Lafayette
Regular Member
As someone relatively new to the USA that has lived his life in several countries including Australia, New Zealand, Syria, Qatar and visited others like Turkey, Lebanon, Sudan, Oman and the UAE, I have witnessed many systems of government ranging from absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies, tyrannical dictatorships and some were police states.
I have witnessed intolerance to religion or religious groups in many of those countries. Turkey, with its strict imposed secularism imposes secular beliefs like Saudi imposes religion on people. Australia, with its intense bigotry of Muslims and people 'of Middle Eastern descent' and the UAE that doesn't allow churches to be built.
In the US however, the Government, for the most part protects our right to practice our religion. Not only in our homes, but open displays of religiosity are not only respected, but protected by our Constitution. Unlike many countries you can profess your religious beliefs openly and essentially build your places of worship anywhere you like.
Some people however don't like the free and open expression of religion. They confuse a person's own expression religiosity ie the wearing of a crucifix, headscarf or yarmulke or even street preaching with that person imposing their beliefs on them and therefore want to stifle or limit the expression of religion.
The only natural response by those that would like to protect their rights to worship as they please is to express it even more openly to normalize it because to stop doing so, just because others might be uncomfortable with it is to forsake their rights with the end result being as Turkey was in recent history, where the open expression of religion is persecuted by the government.
Similarly, in today's Bloomberg funded, hoplophobic climate the very right to keep and bear arms comes under attack by the same types of irrational people that can't tolerate or respect anything that they don't personally believe in. To protect that right, open-carry becomes not only an option, but an obligation to safeguarding of our rights to keep and bear arms.
Does Open Carry lead to tension and negative reactions? Yes, but so did Rosa Parks by refusing to get out of her seat and move to the back of the bus. The fault in both of these examples is not of the person standing up for their rights, but those that would infringe on their rights, just because it makes them uncomfortable.
So to those gun owners that don't like to open carry and would prefer instead to carry concealed, by all means go for it but you should support your brothers and sisters in this struggle when they take the burden on of protecting your rights rather than criticize them when someone wants to infringe on it.
Lafayette
I have witnessed intolerance to religion or religious groups in many of those countries. Turkey, with its strict imposed secularism imposes secular beliefs like Saudi imposes religion on people. Australia, with its intense bigotry of Muslims and people 'of Middle Eastern descent' and the UAE that doesn't allow churches to be built.
In the US however, the Government, for the most part protects our right to practice our religion. Not only in our homes, but open displays of religiosity are not only respected, but protected by our Constitution. Unlike many countries you can profess your religious beliefs openly and essentially build your places of worship anywhere you like.
Some people however don't like the free and open expression of religion. They confuse a person's own expression religiosity ie the wearing of a crucifix, headscarf or yarmulke or even street preaching with that person imposing their beliefs on them and therefore want to stifle or limit the expression of religion.
The only natural response by those that would like to protect their rights to worship as they please is to express it even more openly to normalize it because to stop doing so, just because others might be uncomfortable with it is to forsake their rights with the end result being as Turkey was in recent history, where the open expression of religion is persecuted by the government.
Similarly, in today's Bloomberg funded, hoplophobic climate the very right to keep and bear arms comes under attack by the same types of irrational people that can't tolerate or respect anything that they don't personally believe in. To protect that right, open-carry becomes not only an option, but an obligation to safeguarding of our rights to keep and bear arms.
Does Open Carry lead to tension and negative reactions? Yes, but so did Rosa Parks by refusing to get out of her seat and move to the back of the bus. The fault in both of these examples is not of the person standing up for their rights, but those that would infringe on their rights, just because it makes them uncomfortable.
So to those gun owners that don't like to open carry and would prefer instead to carry concealed, by all means go for it but you should support your brothers and sisters in this struggle when they take the burden on of protecting your rights rather than criticize them when someone wants to infringe on it.
Lafayette
