open carry - Market Basket, Plymouth NH

[thinkxingu]

Originally Posted by XCR-700

Of the ~350 million people in America, has anyone ever been harmed by open carry?

I mean, every mass shooting has been an open carry situation, right?

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[Descant]

Originally Posted by thinkxingu

I mean, every mass shooting has been an open carry situation, right?

Not the guy who "smuggle" automatic rifles and fired on the crowd from a hotel room.

[BrunoSR]

Originally Posted by thinkxingu

I mean, every mass shooting has been an open carry situation, right?

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Well, actually, no!

[XCR-700]

Originally Posted by thinkxingu

I mean, every mass shooting has been an open carry situation, right?

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No, not at all, those were mass shootings.

They had NOTHING to do with open carry.

And that is exactly my point, do you really believe that any mass shooting was caused because someone was carrying openly, or did you just say that for the sake of adding to the drama of the thread,,,

As pure entertainment its a great soundbite, but if you actually believe that Sandy Hook or Las Vegas or any other mass shooting happened because an otherwise reasonable person was carrying openly, and then out of the blue a mass shooting just happened as a result of that person having their gun not concealed vs it being hidden under a jacket, then we can never actually resolve this debate.

Matters not to me as I would never announce I had a firearm on my person by displaying it in public. Thats just my philosophy, but the hard truth of the matter is open carry in 2021 is an extreme rarity and does not happen enough anywhere in America to warrant any discussion about it.

I 100% assure you you are far greater risk every day of being killed by a distracted driver using a cell phone or texting on it, or at greater risk of killing yourself while distracted by simply having a cell phone, than any risk from someone openly carrying a hand gun. So when we fully address that problem, I might take the concern about open carry a bit more seriously. Maybe,,,

Until then, this discussion is all just drama for dramas sake.

[LikeLakes]

XCR, I appreciate your posts, agree with much of them, you have a thoughtful approach that it great because it makes me think things through.

One disagreement I have is calling a healthy discussion "just drama for drama's sake". I think this, at least so far, is a pretty good discussion, good points on all sides. Ok, I think comparing a military base to a Market Basket is not a great analogy but then again it started the discussion. It's nice to be on a forum where the discussion is about constitution and amendments and private property and not a bunch of name calling.

[XCR-700]

Originally Posted by LikeLakes

XCR, I appreciate your posts, agree with much of them, you have a thoughtful approach that it great because it makes me think things through.

One disagreement I have is calling a healthy discussion "just drama for drama's sake". I think this, at least so far, is a pretty good discussion, good points on all sides. Ok, I think comparing a military base to a Market Basket is not a great analogy but then again it started the discussion. It's nice to be on a forum where the discussion is about constitution and amendments and private property and not a bunch of name calling.

I think most discussions here are very reasonable and many very helpful, and I very much appreciate the viewpoints shared here. Well most of the time, but this one started off on a bit of an odd note and it is one of the most polarizing matters Americans are facing. So I intentionally kept away until I saw how all over the place this conversation went. In my opinion calling America (and assuming that means us) psychos for our desire to own (and possibly bear firearms) is drama. In my opinion calling mass shootings a result of open carry is drama. And so on,,,

Too much said about firearms issues is emotional not fact based, and thats what makes it drama for dramas sake.

If the conversation addressed concerns of mishandling open carry weapons, or holsters that did not secure the guns, or any number of legitimate concerns then it would be quite different and I would likely have considered it an in interesting and legitimate discussion. But it is clear that some feel that that simply showing a gun in public constituted a danger to others, and for me thats just drama.

I could speculate and raise the drama level, by saying maybe these folks were off duty law enforcement of some other profession that allows constant carry. I could speculate that these folks had suffered violent crime and simply wanted to send a message that they would not be victims again. I could do a lot of things to ramp up the drama, but I feel like this is a very important matter and one that should be taken more seriously than calling us psychos or blaming open carry for mass shootings.

The fact is it went as these kinds of polarizing issues usually go, too many go to there opposite corner and little meaningful discussion or debate actually happens. Sure there were some productive comments, but mostly drama from catbird seat.

Well thats what I saw, if you disagree, I cant fault you, its just a different observation and I respect your right to see it as you do. No heart burn here.

If you can do anything to elevate the conversation I will applaud you, and maybe you already have in your attempt to reach out to me. So for that I tip my hat to you. If you bump into me on the lake, tell me I promised to buy you a round and we can debate my "need" to buy some expensive and shiny props for the boat, or maybe my desire buy,,, well any of the crazy things on my list ;-) Thanks