Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

A guy at a seattle folk festival, who probably shouldn’t have had a concealed carry license in the first place, commits aggrevated assault, among other things on a few people.  The response from the Mayor of Seattle?   City employees can no longer carry on city property.  Yes, collective punishment for an individual misdeed; the hallmark of a free society.

Apparently a few tavern owners don’t like the fact that Kansas eased restrictions on carry in taverns, even though it’s unlawful to be above the 0.08 legal limit and carry a firearm.  One has to wonder why they aren’t concerned about people coming into their establishment, drinking, and plowing into a family minivan on the way home.  Drunk driving is a far greater social problem than people with concealed carry licenses carrying while intoxicated.  It seems to me if we allow people to drive at 0.07, it’s unreasonable to suggest they are too intoxicated at that level to successfully handle the much simpler task of using a firearm should they need to defend themselves.

Sometimes the media can be fair to us.  They are very right about this statement:

Most of the time people don’t notice Jensen’s gun. That’s not uncommon, said John Pierce, a law student and computer consultant in Virginia who is a co-founder of OpenCarry.org.

“People are carrying pagers, BlackBerrys, cellphones,” Pierce said. “They see a black lump on your belt and their eyes slide off.”

I’ve often had people ask me why I carry, like it’s some kind of great burden.  In most cases, people just have a gut reaction to the idea.  It’s not that they are afraid, though some are, it’s more that they tend to assume “Well, normal people don’t do that.  Why would anyone want to carry a gun around with them?”

Reality is I find a gun to be far less of a burden to carry than a cell phone or a Blackberry.   For one, the gun doesn’t bug me regularly to pay attention to it.  It’s a passive device.  For two, I can’t count the number of cell phone clips I’ve broken by clipping it in doorways or againts walls.  I’ve had my Glock do the same, and I think the doorway is getting damaged before the Glock.  It’s made to last.  Thirdly, I don’t have to worry about whether my Glock is charged sufficiently to make it through the rest of the day, and I’ve never had to scramble around looking for an outlet because it went dead unexpectedly.  Of course, if the Brady Campaign gets its way, we’ll all be carrying around smart guns that barely work and has all the same burdens as a cell phone.

The electronics we carry around are quite a burden if you think about it.  A gun, comparitively, doesn’t see much day to day use, but if you do need one, you really need one, and I’ve always been one to err on the side of caution.

Hat tip to Eric for this incident in Holland:

At a fashion show to promote tolerance of gay people on April 30, a national holiday in Holland, celebrating the birthday of the late Queen Juliana, a group of ten Muslim youths dragged gay model Mike Du Pree down from the catwalk, beating him up and breaking his nose. A second model who tried to help out was also attacked.

Our gays can shoot back. If I see a bunch of violent thugs of a proportedly peaceful religion beating up on a gay guy in broad daylight on a public street, I can too.

Another good reason for Delaware to adopt right-to-carry.

Well, it’s issued to a retired cop, but I guess it’s a start.

… it’s the size of your sausage.  I can see the confrontation with law enforcement now:

Cop: “Sir, I notice you’re carrying a knife.  Do you have a sausage on you?”

Me: “Why yes, and I can assure you, it’s of sufficient size and variety.”

Cop: “I’ll have to ask you to show me the sausage.”

Me: “What, right here on the street?”

Cop: “If it’s of the size and variety to justify you having that knife, then you have nothing to worry about sir.”

Me: “Oh, it’s big enough alright.  A might bit larger than most people carry, I’d wager.  When it comes to sausages, I only carry around the best.”

Cop: “Well, they say it doesn’t matter how big it is, it’s what you do with it, and what you do with it better be cutting it up, or I’m taking you in for that knife.”

A fallen empire, indeed.  And it’s a pity, I think.

UPDATE: Bonus reaction from cop “Don’t play hide the salami with me sir!  Let’s see it.”

You’d definitely see a picture of these two guys.  I have to agree with Dave.  I’m not counting on anyone’s lack of shooting ability to save me more than enough time to return fire.

Wyatt points out a rather good article in Townhall about police shootings.  This stuff applies to anyone who has to use a firearm in self-defense.  Police aren’t the only ones that get subject to 20/20 hindsight by people who don’t know much about these matters, so go have a read.

Actual text of the bill is here.  Basically it allows you to verbally announce you’re armed to an attacker, allows a transition from concealed to open carry when under threat of physical force (not necessarily deadly physical force).  It also would appear to allow you to draw into the ready position under threat of physical force.  Based on a quick review of Arizona’s criminal statutes, it doesn’t appear to be unlawful to draw a gun on someone as long as you’re justified in using deadly force, even if you don’t have to shoot.  Arizona’s self-defense statute would appear to remove self-defense as a justification if you are responsible for escalating the confrontation.  So a question I would have is, if you draw one someone threatening physical force (not deadly physical force), and they don’t back down, then what?  They are threatening physical force, you’re threatening deadly physical force.  If you end up shooting him, do you lose justification?