Mission statement:

Armed and Safe is a gun rights advocacy blog, with the mission of debunking the "logic" of the enemies of the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms.

I can be reached at 45superman@gmail.com.You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/45superman.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Give that man a kewpie doll!

I had no idea that there was no law in California against openly carrying a firearm (the rather large downside being that it must be unloaded), but that's what I learned here.

Last month, about 40 people gathered at Mission Beach wearing unloaded guns on holsters. Panicked beach goers called police but no one was arrested because carrying unloaded firearms is legal in California.
Although open carry doesn't particularly appeal to me, from a tactical standpoint, I'm more and more impressed by what the open carry movement is doing in terms of raising public awareness.

The San Diego PD lawyer provides the money quote, though.
Paul Cooper is an attorney for the police department. He says the practice is dangerous to the public, the people carrying the weapons and to officers.

"We just don't think it's a prudent idea for anyone to walk around openly with an unloaded firearm," Cooper says.
I can't argue with that. To fix it, though, the law would have to be changed so as not to require the firearm to be unloaded.

One of my GRE colleagues is also quoted.
Police think the group is trying to provoke officers. But John Pierce, co-founder of opencarry.org says that's not the case.

"Is it taunting if a gay couple expresses affection in public? None of these things are taunting. They are educational," says Pierce.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

if you got it, taunt it!


Seriously, wouldn't the taunting be the part where people who are engaged in a completely legal activity not harmful to anyone being told they shouldn't do it, because people "don't like it', "it's scary", " we don't approve", etc.etc.. Wouldn't that be the taunting part?

How much taunting of legal practitioners of an activity does it take to rise to the level of illegality? Perhaps the police need to monitor that more closely.

Anonymous said...

Open Carry unloaded is only in areas that are not allowed legal discharge of firearms. Almost anywhere else loaded carry is legal except school zones and government buildings and post office properties. for more info see www.opencarry.org