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Mike
Super Moderator
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 01:34 am |
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[see also http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Guns_near_Obama_fuel__open-carry__debate-54849862.html]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32492783/ns/us_news-life
Guns near Obama fuel ‘open-carry’ debate
Second Amendment activists divided by public displays of firearms
By Mike Stuckey
Senior news editor
msnbc.com
updated 1 hour, 36 minutes ago
Gun owners may be arguing among themselves and with gun-control activists about it, but for Mustapha Kassou, there’s no debate over the “open-carry” movement, which created a furor this month when pistol- and rifle-packing citizens showed up near several public appearances by President Barack Obama.
Kassou was working the cash register in the Richmond, Va., market he owns on July 11 when a gunman stormed the store with robbery on his mind. In an incident captured on surveillance video, the bandit ordered the eight customers to the floor and pumped two bullets from his snub-nosed pistol into Kassou, who fell to the floor behind the counter.
As the store’s patrons prayed and screamed, one of them drew a .45-caliber revolver from a holster in plain view on his hip and ordered the robber to drop his gun. In the shootout and hand-to-hand struggle that followed, the customer managed to wound the robber three times and prevent him from shooting anyone else. By the time police responded to a 911 call, the robber lay mortally wounded in a pool of blood; he died three days later in a hospital.
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the nationwide advocacy group for “sensible” gun laws. “It’s a no-win for them.” If NRA officials criticize those who open-carry near Obama events, they run the risk of irritating their “rabid membership,” Helmke said. If they support the behavior, “they’re going to lose all credibility not only with the public but with the elected officials who usually vote their way.”
Other gun-rights groups, however, have not shied away, offering a range of reaction.
'It's their right'“We do applaud them for being a positive example of responsible gun owners,” said John Velleco, director of federal affairs for the Gun Owners of America, probably the loudest voice of support for those who have displayed firearms near Obama events. “We’re not calling for people to do that but if they’re doing so legally it’s their right to do it,” said Velleco, who has said he would have no concerns over thousands of citizens openly carrying firearms to an event at which the president was speaking.
But Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, another staunch defender of gun rights, was not applauding. Gottlieb said the open carrying of firearms near presidential town hall meetings on health care “is not the time or the place for it. I’m not for disallowing them to do so, I just don’t think it’s politically intelligent. … I would like to see gun owners think twice before they go to a rally like that with a firearm strapped on. It doesn’t necessarily put our best face forward.”
Vote: OK to openly carry weapons near presidential event?
John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, a social-networking Web site for gun owners that catalogs weapons laws across the nation and chronicles efforts to loosen and remove restrictions against the public carrying of firearms, praised the low-key response of the White House and the Secret Service to the incidents. But he also worried a bit about the actions of those who wear guns near presidential venues.
A 'very mixed message'“I absolutely believe open carry should be legal anywhere that a citizen can legally be,” he explained. “Having said that, one of the things that I find a little bit less than perfect about the recent situation is not the fact that citizens were open-carrying, but rather that they were there as a form of open conduct to disagree with a political position that the president has taken, whether it’s about health care or the economy.” Doing so with a gun strapped on sends a “very mixed message,” said Pierce.
Velleco of Gun Owners of America dismissed that. It “might be a different story” if the town hall open-carry incidents were organized. “You have to remember, this is a leaderless action,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a movement. I don’t know of anyone who is coordinating people to show up at these events armed. … Gun Owners of America would not call for an armed rally. These people are doing it on their own.” 'Setting the table'But some gun-control activists said they see a clear link between the recent open-carrying actions and past campaigns by the NRA and other groups.
“Leading into the election last year, the NRA spent something like $15 million saying if Obama is elected he’ll take your guns away,” said Helmke of the Brady Campaign. “That whole lead-in from last year is really kind of setting the table for some of what we’re seeing with this open carry at Obama events.
“When you’re seeing some of the NRA language from the ads last year being parroted by some of … the picketers and protesters, you start realizing there’s consequences to what they’re saying.”
Jim Kessler of Third Way, the successor organization to the gun-control group Americans for Gun Safety, said openly carrying firearms near the town halls is the sort of thing done by “a very tiny faction of the extreme right wing that’s a real paranoid conspiracy theorist group.”
