LA Times: For years, Kevin Jensen carried a pistol everywhere he went, tucked in a shoulder holster beneath his clothes.In hot weather the holster was almost unbearable. Pressed against Jensen's skin, the firearm was heavy and uncomfortable. Hiding the weapon made him feel like a criminal.
Then one evening he stumbled across a site that urged gun owners to do something revolutionary: Carry your gun openly for the world to see as you go about your business.
In most states there's no law against that.
Jensen thought about it and decided to give it a try. A couple of days later, his gun was visible, hanging from a black holster strapped around his hip as he walked into a Costco. His heart raced as he ordered a Polish dog at the counter. No one called the police. No one stopped him.Now Jensen carries his Glock 23 openly into his bank, restaurants and shopping centers. He wore the gun to a Ron Paul rally. He and his wife, Clachelle, drop off their 5-year-old daughter at elementary school with pistols hanging from their hip holsters, and have never received a complaint or a wary look.
Jensen said he tries not to flaunt his gun. "We don't want to show up and say, 'Hey, we're here, we're armed, get used to it,' " he said. But he and others who publicly display their guns have a common purpose.The Jensens are part of a fledgling movement to make a firearm as common an accessory as an iPod. Called "open carry" by its supporters, the movement has attracted grandparents, graduate students and lifelong gun enthusiasts like the Jensens.
"What we're trying to say is, 'Hey, we're normal people who carry guns,' " said Travis Deveraux, 36, of West Valley, a Salt Lake City suburb. Deveraux works for a credit card company and sometimes walks around town wearing a cowboy hat and packing a pistol in plain sight. "We want the public to understand it's not just cops who can carry guns."
10 comments:
Sometimes I forget how scary rednecks are. Especially
"Mr. works for the credit card company and carries around a gun to make up for his penis size".
Whenever I want to perform a quick "racial equality test," I'll:
1. take a white man's situation,
2. replace him with a black man, and
3. guessture if the outcomes would be the same.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
I hope readers stop laughing long enough (hehe) to realize that a law-abiding middle class black man would be Public Enemy #1 if he lived and told that same story. The police would hold secret board meetings into the wee hours of the morning trying to figure a way to jail a brotha on trumped-up charges.
Law-abiding negroes who carry guns for protection: Please keep yo' hardware concealed.
Hawa from
Fackin Truth Blog
PS: I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want a brotha to just try this on for size and reference this article during his defense. ::snicker::
Sounds like a kwestin for Black Man with a Gun.
Well, what if Black men do statistically have a far higher rate of violent crime and assault than White men? Would it then be only reasonable to feel more apprehensive about getting mugged by more Blacks than Whites, then?
If more Blacks really do violently assault others more (proportionally-speaking) in real life than any others? Is that fact racism or reality?
Yet white people are much more likely to get assaulted by other white people than anyone else.
So, why don't they direct their towards each other instead of random black people?
ARe those not fact, is that not reality?
Well, what if Black men do statistically have a far higher rate of violent crime and assault than White men?
Well... Byrd.
Depends on how you look at it.
If you incorporate into your thesis, the assaults committed by white men when colonizing Africa, India, Asia, North America and South America ... they look a race of Willie Horton's.
When you factor in the needless dropping of hydrogen bombs on Hirosgima and Nagasaki, that evaporated over 100,000 people in less than a second - white men appear pretty fuggin viscous?
I mean, a couple of car jackings vs. thermo nuclear annihilation?
Come Onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn .....
Yet white people are much more likely to get assaulted by other white people than anyone else.
But not on a 1-on-1 basis as you would meet on the street level due to the % (not absolute) threat.
DV - True. Hence I would be more afraid of White hegemonic suits & soldiers armed with WMDs on a national level. But not White citizens on a street level.
Don't go to the bad neighborhoods and you most likely won't get capped, it's pretty simple.
There's much more to all this than meets the eye. On the street level, anytime prior to 1968, you probably had more to fear on a 1-to-1 basis from the white guy.
That's returning with a vengeance. On a macroscopic scale, it's because of what's always been going on in the world but is now re-entering a period of extremely heightened "activity" a renaissance or revival - if you will.
Some folks are straight scurred of it, other folks are in avoidance and denial mode. (read the associated thread, I'm not referring to Les here)
Some of us recognize it for what it is. During the Tokugawa shogunates in Japan, for a period of centuries, Japan experienced almost zero population growth. Japanese high-culture was optimized for sustainability as against no increases in agricultural production or societal net energy. That all changed with the Meiji "restoration". If folks don't recognize gangsterism, outlawry, etc..., for the beginnings of the return of that old fuedal samurai/cowboy isht, and they don't like to read, at the very least get some zatoichi or sergio leone movies and refresh your imaginary conception of elevated levels of routine pedestrian violence as a normative feature of culture.
I think that it is stupid to wear your weapon exposed in public if you are not osme type of law enforcement uniform. In the event of an altercation (robbery, jacking, fight), even if oyu have no intent of being a hero, you instantly become a target. I would suggest that you conceal your weapon. For those of you who may feel that it is a must the world know you have on your heat, you should consider wearing a bullet proof vest beneath your "McCain shirt."
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