Can you be pro gun and yet be uncomfortable around the increasing number (it seems) of open carry enthusiasts?
Simcha Fisher has put up a related thought-provoking piece I find to be reasonable and rational:
“We all have guns,” said Nancy Fine to an NPR interviewer yesterday. Fine lives in Burns, Oregon, where protesters have been congregating in solidarity with the militants who have been occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for a month. Fine went on:
“But none of us wear them on our hip and kind of flaunt them around. We consider that extremely rude and ungentlemanly at best.”
Fine says one sure way of identifying an outsider is a prominently displayed sidearm. She shoots a scornful glance at a trio of men standing in front of her, their arms crossed, their holsters hanging out.
According to the story, a good many of the residents of Harney County, Oregon, agree with the protesters who’ve descended on their
Burns resident Leon Pielstick carries a sign outside the Harney County Courthouse on Monday. Martin Kaste/NPR
town — but they would rather deal with their concerns on their own, in their own way, without the help of a crowd of noisy strangers. According to the story,
most [local] people here do think the federal government overreaches, especially when it comes to environmental rules and land use. But they’re also sick of outsiders hanging around, trying to start a movement.
The occupiers and protesters, in their ostensible fight to preserve liberty, have made it harder for the citizens to live their lives.
In New Hampshire, where I live, a few anti-government militia types are always drifting around town. They love to hang around street corners near the library, or browse around Walmart, letting their guns swing with elaborate casualness. The bigger the gun, the better.
If you asked them why they do it — why they make such a show of being armed — they’d say that they’re signalling to criminals that the place is protected, or, more likely, that they’re doing it because they can. They have the right to open carry, and they’re going to, end of story, no other reason necessary. Many of these folks are Freestaters, who have come uninvited from elsewhere in the hopes of instituting some kind of libertarian paradise in our state.
Well, it is rude. And that’s bad enough. Don’t come into my town and be rude!
But worse, it doesn’t make anyone feel safer when they wave their giant guns around. It makes the world feel crazier and more out of control. It adds tension and fear to a situation that ought to be peaceful and mundane. It makes it harder for me to pursue happiness as I shop for dog food and laundry detergent.
I was struck by the incredulity and soft contempt in the voice of the Oregon woman they interviewed on NPR. “We all have guns,” she says — but for the locals, those guns are quietly integrated into their lives. They are in service of the kind of life they are trying to lead, which includes a cultural tradition of hunting, self-sufficiency, self-defense, and independence.
Simcha’s not quite done… finish with her.
She makes sense… good sense… and ends with a much wider application.
Carry on.
Crossposted at Brutally Honest.
