Seen At Target: Now Stand Still While I Shoot You
I used to collect firearms. At one point I had around 70 firearms of various kinds, so you might say I know my way around guns. I still keep and bear arms…just not that many any more…and I’m a left wing Democrat. (suck on that for awhile) so I guess you would have to qualify me as a Second Amendment Democrat. We do exist, you know, and in large numbers too.
I stole this image from a Facebook post, which probably means that I stole it from someone who stole it from someone else. So it goes.
It’s a rather commonplace scene, just a guy out doing his grocery shopping…with an Ak-47 slung over his shoulder.
What the fuck?
Does this fucking moron understand that I could put six rounds into his stupid head (from an equal starting point) with my .25 caliber Browning before he could unlimber that piece of shit?
Long guns are useless in point blank encounters, and 90% of all shootings take place at a distance of 15 feet or less. From 20 feet away, my son could take that gun and wrap it around this moron’s head before he could engage him.
In fact, at distances of less than 15 feet, do bring a knife to the gun fight because at that distance, a knife is often preferable to a rifle, which is why the men and women on our military teams carry several knives.
I am a licenced gun owner but I am adamantly opposed to open carry laws because I consider them an incitement to violence. They also make a mockery of any attempt to reasonably legislate appropriate controls over gun ownership since, in open carry states, you don’t need a gun permit to purchase or carry fire arms.
In concealed carry states, it is usually a crime to “brandish” or show a firearm in an altercation. In other words, if you draw, you might as well fire because you’re going to be in trouble whether you fire or not. So how is openly carrying a firearm any different from brandishing a firearm?
Here’s what I would really like to know: Is this moron carrying an AK47 around in Condition 1 (round in the chamber, action cocked, safety on) because, if he is, someone could easily walk up behind him, cut the sling with knife, gain possession of the firearm and put a round into him before he knew what was happening. (If he is carrying this thing in Condition 0, loaded, cocked and unlocked, with safety off, then he is the worst kind of idiot.)
If he has any sense, then, he is carrying this firearm in Condition Three, with a magazine inserted, chamber empty, which makes it safe from being used against him (this is how Israeli police officers carry their firearms for that very reason) but it also means that he would have to rack a round into the chamber which means that he would already be dead before he could bring the firearm to bear if he were suddenly confronted by an armed assailant.
There are some people who are trained to respond quickly enough to do this with zero notice, but you can’t walk around all the time on high alert. That’s a case of PTSD waiting to happen.
The only – THE ONE AND ONLY REASON – anyone openly carries a firearm is to threaten or provoke other people. It is a signal to people of color, and other divergent personalities, that they should be very careful around me because I am armed. It is also a signal to other fascists and racists that says, point blank, “Hey, bro, you and me is on the same side.”
It the simplest possible terms, there is no good reason for the open carry of long guns, and many bad ones. It an obvious signal that the person carrying the firearm is paranoid, and a paranoid person in possession of a firearm is a very bad situation…but it is happening thousands of times a day around this country.
It is an aggressive act and should be banned by law as assault (assault doesn’t require actually hitting a person. Assault is equivalent to confronting. Battery is about hitting.)
It is very easy to rail against the Second Amendment but the Second Amendment is probably never going to repealed so, if you are opposed to the right to bear arms, perhaps you should start small and focus your efforts on a nationwide open carry ban.
Don’t go overboard. You can’t ban open carry everywhere. Game animals aren’t going to wait around while you uncase a rifle, and no one is going to case up their firearms at a shooting range during a range session. Be reasonable.
Despite it’s really stupid logo, Target isn’t a shooting range…at least not yet.
07/31/2019 @ 12:25 pm
Pretty sad that he ^^might expect to have such an encounter there…tho for him it may mean more as a fashion accessory.
My son’s a championship marksman; we have a rifle and a pistol.
He cannot abide the NRA.
07/31/2019 @ 1:33 pm
There is an even better example of how utterly stupid open carry is. A couple of years ago there was a mass shooting in a city in Texas, during a protest march of some sort. The shooter was in a parking garage, and opened fire on a crowd of police officers. One of the marchers was walking around with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder in this manner. The television cameras spotted him marching, and basking in his assumed machismo. Eventually the shooting started. He wasn’t the shooter, but speculation arose, wondering if he had something to do with it. Police approached him, and he surrendered his rifle. The only reasonable thing to do. So, the open carry while marching had no practical purpose whatsoever. To stay alive, he had to surrender the rifle. It was 100% opposed to the implication of carrying openly.
07/31/2019 @ 2:28 pm
I recall that and thinking similarly.
07/31/2019 @ 5:07 pm
“…people of color, and other divergent personalities…”
Really?!
I didn’t realize that I had, or am, a “divergent personality”…
08/01/2019 @ 12:26 am
I don’t know if you’re divergent else where but you certainly fit in here. I was trying to find some way of encapsulating the whole broad range of people who might feel threatened by someone openly carrying an AK. Women, children, LGBT, I just get tired sometimes trying to be politically correct and entertaining at the same time. Apologies if required are proffered.
08/01/2019 @ 12:33 am
Thanks for the post. A lot of us are just not that familiar with firearms.
08/01/2019 @ 12:42 am
I have written a lot about firearms and their use. My son used to do this demonstration. He would stand twenty feet back from you and tell you to draw your weapon (not a real one) and before you could bring the gun into play, you would be on your back and he would have your gun in his hand. This is why he says he doesn’t need a carry permit. He’ll just take the other guy’s gun away from him and stick it where the sun don’t shine. (My words, not his. He would never be that crude. I raised him well,. My father raised an asshole.)