Have It Your Way

Unless you're in an episode of "The Walking Dead".

I wasn't looking for trouble.
And I'd rather not have cranked out this post.
I had thought the prior butthurt from Angus over open carry stupidity had been patched up.
Clearly, I was mistaken.

Reference the linked post: Which Is Scarier?

Here are your choices:

 

 

This isn't hard, and it isn't a trick question.

My answer at McThag's blogsite, was that #2 is scarier.
And to my best recollection, for the following reasons:

Because #2 is frequently randomly evil.

Cops are humanly stupid, and handing them a bigger hammer means the mistakes get bigger as a result.

#2 concerns me far more, because there's not a damned thing I can do about it, doubly so if it's coming after me personally, short of multiple felonies and one or more homicides.

So #2 is definitely scarier.
Now, we move on to which is stupider?

#1, by contrast, is simply enormously jackassically stupid.

#1 I can do something about, starting with beating the individual responsible (at least metaphorically) over the head with the exact bag of hammers he's using for brains, because a jackass is a jackass.

#1 (the fucktard with a slung carbine at the food court) is not a civil rights warrior, he's an attention whore with an exhibitionist fetish. (The two guys with holstered pistols I couldn't give two fucks about, in case that wasn't clear to Angus. They should rock on.)
The rest of my comments regarded an agreement with the stupidity of Califrutopia's laws regarding almost any open carry, contrary to the tide in 45 or so other states.
That was it.



According to Angus, that was impolite, and blitzed to the ether.
His blog.
His choice.

But I can and will point stupidity like that out every chance I get, here if not anywhere else. That's not impolite, and it's not a betrayal of the Second Amendment, it's a decision that I don't want screw-loose jackasses to be the PIOs for my team. If pointing out that jackassery by third parties got shell fire too far inside someone else's living room, well, tough shit.
Ban it all you want, and I'll just post it here. I could be wrong, but I suspect I've got a bigger audience. I damned sure can be more eloquent about it without tiptoeing around. Either way, it doesn't matter. No slight to the bloghost there was uttered nor intended, but clearly offense was taken anyways.

So let's be clear:

Anybody who thinks that you should be open-carrying AR-15s at the food court is a fuckwit.
Unless there are Zombies and ninja assassins there, 24/7/365.
No? Then fuckwit. Period. Full stop.
Not a calm, rational voice.

That says nothing about whether you should be allowed to, or whether the Second Amendment is a good thing or a bad thing.

Hell, since we're shooting at each other, I'll go all in:
The Second Amendment says "arms", not "guns".
The Founders weren't idiots, and the words of each amendment in the Bill of Rights were not lightly nor randomly selected.

Recall, please, that the Redcoats were going to Lexington and Concord for cannons, powder, and shot, not just muskets and musket balls. Which anybody could own.

I think I'm on damned fine ground that the Second Amendment said "arms" because the whole damned arsenal was up for ownership, not just pistols and rifles.
I think that means crew-served weapons, artillery in actual fact, and tanks, airplanes, and battleships too. (If you can feed it, you can keep it.) Otherwise the sections concerning Letters of Marque would have been pointless.

And if some guy had a frigate, and permission from Uncle Sugar to do it, and was selling spots to hunt pirates in any of a dozen worldwide trouble spots, you and I know the sign-up list of spots would be sold out in 30 minutes, with lines around the block.

Pirates would be more endangered than rhinos if we went there. And we should have, long ago.

And if anyone suggested that at an NRA meeting, the pussified leadership there would shit their pants. (The crowd of the membership would likely put you on the Board of Directors by vocal acclaim, in contrast.)

The Knob Creek Machinegun Shoot should be held in all 50 states, annually.

Even in gun-hating Britistan, a guy can take the tank to the petrol station, without Special Branch going all SWAT roid-rage on him:

But that's because even there, they haven't had 42 guys with tanks lighting up a mall, just because they could. And note that these guys also didn't train the main armament at people "just for laughs". The first time that starts to become a thing, they'll be limited to trailer-only, to certified shows and events. Or banned outright. But then again, the folks with the wherewithal to buy a tank, there or here, generally value their toys enough not to be jackasses in public with one.

The same can clearly not be said about people with AR-15s and the like.

Which is why toting a battle rifle on your back to get a burger and fries is simply jackassical stupidity, and everyone with an IQ above room temperature knows why.

