Since I neglected to get back to it, this post having gone rather long, the following ruminations are inspired by this confusing article at the CS Monitor.
I’ve got it easy. I can go to town without covering my gun and have it not count as activism, or agitation, or anything. It’s just a sign that I’m one of those people who live “out there,” and for most townies it’s neither threatening nor even very unusual.
I carry my gun openly every single day, but most days it doesn’t count because there’s nobody around to see it. Once upon a time I did just the same in town, because – ah, the perversity of law – it would have been illegal to cover the gun without a license. Got that? Open carry legal, putting on a coat against the chill – should it happen to cover the gun – illegal. Weird and stupid but true.
But then several years ago the state where I live removed the licensing requirement for concealed carry, and because I don’t like drawing attention I got into the habit of throwing on a shirt or jacket or something and at least somewhat covering the gun.
None of this has anything to do with political activism. I wear a gun because from day to day I never know when I’m going to need to shoot something, and I’ve done it so long that any novelty the act may once have had has long since gone away. Truth is, it’s kind of a pain. But I do it anyway because there have been times when I left my gun home and regretted it. It’s not a political statement, it’s just life.
When I’m in town, though, I am aware that I’m in the minority and that people do notice. I’m not an activist, but whether or not it’s my intention to make a statement a statement is being made. Ridiculous as it seems, I am an ambassador of sorts. Therefore I always try to be on my very best behavior. Yesterday I made two stops in town and it was simply too hot to do the ‘gun burqa’ thing. I went into a liquor store – and the counter guy wanted to talk about the weather. I went into the hardware – and the paint guy upsold me on exterior paint and wanted to talk color. Nobody ran screaming, nobody tried to hurry me out the door. In fact, in the nine years I’ve lived around here I can think of exactly two negative experiences related to my openly carrying my pistol and neither was anything like traumatic, even for an introvert like me. Neither came close to involving cops.
Like I said, I’ve got it easy. Last week I was in the feed store and I happen to know there were at least four armed people there, because three of them were carrying openly. Nobody got upset or even appeared to notice.
You know what those four people had in common? They were acting like regular people. They no more drew attention to their guns than they did to their pants. If I had wandered around town with the World’s Ugliest Carbine slung on my back, in all likelihood the reception would be far different because who does that? Clearly then I wouldn’t be carrying the gun because I always carry a gun. I’d be wanting to be seen carrying that gun. I’d be making a fuss.
True story: Once when I still had a townie job, a lady came into the shop to buy propane. She had a job at one of the local jails (This little town happens to be the county seat, and we are unfortunately up to our collective ass in several types of cop and associated others) which I knew because she was in uniform and carrying an empty holster. As I pumped her propane, it was clear I was making her nervous. She kept glancing at the Makarov I carried when I was at work. Finally she asked, “Are you expecting some sort of trouble?”
People, I live for straight lines like that and they almost never happen. “No ma’am,” I said with a straight face. “If I were expecting trouble, I’d be carrying a rifle.”
See, that would be acting weird.
It’s not enough to decriminalize gun carrying. Essential, of course, in the places where it hasn’t already happened. But not enough. The real trick is to normalize it. And the best way to move that agenda along is to act normal. You’re not falling into some gun-grabber’s rhetorical trap if you fail to behave like a jackass while publicly carrying a gun. It’s not necessary to draw attention to yourself – you’ll get attention, I guarantee it. Even here it gets attention. The point of the exercise is to get positive or better yet neutral attention.
You know who really won the right to be openly gay in this country without fear of being dragged to death behind a pickup truck? It wasn’t these guys. It was all the gay people who were out and otherwise perfectly normal who did that, who taught the straights that there was nothing to fear, who removed the stigma of the other. Let us take a lesson from somebody else’s success.
So to sum up: Walking into hamburger joint with holstered pistol and pretending it’s not there: Good. Walking into hamburger joint with slung AR and loudly declaring your legal right to do so: Bad. Pretty simple, really.
I’m still less bothered by the obnoxious guy with the AR than by any armed cop.
Yeah, me too. But that’s a separate issue. We already know how far exhorting cops gets us. I’m trying to persuade the (hopefully) persuadable.
Wisconsin has constitutional open carry. Here in the state capitol, it has, until recently, been the official policy of the police to stop and question anyone seen carrying. Their hope was that the harassment would discourage going armed. Five well-behaved guys went into a burger joint carrying openly. A bunch of squad cars showed up pronto after 911 heard that the armed men were, I quote, “eating burgers”. Arrests were made, lawsuits were filed, arrests were dropped, city paid compensation. Normalization sounds good: behave yourself, eat burgers, get paid.
Joel, I can *almost* completely agree. But then I think, it wasn’t too long ago that even conservatives were making the same points about OC of pistols that we now make about OC with rifles. I’m glad enough people ignored such arguments back then…
Carrying a rifle is not intrinsically harmful. If I walk out to my car and throw a rifle in my trunk, I don’t want a cop to pull me over. At some point the rifles will have to come out and people will have to get used to them. Maybe it’s a bit premature at the moment, maybe normalizing pistols will automatically transfer to rifles some day. But I still have a hard time whacking others for doing it, even if it makes me uncomfortable to do myself. Lots of times it is better to get out of one’s comfort zones.
As to being obnoxious, we can expect in any case that there will be OC provocateurs working to ban open carry. Even if rifle carry were banned, the provocateurs would then be wearing pistols and being obnoxious.
As to gays, it’s impossible to say what exactly to caused it to be normalized. One might even say, those weirdos made ordinary gays look reasonable.
BTW, I took a trip to Israel once, and saw various individuals walking around with rifles slung over their backs. Looked pretty normal.
In the old days rifles were left in the rear windows of pickup trucks, but now we have to worry about theft, so…
Another BTW, it’s hard to take outfits like Christian Science Monitor seriously when they don’t even display the courage of their convictions by opening their articles for comment.
One major difference being that this isn’t Israel and we’re not engaged in an active, everyday war with lunatics who have sworn to kill us all. In addition, a large percentage of the Israeli population is in the military and carry their weapons even when in civvies. It’s not a “thing” there . . . it’s daily life, of necessity.
“we’re not engaged in an active, everyday war with lunatics who have sworn to kill us all”. Not yet on a regular basis, but don’t worry they’ll get around to you!
Wibble, if you mean me, personally, I’m flattered. Nice to know they’re worried about me.
Or are you threatening all of us here in the USA?
Very strange.
Joel, I think you’re a ways from having the world’s ugliest carbine. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In your neighborhood, I think I’d touch that up with some Coyote Tan Krylon, but otherwise, what’s not to like? Well, I’d find a different stock, but that’s just me.
When I carried a rifle for a living. Toting it, keeping it clean, sleeping with it was a PITA. Only thing worse was not having it when needed.
A couple of weeks ago I was wandering around a local street fair in SE AZ. Several of the browsers and many vendors were openly armed. Saw a couple nice guns and pretty holsters. No one got the vapors, not the cops, sheriff ‘s deputies or even the mayor. Everyone was acting normal.
Jed, I mentioned that fugly gun’s brother some years ago. 🙂
Good article. Many of the open carry guys use the “normalization” argument without understanding it.
Tartan gunstock is indeed fugly. Tuck’n’roll naugahyde, though, that’d be … even fuglier. Well, people do refer to such various parts of their rifles as “furniture”.