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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That was mostly due to skylarking cowboys. They'd been on the trail for months, and when they arrived in town and got paid, the first thing they did was get rip-roaring drunk, and start shooting at random just for shits and giggles.
It goes without saying that such behavior is universally frowned upon.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.I think being unnerved by someone openly carrying a gun isn't unreasonable.
I mean, it's not like it's something with more than one real use. Guns are made explicitly to kill and hurt things. Wearing one openly is a power statement: I have the power to kill.
Being afraid of that isn't unreasonable. It's practical. I have worked at convenience stores; if someone walk in openly carrying a gun I would automatically be on edge. People don't carry guns just because. They carry them to use them; you have no way of knowing what use they have in mind.
There are US states that allow open carry and don't allow concealed carry without going through bureaucracy, so there will be people using OC because it is easier.
You're more likely to be robbed by wearing headphones and earphones than you'd be while open carrying, since those means nice expensive phone on a tool unaware of his surroundings over someone who will shoot if you try anything stupid. Muggers don't go after people who know they will fight back, the attempt to scare and intimidate people to give them stuff and move on.
Also if your plan is being unarmed and assaulting a guy with a weapon to steal his it isn't only unlikely you'll succeed it is a stupid plan save the dumbest criminal would try to get a gun this way instead of getting one in the black market.
The latest knife attacks in Israel highlighted how stupid it is to go after an armed person with the intent of killing or stealing their guns, it didn't went well for all Palestinians going after the Israelis. Those who were armed and shot back at their attackers lived, the attackers didn't.
If OCs were at such risks you'd hear them being attacked more often instead of the otherwise, the cops walking alone would also be attacked more often.
Stealing guns from home is also something that isn't a sure way either, most gun owner houses don't have obnoxious signs with "Protected by the second amendment" and such, they are locked in hard safes or hidden in places a mugger or robber would need to go through a lot of valuables more attractive than the gun itself and if the gun isn't on its owner instead of a hidden place.
edited 25th Dec '15 1:55:18 PM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent legesAbout the only time I'd be comfortable with someone open-carrying a gun is if they're dressed in hunting camo or something. I live in a big hunting area, so that's a sight I'm pretty much used to seeing - if someone strolled into the post office with a rifle slung over their back, I'd just ask them to put it in their car until after, no different than a lit cigarette or a non-purse dog.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"It depends on how they handle the gun. If it was slung over his shoulder, I personally wouldn't think much of it. But I remember one time when I was working in the gun shop:
A car pulled up and parked at the curb. A guy got out, reached into the back seat, pulled out a shotgun, racked the slide, and marched right into the store with the gun held at the port-arms ready position, like a duck hunter looking for a winging bird to unload on. I saw my co-worker's hand slide towards the pistol he carried in a shoulder holster...
The guy came up to the counter and said, "I need this fixed."
My co-worker said, "Do you know how close you came to getting shot just now?"
The guy said, "Huh? What?"
If he had left the chamber open, and carried it in a more relaxed posture, with the muzzle pointed at the ground, there wouldn't have been a problem. But Mister Oblivious wasn't thinking about safe gun handling, or the impression he was giving off.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
Exactly. Open-Carry without a significant amount of training (de-escalation, presence, etc.) is a recipe for disaster because of the idiots who indulged in way too many '80s action movies. So for the good owners, just look at it as those idiots being Why We Cant Have Nice Things.
edited 26th Dec '15 9:07:27 AM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
Yes. The reason being that you don't want to risk making the people in the store think that you're going to rob them, or else you'll be very, very dead. So, rule of thumb when bringing guns into a gun store: keep them in a case, or at the very least holstered.
The guy came up to the counter and said, "I need this fixed."
My co-worker said, "Do you know how close you came to getting shot just now?"
The guy said, "Huh? What?"
If he had left the chamber open, and carried it in a more relaxed posture, with the muzzle pointed at the ground, there wouldn't have been a problem. But Mister Oblivious wasn't thinking about safe gun handling, or the impression he was giving off.
