where you should especially exercise your rights".
Definitely check out the cake analogy on compromising.
