The New York Times reports on a rifle open carry event in San Antonio, Texas.
As I’ve said before, I’m not so keen on rifle open carry, but this seemed to be pretty reasonable: it was an organized, coordinated event (not just random guys showing up at a coffee shop), they’re using rifle open carry as a means to an end (in Texas, open carry of a long gun is legal but open carry of a handgun is not — they’re looking to change the law regarding handguns), people are well-dressed, polite, and not being idiots.
Well done.
Category: Carry
On Starbucks
This. Sebastian hits the nail on the head, as usual.
I get where Starbucks is coming from, but I think they handled this situation somewhat poorly. Some better wording (“display” vs. “bring”, as Sebastian puts it) would have made it clear that they weren’t so keen on being an unwilling focal point of the open carry debate while still allowing people to carry discretely in accordance with local laws.
The current wording alienates all law-abiding, peaceable gun owners who carry concealed and disturb nobody, not just those who were pushing the bounds of civility by openly carrying rifles into a coffee shop where such behavior is not customary. Change the wording slightly to ask people to not carry openly and there’d be significantly less controversy.
I don’t drink coffee so I pretty much have no reason to ever go to Starbucks, but if I did then I’d definitely have second thoughts about any future business there based on their handling of this situation.
US Diplomat in Pakistan shoots two, claims self-defense
An American diplomat in the Pakistani city of Lahore has shot and killed a Pakistani motorcycle rider and his pillion passenger, police say.
They say that the consular official fired his pistol in self-defence. US embassy officials confirmed that an American was involved.
The men were pursuing the American in his car when the incident happened.
[…]
Weapons were recovered from the bodies of the dead men.
I’m sure that this is going to do wonders for US-Pakistan relations.
Even if the shooting turns out to be perfectly justifiable and legal, there’s going to be a lot of drama.
Inconsistent
I’m a big fan of BJ’s Brewhouse, a restaurant chain with tasty food and delicious beer (( Try their red. It’s outstanding. )).
There’s now two in Tucson. The first one, which is on the north side of town, used to have a “gun busters” (warning: PDF) sign, but after some polite prodding by the citizenry, they took it down — permit-holders are not forbidden from carrying there, so long as they don’t drink. There’s been no incidents of violence, gun-related or not, at the restaurant that I’m aware of.
However, the newly-built BJ’s on Broadway has a “gun busters” sign. A polite letter asking the management to remove the sign, like the other restaurant, has been dispatched to the management. I urge others to do the same.
Training in Arizona
The Arizona Citizens Defense League emailed me to let me know that they’re participating in the Train Me AZ initiative.
With the Constitutional Carry legislation taking effect today, people in Arizona are no longer required to have a permit to carry a concealed firearm anywhere it is legal to open carry (a permit is still required to carry in certain places, like establishments that serve alcohol). Since getting a permit to carry a concealed firearm required that one undergo some sort of training and that such training is not required for permitless concealed carry, the Train Me AZ initiative was created to encourage people to seek out training prior to carrying firearms.
While I fully support the right for individuals to carry firearms without permits, I also strongly encourage people to seek out training to ensure that they’re well-versed in handing their firearm safely and in the complexities of applicable law.
Whether you carry openly or concealed, with or without a permit, take a training course (or many!) from a reputable, qualified instructor. Your life and future could literally depend on it.
Reminder About Permitless Concealed Carry
Just a reminder to fellow Arizonans: the new law that removes the permit requirement for concealed carry goes into effect on July 29th. Please wait until then before carrying concealed without a permit.
Also, please note that there are some perks to having a permit, such as discounts at the occasional pro-gun-rights eatery, as well as bypassing NICS checks on new gun purchases, and interstate reciprocity.
A Novel Approach to Self-Defense
It’s an oft-used cliche that anti-gun-rights people are fixated on the relative size of men’s…ahem, packages ((I still have yet to understand why this is the case, as essentially all of the gun owners I know personally, both male and female, seem to have satisfactory sex lives with no complaints about penis size. How did this cliche come about?)). This is usually phrased in a way similar to “Gun owners have small penises, and thus own firearms to compensate for this shortcoming ((Pun very much intended.)).”