While he does not believe the NRA is behind the open-carrying, he said it could work to the gun group’s advantage. “I think they (NRA leaders) think these people are whack jobs, to be honest with you, but they love a fight. What the NRA is interested in the most is raising money and increasing membership. They love having Obama as president. It means their membership is going to go up.”
An unseemly imageThe “whack job” image is a big concern to Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation. He does not like provocative open-carry actions just as “I don’t like gun owners running around with the T-shirts saying, ‘Kill Them All and Let God Sort Them Out.’ If someone from the media is at a gun show, that’s the kind of person they’re going to put on TV.”
And that collides harshly with the image that Pierce and others are trying to craft for the open-carry movement, which he said is “normal law-abiding citizens being able to exercise their rights as they go about their everyday lives.”
In rural Virginia, where he grew up, “every corner had a rifle or a shotgun in it,” Pierce said. “It was simply a part of life. Everybody hunted. Firearms were just a part of life, a noncontroversial part of life.” He’d like all Americans to feel the same and sees the work of OpenCarry.org as largely educational.
One positive of the current controversy, Pierce said, “is that it does make open-carry very visible. A lot of people living in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the Northeast, basically … when they see this, it’s a real wake-up call that there are rights that are exercised in the rest of the country that are so far outside their experience. It makes people begin to wonder about the limits that laws in their states have placed on their rights.
“Open-carry IS the Second Amendment,” Pierce said. “If you believe in the Second Amendment, you believe in open carry.”
A call for more lawsBut the Brady Campaign’s Helmke has a different take. “They’re showing the rest of the country how weak our gun laws are,” he said. “When you open-carry, you don’t have a permit, no one has checked you out, you don’t have to go through any training in a lot of places. You can carry a .50-caliber sniper rifle down the street. When folks see that, then maybe they’ll wake up to the fact that we really don’t have many laws on the books with regard to guns.”
Third Way’s Kessler said that despite last year’s landmark Heller ruling by the Supreme Court that upheld individual rights to own guns, “There is no constitutional right to carry a firearm. This is not even close on the constitutional scale — I have a right to carry a firearm wherever I go — it’s just not.”
Kessler and Helmke caution that gun-rights advocates, who have enjoyed years of legislative and legal success on issues from relaxed concealed-carry laws to the expiration of the 1994 federal assault-rifle ban, could push too far.
They cite the Senate’s failure, albeit by a narrow margin, in July to pass an amendment that would have made a concealed-weapon permit from any state valid in all.
“I think the gun lobby is starting to lose its clout,” Helmke said.
As for open-carry, which, although at least tacitly supported by most in the gun-rights community is still criticized by many as less tactically shrewd than concealed-carry, Kessler said, “You have to decide what kind of society you want to live in. Do you want to live in a society where the person next to you is openly carrying a firearm? Does that make you happy? I think for most people it disturbs them. It would for me.”
It shouldn’t, said Velleco of Gun Owners of America. “These people, if anything, are contributing to public safety, not endangering it. … Lawful gun owners use firearms over a million times a year successfully in self-defense. And they make our streets and neighborhoods safer than they would be otherwise. That’s what people don’t understand.”
Kassou, who has recovered from his wounds and returned to work in his Virginia store, said his attitude has changed. “Nobody likes to carry a gun,” he said, and before he was shot he didn’t. “We’re not here in a war zone, we’re just trying to make a living, but sometimes you have to defend yourself.”
So now Kassou straps a gun on each day when he heads for his market. Does he wear it openly, as lawful firearms owners are allowed to do in Virginia?
“Yes sir, I do.”
Last edited on Wed Aug 26th, 2009 01:54 am by Mike
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sudden valley gunner
Regular Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 02:45 am |
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“Open-carry IS the Second Amendment,” Pierce said. “If you believe in the Second Amendment, you believe in open carry.”
Thank you John!!!! Now lets get SAF and NRA to view it that way.
Third Way’s Kessler said that despite last year’s landmark Heller ruling by the Supreme Court that upheld individual rights to own guns, “There is no constitutional right to carry a firearm. This is not even close on the constitutional scale — I have a right to carry a firearm wherever I go — it’s just not.”
Just because you wish it don't make it so.
