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8/25/2009
Burri: Some guns are making me nervous
At the risk of sounding like a Second Amendment moderate: this new trend of openly carrying firearms at Obamacare protests is making me nervous.
It’s not the people doing the carrying now who are making me nervous. It’s the people who might take things further: who might see an opportunity to score political points, or to grind a personal axe.
Who might, intentionally or not, discredit conservative dissent, and hurt the Second Amendment itself.
Just put one crazy guy on scene looking to grab headlines. Imagine: the sound of gunfire; police cars converging; interviews with witnesses who were so scared. And it doesn’t have to be a right-wing, conservative/libertarian gun lover doing the shooting, either.
Oh, it could be. At least, it could be someone who identifies with the Right. Someone who emerges, blinking, from his hidden underground bunker, adjusts the overhead camouflage, and heads to the nearest town hall rally because the time for armed revolution really has come.
But it doesn’t have to be that guy. It could be a hard core Lefty: the kind who joins the military just so he can make a big show of refusing deployment to Bush's racist war for oil. The kind who provokes the cops because he wants them to pepper-spray him.
It would be easy: just take this month’s shower early; comb your hair; put on a pair of real shoes and a Nobama button; and pull the trigger.
And then just watch how public opinion turns against conservatives and their guns!
In fact, nobody even has to shoot. Just get into a confrontation. Pick a fight with a gun-bearing conservative protester. Or pose as a gun-bearing conservative protester, and pick a fight with liberal counter-protesters. Threaten them. Tell them in no uncertain terms: I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.
That scenario is better, from the Lefty plant’s perspective, because he doesn’t actually have to learn how to use a gun in order to pull it off.
We know there are people out there willing to do this kind of thing.
Now: that doesn’t mean this new open-carry fad has to be a bad thing. In fact, barring any of the above hypothetical unpleasantnesses, I'm glad it's happening.
A lot of the “guns are scary” sentiment out there is, I think, a result of simple unfamiliarity. Lots of people don’t use guns; don’t own them; don’t handle them; never have; and don’t know anybody who does.
But they know – because they watch the nightly news – that guns kill people.
The more we put responsible gun owners into the public’s eye – not the nutcases who hide from the black helicopters, and not the inner city gang bangers, but by people like us. People like them. Normal people, with jobs, families, hobbies. People who wear jeans and t-shirts on the weekends. Who barbeque.
People who own and use firearms responsibly and legally. The more we can put that in the public’s eye, the more the public gets used to seeing it. The less angst about firearms in general. The more secure the Second Amendment.
In some ways, the Second Amendment is healthier today than it’s been in a long time. We’re having open carry picnics. The most liberal White House in history is publicly saying that they're not worried about the legal, responsible presence of guns at political events.
But a single tragedy could turn things completely around: send the Second Amendment crashing down onto the remains of what used to be the Tenth.
Me, I'll carry a camera. In this context, they're far more useful.
Lance Burri blogs regularly via his site, The TrogloPundit.
COMMENTS
I share your concerns. This is one of those things that definitely is counter productive. Americans should be smarter than this.
Patricia McNaughton (Tue Aug 25 08:36:48 2009)
I understand the point that Mr. Burri means to make. His concern is the perception "those others" would have if a person openly carrying a firearm used it in a criminal way. The fact is, every person has the ability, and is capable of, using a firearm or otherwise acting in a criminal way. How loudly would the ACLU cry if the police began detaining people because they "might" act in a criminal way or they "look" like a criminal. Isn't that what they call profiling? The American criminal justice system does not allow for the detention or arrest of a person for what they "might" do. The police must have probable cause to take an action. That is why no one has been arrested for open carry at the rallies. No crime has been comitted. I am far more fearful of the actions our politicians might take on a number of issues than I am of what a criminal might do. At least a person possessing a criminal mind acts in a predictable way. Our politicians are completely unpredictable. Charlie
Charlie (Tue Aug 25 09:18:29 2009)
"But it doesn’t have to be that guy. It could be a hard core Lefty: the kind who joins the military just so he can make a big show of refusing deployment to Bush's racist war for oil."
