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In my piece "Guns: As American as Apple Pie" (Sep 12/2012), I discuss a news story where a gentleman accidentally discharges his licensed concealed handgun in a Wal-Mart while standing in the checkout to buy milk. Yes, milk. I raised the issue of imminent danger by asking if Wal-Mart is so dangerous, I am taking my life in my hands if I shop there. I received this comment:
Charlie said…
So, William, I suppose you don't fasten your seat belt until those few milliseconds when you know for sure you're going to be in an accident. Are you even interested in the reasons WHY people choose to carry a firearm? Or do you just get your kicks ridiculing them?
I'm sure Charlie thought he had me with the seat belt analogy. I responded:
I'm not sure that Charlie understood that the first line of his comment answered my question. Yes, America is so dangerous, I must be ready at anytime to return fire. I know there is a chance I can be in a traffic accident therefore I always wear my safety belt. Charlie is suggesting he carries a gun because his life could be in jeopardy at anytime. Fair enough. And Charlie is confirming that America is so dangerous I am risking my life every time I visit the country.
So much for home of the free.
Open Carry Meets Stand Your Ground
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show pointed out this absurdity. Person A walks into Chipotle with his bazooka. Person B feels threatened and stands his ground. Now the Mexican Grill has been transformed into a Mexican standoff.
If one of the above yahoos had walked into Chipotle when I was there, I would have left immediately although it would be tempting to slap him silly. Everybody else is as terrorist or a deranged psycho, but Open Carry Texas wants me to believe that their members are normal, law-abiding citizens. Can you tell the difference?
Boing Boing – June 11/2014
How to Tell the Difference Between an Open-Carry Patriot and a Deranged Killer by Ruben Bolling
I apologise for any copyright infringement and will remove this immediately if so requested. It was just too good to pass up and makes an excellent point.
I've read over the text – all versions as people like to debate the significance of punctuation – and find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers intended the above two twenty-something twits to walk into a family restaurant armed to the teeth.
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.
-Wikipedia: Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Thomson Reuters: Legal Solutions Blog – Jan 2/2013
A right to arms? The real purpose of the Second Amendment by Jeremy Byellin
Cornell University Law School
Second Amendment
It is a confusing issue, but I return to my previous statement: I find it hard to believe the Founding Fathers intended a bunch of yahoos to walk around Target, Chipotle, or Wal-Mart as if it was the shootout at the O.K. Corral. As I wrote in my piece "Guns: As American as Apple Pie" (Sep 12/2012), is Wal-Mart so dangerous, I am taking my life in my hands when I visit the store?
Final Word
I look at the pictures of Open Carry walking around Target, Chipotle and Wal-Mart and can't help thinking that people have missed the really really big point. You think you are enjoying your freedoms but I would contend you are displaying a mindset indicative of a country in confusion. The United States has more guns per capita than any other country on the planet. The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. You seem to be hitting the headlines more often than not about mass shootings or some random crazy going nuts. Is the United States that dangerous? Am I risking my life every time I visit the country? Are you risking your life every time you leave your home? If you can't buy milk at Wal-Mart without being worried about getting hurt or killed, just how free are you?
References
The Washington Post – May 31/2014
Weapons and mass shootings By Alberto Cuadra, Richard Johnson, Todd Lindeman, Ted Mellnik and Kennedy Elliott
Data collected by Mother Jones looking back at the weapons used in the last 30 years of mass shootings in the U.S. show that legal weapons are the norm.
Who hasn't weighed in on this one? According to the newspaper articles, the op-ed pieces, and the countless blog postings, the two words Sandy Hook evoke all sorts of emotions. The death of an adult is tragic but the death of children, twenty of them in this case, evokes a lot of emotions. There's a visceral reaction: protect the children; get the bastards; and spare no expense.
Global News – May 26/2014
Fact-checking Michael Moore: Does Canada have more guns per capita than the US? by Deanna Grant
After the mass shooting at the University of California in Santa Barbara on May 23, filmmaker Michael Moore posted a message on Facebook repeating some of the points he made in his 2002 film Bowling For Columbine.