Sounds like a good description of how Open Carry might make it very difficult to tell the intention of people, and could potentially result in mistakes. After all, it doesn't sounds like there's much way to differentiate between someone who's about to go postal on your ass and someone who's as dumb and oblivious as so much humanity is.
Things like that are why I think we need Gun Ed before people are allowed to own firearms. It's not about restricting people who handle their weapons properly. It's about making sure the dumbasses don't make lethal mistakes.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick The BBC, 26th December: A fire at Bill Clinton's childhood home, Arson suspected
Mr Clinton spent his first years in the house, which was designated a National Historic Site in 2011.
Hope Police Department chief JR Wilson said a motorist spotted flames early on Friday, according to the Associated Press news agency. Mr Wilson said firefighters saw flames 8ft (2.4m) high on one side of the property when they arrived. Bill Clinton was America's 42nd president, serving from 1993 to 2001.
It’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee who also represents a district in Florida stretching roughly from Weston to Miami.
Douglas Hughes, 62, of Ruskin, Fla., in a court filing Wednesday declared that he planned “strong ground game for his campaign” and would “not engage in aerial civil disobedience.”…
But how about somebody carrying a plain old .38 revolver in a belt holster? Would you immediately have a heart palpitation over that?
I get neverous whenever I see even police carrying, so yes. (Well not literally palpitations, but I don't think you meant that.)
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Playwell it has been a while since I last checked on this threat and holyshitnearly30newpages!
back on guns eh? well I maintain my position of "them Yanks be crazy" and that guns are FUCKING SCARY! if I saw someone with an open carry firearm, any kind, I would be scared, why would you carry that if you're not planning on using it to harm someone?
advancing the front into TV TropesMaybe, but it's equally rude to go "Eek! Gun! Eww, bad!" And frankly I'm tired of hearing it.
On the issue of guns and gun control, I hear a lot of sage advice being dispensed by people who have never lived in the US, which renders them ill-equipped to judge the situation since they have little understanding of American culture and the American mindset. And all they know about guns is based on what they’ve seen in the movies and on television (which is mostly bullshit, by the way.) So their anti-gun, socialist solutions simply wouldn't work here in the United States.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my inner caveman feels the need to go bash something with a rock.
edited 27th Dec '15 3:22:10 PM by pwiegle
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.I love how you throw being anti gun and being Socalist in together, despite the two having no links at all and being entirely separate points. Yes there's a limit on foreign input, there's a reason I never stated my reaction to seeing someone with a gun (it's heavily based on the legal and cultur environment I live in and that's not the US one), but the fact that some foreigners are socialists has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Hell Socalism is inherently anti-gun control on some levels, as once you go far left enough you're talking about freedom, local militias, and arming the working class against their oppressive masters. Even within the spectrum of standard socialism you have a wide variety of gun control types because Socalism has nothing to do with gun control.
Short version: Socalism isn't connected to gun control, you acting like it is makes you look like a reactionary idiot who doesn't know what he's fighting against.
edited 27th Dec '15 3:41:24 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranOkay, so speaking as a former sailor who passed armed watchstanders on a near hourly basis for five years, a guy whose roommate keeps loaded handguns around, and a guy perpetually mulling over the idea of another term of service, I'm almost certainly not hoplophobic. And the idea of dim, middle-aged civilians who missed some sort of train in their lives being allowed to openly carry firearms under most circumstances is loony. At present, we wouldn't know whether they're jumpy, easily spun-up, going through a messy divorce, or chronically being made into the world's butt monkeys, to say nothing of other sorts of mental illness or personalities that shouldn't be armed. All of those things suck, but it doesn't follow that they should be allowed to endanger others by walking around with a ballistic crutch, or that they'd be unfairly singled out by a law forbidding their behavior. Openly carrying a semi-automatic rifle or even a sidearm may be about some legitimately-felt fear for the holder, but it introduces more into those who see it, and I'd be willing to bet that that's the point.
edited 27th Dec '15 3:44:51 PM by Artificius
"I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once."

Interested if that's correlation or causation, that people who believe they might be a target for robbery are more likely to own guns.
Open carry just feels like needless dick-waving to me. Remember: even the wild west had you check your guns when you came into town.