Open Carry
Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — any time, any place, without asking anyone’s permission. ~L. Niel Smith, The Atlanta Deceleration, 1987
That is the right that the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States Guarantees. Notice, I did not say that the second amendment gives this right. Governments cannot give rights, because if you can give a right you can take a right away. Governments also cannot license a right, because if you have to ask somebody’s permission to do something it is not a right.
Now, I never used to think much about open carry. I was more worried that I couldn’t keep a handgun in my home in one of the most violent cities in this country, let alone carry a concealed handgun with me wherever I went. I figured all I would have to do is move out of the city to have a handgun in the home. Then it was just a matter of getting this draconian excuse for a state to stop trampling my constitutionally guaranteed rights, and not arrest me for excessing my right to carry a concealed weapon if I want to.
I didn’t give much thought to open carry because I thought I would get harassed too much from all of the irrational people who have irrational fears of guns, despite the fact that they kill less people per capita than bathtubs, and nobody would get scared if you openly carried a bathtub around.
Despite the fact that over the past few years the general state of gun control has been towards less gun control, it is still not nearly enough, and more than likely that trend will be reversed soon. I mean, if you are being tortured on the rack, if the guy decides to undo one turn of the rack, it hardly means you can walk around freely. Some of you might say that not having guns is hardly equivalent to torture. You are right, it is worse. How many people must be robbed, mugged, beaten, raped, and murdered before people will wake up and realize that by taking guns away from the decent people (which is all gun control does) you have the blood of all of these crimes on your hand.
I hear people blathering on about how more guns means more crime but the evidence just doesn’t show it. Well, look at what John Lott has to say about the National Academy of Sciences Report on Gun Control. This panel was set up during the Clinton Administration, and of its members whose views on guns were publicly known before their appointments all but one had favored gun control.
Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn’t identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.
– John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report (PDF) on gun control laws
There are plenty of studies that show a positive correlation between more gun control and more crime, and even though correlation doesn’t prove causation, lake of correlation does disprove causation. It is as simple as that. Gun control does NOT reduce crime. Period.
Since it is only because of irrational fears that gun control laws are kept on the books, the only option is to get people used to the idea of ordinary people carrying guns around. The only way to do this is to get open carry laws passed in every state, county, and locality in this country and to start openly carrying guns around as much as possible. There will be people screaming and moaning that we should think of the children, or other such vague statements, but when people are used to guns being everywhere and when the level of violent crime rate lowers, and those children are safer, gun control laws will take care of themselves.
The problem of course is how to get there. I will leave that up to smarter people than me. How about taking some pointers from Smith’s Blueprint for Ending Gun Control.
Someday to demonstrate that principle — before I’m lying on my deathbed in a hospital with green plastic tubes up my nose, before arthritis sets in and I have to do it on crutches — I intend to walk the length of Manhattan Island with a handgun openly on my hip, unmolested by any freelance or official parasite. ~L. Niel Smith, The Atlanta Deceleration, 1987