They cite the Senate’s failure, albeit by a narrow margin, in July to pass an amendment that would have made a concealed-weapon permit from any state valid in all. “I think the gun lobby is starting to lose its clout,” Helmke said.
Narrowly in a liberal congress, and don't forget the other issues like state powers.
I think a fair article, showing all sides and concerns, but of course I am an Open Carrier, so I am biased towards the points in our favor.
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ProguninTN
Regular Member
| Joined: | Sat May 27th, 2006 |
| Location: | Tennessee USA |
| Posts: | 404 |
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 02:49 am |
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I am across this poll on a third party site. I voted. Amen to John's commentary.
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TheMrMitch
Regular Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 02:56 am |
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Maybe there should be a poll to see if MSNBC can remain biased in their reporting. I vote no.
I voted ok to carry near a president as LAWFUL people may even one day save his life. Though I detest Obama, NO ONE has a right to harm him.
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sudden valley gunner
Regular Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 03:07 am |
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TheMrMitch wrote: Maybe there should be a poll to see if MSNBC can remain biased in their reporting. I vote no.
I voted ok to carry near a president as LAWFUL people may even one day save his life. Though I detest Obama, NO ONE has a right to harm him.
+1 What these anti's fail to realize, is that we don't want anybody to be killed, including the president. I too would defend his life.
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TFred
Regular Member
| Joined: | Mon Oct 13th, 2008 |
| Location: | Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 1734 |
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Online
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 04:05 am |
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Worth the read, but I don't think this article was any favor to us.
MSNBC has a very liberal audience, and they wrote this article to that audience, with the purpose of "showing them" what the "crazies" are up to, and how "weird" we think.
I believe another major purpose for the article was to paint the pro-gun folks to be in-fighting on this issue, and to present the anti-gun folks, as well as the anti-OC pro-gun folks, as the cooler minds of reason.
Maybe I'm wrong, I guess you can make that call.
I will say one thing though:
'I think the gun lobby is starting to lose its clout,' Helmke said.
That Helmke dude is one heck of an optimist! 
TFred
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Tomahawk
Regular Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 05:11 am |
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TFred wrote: MSNBC has a very liberal audience, and they wrote this article to that audience, with the purpose of "showing them" what the "crazies" are up to, and how "weird" we think.
I believe another major purpose for the article was to paint the pro-gun folks to be in-fighting on this issue, and to present the anti-gun folks, as well as the anti-OC pro-gun folks, as the cooler minds of reason.
I think that's just your understandable distrust of MSNBC coming out.
If they write anything at all about gunowners, we all tend to pick through it with a fine-toothed comb to find the negative.
And, face it, we are infighting on this issue, just look at those of us who think of the NRA and SAF as sellouts vs. those of us who stand faithfully by NRA no matter what.
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Carpetbagger
Activist Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 02:24 pm |
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I thought it was a pretty good, and pretty unbiased, article.
I especially like that the article actually identified "Third Way" as a gun control group.
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jpierce
Administrator
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 03:02 pm |
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Having been interviewed before by truly anti-gun journalists, I can say with great confidence that Mike Stuckey approached it from a very fair point-of-view.
Carpetbagger wrote: I thought it was a pretty good, and pretty unbiased, article.
I especially like that the article actually identified "Third Way" as a gun control group.
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Brass Magnet
Founder's Club Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 03:17 pm |
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jpierce wrote: Having been interviewed before by truly anti-gun journalists, I can say with great confidence that Mike Stuckey approached it from a very fair point-of-view.
Carpetbagger wrote: I thought it was a pretty good, and pretty unbiased, article.
I especially like that the article actually identified "Third Way" as a gun control group.
I agree.
Like Tomahawk said, we are sometimes hypercritical of the things that are close to our heart. This is one of the most unbiased articles I've seen on MSNBC.
That being said, I'm one that firmly believes it's your personal choice whether or not to carry wherever you legally can. Whether we think that decision may be proper or not it's not our place to say.
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SA-TX
Centurion Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 03:25 pm |
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| I sent an email to the author to note that the map provided by OCDO should be labeled as open carry of a HANDGUN, not of a firearm. In Texas, there is no restriction on long arms and that may be true for other states as well.