U.S. = 89 guns per 100 residents
Canada = 31 guns per 100 residents
…
U.S. = 11,000 homicides committed using firearms in 2011
Canada = 158 homicides in 2011
Wikipedia: Number of guns per capita by country
United States: 89 guns per 100 residents (2005); ranked #1 in the world
Small Arms Survey – Sep 2011 (PDF)
United States of America: 89 firearms per 100 residents; 270 million civilian firearms in total (estimated); ranked #1 in the world
Published on April 25, 2013 by maigcoalition
Cartoonists Demand Action
Come of the nation's best loved cartoonists are calling on Congress to not back down and take action to enact common sense gun laws that will prevent violence and save lives.
Shooting the Biggest Guns Money Can Buy | The Big Sandy Shoot
Thomas Morton gets a lesson in heavy artillery at the Big Sandy Shoot, where gun enthusiasts gather in Arizona's western desert to test their rifles, canons, and machine guns.
Ruben Bolling (born c. 1963 in New Jersey) is a pseudonym for Ken Fisher, a cartoonist, the author of Tom the Dancing Bug. His pieces demonstrate concern about the power of large corporations and satirize the way government has been corrupted by money. Particularly since 9/11, Bolling's work often concerns war. Many of his strips admit no political interpretation, instead featuring absurdist humor or parodying comic strip conventions. Bolling's lampoons of celebrity culture, such as in the parodic series of comic strips labeled "Funny, Funny, Celebs", can be scathing.
I understand that people with guns in public are scared, but why are the scared?
If no one carried guns in public the public would simply be more scared and laws would be passed banning the carrying of guns in public because it was “not in common use” or not commonly done.
If you want folk to stop carrying guns in public in an “in your face” way stop blaming them for spree killings, stop grouping them in with criminals and mentally ill. They are carrying guns in such a way as a reaction to such blame, in a measure to protest, to be politically active.
That cartoon you so like showing the difference between spree killers and regular gun owners is a prime example. all you are missing is a rat’s nose and some other demonization traits for such fear and hate propaganda to be complete.
Most any anti gun propaganda works by grouping millions of good guys with a few bad guys.
See that cartoonist demand actions….. lots of victims…… lots of kcomment_IDs in schools with Ar15s…… ie lots of emotion and lies.
No one ever sacomment_ID hand out guns to kcomment_IDs in schools, the truth would show a guard or one or two teachers with CCW, but the truth be dammed.
Focus on the victims and blur the line between millions of legal gun owners and a few spree shooters, for the good of women and children something must be done! Demand action!
It need not be logical, simply ban guns from people who are not inclined to harm anyone after painting them with the brush of a spree killer.
Cop with gun in any public place = no one has a problem
that SAME cop without his uniform in a public place = threat to women and children
think about it folks……..
Living in a state (AZ) where open or concealed carry is a basic guaranteed right of all rescomment_IDents and includes legal visitors (even timorous tourists from Occupied Canuckistan – The Bill of Rights applies to all -., the presence of guns makes me feel safer, not threatened. Have you ever heard of an active shooter attacking a police station? no, for obvious reasons – such as the need for time to achieve their objectives, They generally pick areas where they are guaranteed lots of defenceless targets eg, schools, theaters posted against guns, etc. etc. . While this is somewhat anecdotal, one bank manager was quoted as follows on guns in banks _ “the more legal guns in here, the better” . Probability wise, I feel far safer in any AZ bank than in a downtown bank in Montreal – ( home of Gamil Gharbi, Valery Fabrikant and Kimveer Gill) or in the Jan-Finch area of Toronto. So don’t lose your Hudson’s Bay Blanket and stay home at night, you’ll feel better…
People who want to regulate and reduce guns to reduce crime have not explained the American experience. Between 1994 and 2010 Americans increased the gun supply by 93,965,151 firearms including 40,681,376 handguns (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives manufacturing, importing and exporting records).
The result (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Special Report on Firearms Violence 1993-2011)
Homiccomment_IDes dropped from 23,326 to 14,722.
Firearms homiccomment_IDes dropped from 17,527 to 11,078.
Fatal and non-fatal firearms violence dropped from 1,585,700 to 426,100
The reason; in the US, unlike Canada, the government does not empower criminals by guaranteeing them unarmed and defenseless victims. From 2007 to 2011 the Special Report comment_content_IDentified 341,700 instances were firearms were used for defense of person or property. The impact of these defensive uses are multiplied many times over by the deterrent effect the ability to defend has on criminals. If you are really interested in reducing crime and not just moral posturing and condemning inanimate objects you need to support the right and the right to the means of self-defense.