VCDL responds to my earlier criticism about their open carry dinner. As I said in the comments, if you can go out in public openly armed, and people just don’t pay attention, shouldn’t that be considered mission accomplished? If the goal is to get concealed carry in restaurants, that will happen eventually, it just means waiting out Kaine. It seems to me that potentially rubbing restaurant goers the wrong way by making a public announcement in a place where public announcements generally aren’t socially acceptable does more to undermine that cause than to promote it.
UPDATE: Countertop in the comments:
First, I understand that the owner pressured him to stand up and say something. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure – thats just what I heard.
Also, this was the culminating dinner – with full press attention (though really, I was hoping for the Washington Times or Post or something substantial) – with a whole crowd gathered.
Knowing these two fact, it strikes me that there might be more to this story and that, while certainly within the attention whore column, perhaps not as bad as if it was just another one of the VCDL dinners.
This would certainly be a mitigating circumstance.
Crossposted in comments at The Sentinel:
I would like to note to the readers of the Sentinel, Sebastian and I have disagreed before on various issues and he has always conducted himself with the utmost respect for contrary opinions, as he is showing here. He has even specified a post on his widely read blog, separate from the link I have cited in my post, pointing to this entry. Sebastian is an honorable man and I would request that any responding comments be reflective of that.
I would further note that Sailorcurt has taken a position opposite of mine as displayed in his post earlier this evening. The leadership of the VCDL has given us reasonably wide license in conducting this blog and though Brother Curtis and I tend to agree 99% of the time… well, welcome to grassroots politics.
Thanks for the comment, Clint.
IMHO, there are a lot of really important things going on with 2A rights in America (and some bad things, of course). Thus, I worry that infighting among gun owners will be counterproductive in this regard.
To some degree we need to be our brother’s keeper…yet to another degree we are all a free people.
This would certainly be a mitigating circumstance.
Eh, I tend to think not. Telling the manager or others that you’d prefer not to interrupt folks and saying, “I like to keep my asshattery to a minimum” isn’t out of line. If the owner insists, then he can do it. It’s his place, and it would seem slightly less attention whoring for a business owner to make a statement.