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Sonora Rebel
Regular Member
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 03:50 pm |
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The myopic nanny-states received an immediate wake-up.  I'm normally against 'grandstanding or showboating' firearms 'cause 'you can'. However, this particular exercise of a 'right' was an example of true 'transparency'. Nothing hidden... no threat displayed other than in the hysterical Beta male projections of the cloistered media who purposely sought to inflame the act and obfuscate both the bearer and purpose.
There are still people in this country who are completely unaware that the right to openly bear arms is recognized and exercised beyond their own borders. There are still people who fail to understand that the free exercise of a Right does not require 'permit, license, registration or special allowance'. This is due to lifetimes of fear mongering propaganda indoctrination by the equally myopic and uninformed media and politicians. The right of the people to bear arms openly has been in effect in Arizona since before many of their 'Great Grandparents' were born (1912). Concealed carry wasn't even an option until fourteen years ago (1994). This is hardly something 'new'... or a product of the 'gun lobby'... whatever that is.
What happened to their 'Diversity and Tolerance' mantra?
Hmmmm... let me guess... 
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SlackwareRobert
Regular Member
| Joined: | Tue Jun 10th, 2008 |
| Location: | Alabama |
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Posted: Wed Aug 26th, 2009 03:57 pm |
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TheMrMitch wrote: Maybe there should be a poll to see if MSNBC can remain biased in their reporting. I vote no.
I voted ok to carry near a president as LAWFUL people may even one day save his life. Though I detest Obama, NO ONE has a right to harm him.
I'll take that one and give you odds, I have no doubt MSNBC will
continue to be biased till they close the doors, and probably even after that.
I am shocked they didn't use a brady plant impersonating John,
but that doesn't change my belief they will never NOT be biased.
For the second point, the media has agreed that Mrs. Obama has the right
to harm him. Just ask the Sec. of State about her attack on pres Clinton.
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2010Cobra
Regular Member
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Posted: Thu Aug 27th, 2009 05:25 am |
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I am for grand standing and I have to wonder how the powers that be would be treating taxpayers and the working poor if they saw all of us packing openly.
Would the greedy come to their senses at all?
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ixtow
Founder's Club Member
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Posted: Thu Aug 27th, 2009 05:34 am |
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Where'd the Poll go... hahaha.
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N6ATF
Regular Member
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Posted: Thu Aug 27th, 2009 06:41 am |
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ixtow wrote:
Where'd the Poll go... hahaha.
What do you mean? It's still there.
http://www.newsvine.com/_question/2009/08/25/3191601-is-it-appropriate-for-gun-rights-activists-to-openly-carry-their-weapons-near-a-presidential-event
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ixtow
Founder's Club Member
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Posted: Thu Aug 27th, 2009 07:03 am |
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N6ATF wrote: ixtow wrote:
Where'd the Poll go... hahaha.
What do you mean? It's still there.
http://www.newsvine.com/_question/2009/08/25/3191601-is-it-appropriate-for-gun-rights-activists-to-openly-carry-their-weapons-near-a-presidential-event
Odd, it didn't work before. TY, I voted. Whee!
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ixtow
Founder's Club Member
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Posted: Thu Aug 27th, 2009 07:09 am |
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Tomahawk wrote: TFred wrote: Some stuffs
And, face it, we are infighting on this issue, just look at those of us who think of the NRA and SAF as sellouts vs. those of us who stand faithfully by NRA no matter what.
I'll stand by my ammo, thanks.
Well, unless someone yells "INCOMING!" Then I suppose that right next to a big pile of ammo is probably a bad place to be.
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Gator5713
Lone Star Veteran
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Posted: Thu Aug 27th, 2009 07:55 pm |
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Here is a state-by-state look at laws on the "open carry" of handguns. Seven states and Washington, D.C., forbid it entirely.
I thought it was only 6!?
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2010Cobra
Regular Member
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Posted: Fri Aug 28th, 2009 06:20 am |
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I feel I should clairfy. By 'powers that be' I don't mean Obama I mean the 1% of 300,000,000 Americans who own and control everything worth owning and controlling.
I am actually an Obama supporter most of the time, and a lefty liberal - except:
abortion is wrong,
the death penalty is almost always right, and
every able American over 12 should own a gun
I feel the wealthy are playing conservative against liberal like a chess game, for their entertainment and further wealth generating.
I had to come clean. Thanks. Or not.
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