We are an armed society, and also generally a polite one, and that sort of a-whoring violates common sense decorum, and gives reasonable people grounds to be very much on edge. Just to accommodate the perversions and mental incapacity of a few lunatics, seeking the farthest limits of a constitutional right. There's always some idiot who'll stand on the fence at the Grand Canyon or the zoo, and lean over, and next thing you know, everyone finds that fence moved back fifty yards, of necessity.
And who's butthurt and screaming the loudest then?

The Assclown Posse.

Now, if you were at the Hooterville Quick Sack, on your way home from deer hunting, and stopped in with your bolt-action slung over your Realtree on the drive home, fine.
Fellow comes into the roadside market or diner with a broke open shotgun and a brace of birds neckstrung during duck season after limiting out, no harm, no fowl foul.

But if you showed up in town at Chez FouFou for dinner in a tux with a slung Uzi, you deserve to get kicked right the fuck to the curb, and stepped on face-first upon landing.

Because you're violating the right to carry? Or because all open carry is bad?
O Hell NO.

Because you're a fucking moron with no sense of appropriate manners and public behavior.
Hence, probably too stupid to trust with any weapon, let alone in public. And, 80/20, in desperate need of an ass-beating going back to grade school.

And I'm not talking on behalf of hoplophobes or neutral observers. I'm telling you you're a jackass to most rational gun owners too. If anything, even more than you are to the people who hate all guns. Because those of us who own, and carry upon occasion, can tell the difference between protecting a civil right, and just being a fuckwit in public. The two are not the same thing. Anyone who cannot tell the difference has gone blind, and probably crazy.

These dimbulbs are the same jackwads who muzzle sweep the entire gun store and half the gun show, then get butthurt again when someone who doesn't think it's funny suggests they're about to activate their dental plan deductible.

In Israel, where Sudden Jihadi Syndrome can happen anywhere and anytime, that same Uzi in the pizza parlor or even for fine dining would be seen as what it is: a comfort, and simple common sense. Circumstances dictate what is sensible. Duh.

Hell, even in the Marines, we carried M-16s onto a jetliner.
But we didn't take them to the PX or the barber shop. Go figure.
Sort of like some modicum of common sense was involved.

Here, in general society, you're a loose wingnut in probable need of psychological evaluation if you do that.
(I make public exception to doing so in South Chicongo, Detroitistan, the District of Corruption, or the territory of the Baltimorons, for the same reason: Circumstances dictate what is sensible. Some people oughta write that down on their hands, lest they forget.)

But absent similar levels of violence everywhere, #1 is egregious public stupidity in most times and places you could name or imagine.

Until either general disorder, or the Zombpocalypse, that doesn't change.
You want to pack a pistol, openly or concealed, no problem.

Notice nowhere did I state nor even mildly suggest that you should be accosted, flung to the ground by law enforcement, dragged by the heels to a mental institution, nor shot on sight by other folks, simply for being such a public fuckwit.
(That it will happen anyways 99 times out of 100 is both a bonus for society, and more proof that I'm right, and you're wrong, and just gives the police grounds and probable cause to go too far in the future, because you couldn't color inside the lines of common sense, like everyone should, except in extreme situations. Pissing into the wind is always its own reward.)

But citizens, as a general rule, shouldn't be toting long arms - rifle or shotgun - for the same reasons police officers shouldn't go everywhere with them in their hands either.
Because it's rude, socially unacceptable, tactically indefensible, and egregiously stupid, and somebody's going to get hurt. And not just butthurt.

Tell me I'm wrong: tell me you want Officer Friendly to have a shotgun in his mitt when he pulls you over for a traffic infraction any time he feels like it, or interviews you about some matter of interest.
Tell me it's not intimidating, and needless, and inherently unsafe.

Tell me you want your neighbors in Smallville to have an AK on their shoulders everywhere they go, including to your front door. (Even in by-God Texas, BBQ guns do not include shoulder weapons, AFAIK.)

If you do tell me that, you're either full of crap, or bat-crap insane.
And if you've got a weapon in your hand or handy in that state, and neither I nor anyone else can readily tell which one it is, there are going to be problems. Mainly for you.

Leave your rifle in the rack, Jack.
You want to be a public assclown, wear an actual real clownsuit.
With floppy shoes and a red sponge nose.
At least then, we can tell what you were about in public,without asking.

If that dose of reality is impolite to anyone, I suggest the feminine hygiene products aisle at your local store, for tampons and Midol.
Slung carbine optional, but definitely not recommended.