Does anyone actually do that?
Brian Dunbar (Tue Aug 25 10:39:00 2009)
How sad. Law abiding citizens who are doing something ABSOLUTELY AND SPECIFICALLY GUARANTEED in the Constitution ... and not just as an afterthought, but right up front - you can't get much higher on the priority list than #2, can you?
Still - Mr. Burri's fear is legitimate. There are wackos on both extreme ends who have proven over and over that nothing is too drastic to draw attention to their viewpoint, nothing is too insane to make the other side look bad, and nothing is 'out of bounds' when it comes to trying to grab a headline.
How sad. Too bad we can't just listen to each other a little and try to find some common ground.
As for the Health Care thing - which is the springboard for this discussion - I DON'T trust the Feds to run the program, they have proven the absolute lack of competence to get something like this right. Then again, I don't trust an insurance company any farther than I can throw their policy document either. They have proven time and again that their only purpose is to take your money and say no.
Why is it so hard for both sides of the political spectrum to see that a relationship between a doctor and a patient should be ONLY between a doctor and a patient? Get the third-parties out of the way, do the right thing for the other, and most everything will work itself out.
How sad that we have given up on that type of straight-forward, honest, credible relationship between individuals in this society.
Jeff (Tue Aug 25 11:01:22 2009)
@Brian Dunbar - Here's the 2nd Amendment verbatim:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
If anyone thinks that's absolute and specific, ya got me. But beyond that, if people want guns and the wild west, at least let there be some communities at that are allowed to say leave yer weapons at the city limits.
Concealed carry isn't so Constitutionally clear as you make it sound.
Also, as an aside, there's no historical basis for suggesting priority in the numbering of the amendments.
jpk (Tue Aug 25 12:57:23 2009)
Lance is right on the money with his idea, and I say that as a Life Member of the NRA and combat veteran from the Vietnam War.
In the Republic of Vietnam we fought against an enemy that used tactics very similar to Saul Alinsky's rules. They often fired on us from ambush behind innocent civilians who were mostly unaware of what was happening until it happened. Of course many of them were shot to pieces in the crossfire and died while running to and fro trying to escape.
The Viet Cong had no reservations about shooting people in the back who were escaping the firefight. In the aftermath it was the Americans who were alleged to have killed civilian women and children in an attack on the village. If anything was said about the Viet Cong it was that they were attempting to defend the village. The publicity coup often was used to bolster and enhance the stature of the insurgents - who started the shooting in the first place.
Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings are all fine and dandy. It's not going to take long before the Marxist Community Organizers need a martyr and use these tactics to paint patriotic Americans as the agressors and nut cases. Make sure the 'shot heard 'round the world' doesn't come from the people the moonbats are calling a mob - us!
Duke (Tue Aug 25 19:28:43 2009)
"@Brian Dunbar - Here's the 2nd Amendment verbatim:"
Golly - thanks for that. It had nothing to do with what I wrote, however. I believe you are actually aiming at Jeff.
Brian Dunbar (Wed Aug 26 14:33:33 2009)
People really should think about what they're doing. I saw a picture of the guy with the holstered gun and the sign and thought right away that it was dangerous. He was just making his point about the 2nd amendment, but his gun was loose in its holster and both his hands were holding his sign up. Anyone could have grabbed the gun
As has been said over and over: there is freedom of speech but it doesn't give one the right to yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
Keep your gun in the trunk of the car when you're in the vicinity of the president or vice-president. You can be sure that there are plenty of guns around if someone starts shooting.
***But it doesn’t have to be that guy. It could be a hard core Lefty: the kind who joins the military just so he can make a big show of refusing deployment to Bush's racist war for oil."
Does anyone actually do that? ***
Well, there's the case of Sgt. Hassan Akbar
***Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned that US troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq.*** This may have some bearing. Of course this is more serious than just protesting and for a different reason.
C.R. Stevenson (Thu Aug 27 15:09:22 2009)
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