ChiangShih
Regular Member
While setting up the first of the monthly meets at the Starbucks I was posed a question by KCPD, public safety, and the fox reporter. “…who are you with?” / “…what is the name of your organization?” I was at a loss for a moment and responded something along the lines of “we are just a collective group of like minded OC activists who meet on a forum at opencarry.org.” After responding each time I couldn’t help but feel my response was pretty inadequate and took away from the level of professionalism we all try to exert while OCing. In a way, I felt it made the movement seem less organized than it is or can be. I was also uncomfortable with the fact that the news listed Opencarry.org under our names while we have no real or legal affiliation with OCDO outside of being registered members on the forum. Obviously, I don’t mind being affiliated with OCDO, but I felt it gave the impression we were somehow officially or administratively representing OCDO. Again, that doesn’t necessarily bother me; however, I can see where there may be some legal grey areas or discomfort from the actual administrative and official OCDO representatives. This situation got me thinking, though OCDO is a great site for socializing and organizing, it would be nice to have an informative and public relations website, specifically for the Missouri OC movement. This website will be strictly informative listing upcoming meetings, information, and links for MO residents. A Missouri OC website would also serve to “humanize” the face of the pro-gun and specifically pro-open carry groups while acting as a great PR tool. One idea I had in mind for the public relations side is a contact section; the thought behind the contact section is that regional leaders/representatives/head activists will volunteer their contact information for inquiring new members, media PR, or other gun groups looking to organize. In time the site will contain photos of events and members and IMO serve to put a more organized and legitimate face on our state branch of the OC movement as a whole. Again, this website is not intended to take anything away from OCDO, in fact I hope to obtain permission to link OCDO Missouri forum from the Missouri open carry site (making it clear that they are two separate entities for legal reasons of course) and linking the main OCDO website as the national affiliate (again this is assuming the administrators here would be ok with it.) I’ve started putting the idea together; however, it is still in its formative stages. I hope to have enough of it compiled by the next meeting so I can see what you guys think. As for those of you who are STL side or cannot make it to the meets I’ll have the link and updates up shortly. I personally think the idea of an “organizational front page” for the activists on all sides of MO is a step in the right direction. I feel with everyone’s input and cooperation it can and will be a great resource; not to mention, a pretty fun endeavor for those who want to participate. Let me know what you think.