However, an online comment on a recent article in the local rag proposed an interesting approach to self-defense:
I don’t need to carry a gun everywhere I go. All the real men in my family have a real penis.
My reading of this comment is that, due to its magnitude, the commenter would be able to fend off a criminal attacker with his (( Based on the posted name, the commenter is male.)) penis. I admit this is a rather novel idea, and one I haven’t considered before. This might be plausible, as several gunbloggers (including myself and Robb) are known for not liking pants. Intriguing. I would consider experimenting with such a tactic, but I’m a bit deterred by potential public indecency charges that such…uh…”open carry” might lead to. I think that it might be wiser to keep the junk and the gun concealed (or perhaps the gun carried openly, based on the situation and the weather).
On a more serious note, unless one is attacked while naked by an extremely self-conscious criminal, it’s unlikely that the size of one’s wibbly bits will have any bearing whatsoever on the outcome of a violent confrontation. It’s probably far better to rely on training and weapons designed for the purpose. To quote Breda, “Carry your gun – it’s a lighter burden than regret.”
IWB Holsters
Today I acquired a shiny BLACKHAWK! (( That’s a rather silly name, honestly. )) IWB holster for my Glock 19.
Holy crap, this holster makes the gun disappear. As I’m left-handed, I carry around 8:00pm on the clock-style of angular measure, and it’s essentially invisible. Comfy too. The holster is leather (( Made in Italy, too. Somewhat odd. )) and has enough flex to fit comfortably without any uncomfortable edges. Super comfy at the desk, in the car, and walking around.
I’m a bit skeptical of the velcro angle adjustment (though one needs to loosen a screw before adjusting the angle), but we’ll see how it holds up.
On a different note, there’s entirely too much Shiny! at the shop, and not enough money in my wallet. I’d like to see this reversed, at least for a short while.
Oh yeah, the FTC can bite my shiny, slightly radioactive ass (( Probably not, but if I get ass cancer for sitting next to all that purportedly low-level radioactive stuff in the lab, I’ll get annoyed. )) if they think that companies actually want to give me shiny things and have me pimp them out. I wish I was that awesome.
Running Interference
One nice thing about the recent Arizona immigration law is that it’s running remarkably good interference for the permitless carry law in Arizona.
Sure, the permitless carry law isn’t really a big deal in Arizona, but what little drama that could be stirred up against it has been replaced with ire for the immigration law and I haven’t heard a peep against the carry law in any media recently.
Why I Love Arizona
I was recently summoned for jury duty ((Why anyone would want an educated, ex-military, libertarian, gun-owning physics student on their jury is beyond me, but they sure love summoning me.)). In the paperwork, I noted that they prohibit weapons beyond a security checkpoint. As this is a courthouse, I have no problem with such a prohibition.
Still, I wanted to be sure I could legally carry up to the checkpoint, so I gave them a call. It went something like this:
Operator: “Jurry Commissioner’s office. How may I help you?”
Me: “Hi, I was recently summoned for jury duty and in the paperwork, I noticed that weapons are prohibited past the security checkpoint. Is there a place to check legally-carried weapons prior to the checkpoint?”
Operator: “Yes. That’s not a problem. We have plenty of lockers to hold privately-owned weapons for jurors.”
Me: “Excellent. Thank you.”
Not only is the lawful carriage of arms commonplace here, but even the courthouses have lockers to store firearms prior to the checkpoint. I seem to recall there actually being a law about this, as I saw similar lockers at the Motor Vehicles Department, but I can’t recall what specific law that was…
I love the fact that I can make a call regarding the storage of privately-owned weapons and get a simple, factual response. No assumption that I’m a police officer (as has happened a few times at the airport when checking guns), no questions of “Why would you bring a gun to a courthouse?”, or anything else along those lines.