I respect your opinion and your arguments, I just didn’t like the way that part of it looked when it was stripped out.

If we are to trusted to rule ourselves we have to be trusted with arms. That was the founding fathers arguement.

CCW does not advance the normalizarion of gun carry in the public eyes because they never see it.

Also those of us in states that do not have shall issue can not get CCW permits and carry. Some states do not allow OC or CCW.

National CCW did not allow those states residents inthose progibited states to get a permit and carry. So it may have made life easier for those with the priveledge of CCW permits. But not for those who don’t.

Point of this is that we should not be defensive of exercising our rights. You sound defensive scared of Helmke. I do not care if Brady bunch is against this, they are against all gun rights and they are on the defensive.

The followup CNN interview was very good and all they objected was that this was planned and coordinated with Phoenix PD.

I think it was good interview with Hancock and all,. It showed OC is a positive light. Peaceful and well dressed men excercising their rights without any negative results. No one was shot, arrested or even hassled.

I may not personally have any wish to carry an AR15 at a rally,but I will support and say that others should not be disparaged if they chose to do so.

Sebastian you do not seem to see that you are defensive about exercising our rights. I know you think the tactic is wrong, but others respectfully disagree.

So far the media footage has been positive and even Chris Matthews in his rant which came off demented said he knew it was legal.

Breda had a point ealier that she was a hoplophobe and as she got educated she changed what she considered was right and proper and it did not disturb her in the least about the OC of an AR15.

Acceptance and normalization is the goal of OC activists. The reason is that with that goal realized. A person can OC down the street without being picked out and hassled by cops.

It seems that already part of that goal is accomplished. acceptance by the Whithouse and the police in NH and Arizona.

Next is the press, who have been the strongest supporters of gun control, especially national media.

Maybe if we are confident as these two individuals were, we should be confident that our position is right and others will come to share that view.

If gun rights activists disparage those who have exercised their rights of OC that message if we think it is wrong, nonactivists will say if the gun rights people see the danger then maybe it is a bad idea.

This is battle not the war. Do not lose the battle through fear. Either it is OK to OC or it is not. If it Ok , it is OK at an anti Obama rally

We used to say that gun control was all about control. So is this single payer and government control care. It gives authority to the government over our persons. That need to be stopped with the soap box at these town halls before it gets to the ammo box.

Why not, If it came to a shooting war who had all the guns?

Plus crime does not discriminate between Democrat or GOP.

That poor mayor of Milwaullkee was battered with a lead pipe.

As to intimidation. Virginia Beach council has brought that up with VCDL and it fell flat. VCDL shows up at council meetings with numbers of OC and yes it does get the message that these people are active and will hold anti gunners to the preemption law and they will exercise their rights to OC at council meetings and damn the torpedoes.

Paul is not getting any traction on the anti gun side. I really don’t care about OC at a rally protesting unless they brandished. Then arrest the brandisher.

winning this war is aseries of barrle. The first battle is to get police to respect OC rights. Then get cities and towns to respect preemption.

The police response at Phoenix and NH was excellent and they said that it was OK. So by exercising their rights , police have learned to respect that. Wisconsin is now learning that and more and more OC is occrting and the anti gun mayors and such are having to live with it.

The remarkable balance and rational respnse of the reporters on the ground at CNN was quite a bit difference from the response at NH. So maybe the reporters and media will start to turn around from the virulent anti gun stance they have had.

I agree that the focus should be on motivating our people, but you don’t want to reach so far that you motivate real opposition to your agenda. That’s the mistake Pelosi’s allies and Obama have made on Health Care. That’s also why cap and trade seems to be dead in the water.

About 15 years ago I was involved in promoting a certain public policy issue, not RKBA related. I won’t say what the issue was because that is not the point of this discussion. A Penn State scientific poll said we were on the side of the angels, as far as public opinion was concerned. The lowest level of support we had in any identifiable demographic was about 84 percent, with other demographics supporting it up to 95 percent. And yet it never made progress in the General Assembly, because it was not in the interests of legislators, and they did not support it. One of the few legislators who were on our side finally told us, your problem is you have a great, popular issue, but it is never going to be a hot-button issue that decides the outcome of an election — and until you can use your issue to leave a few of our cold, dead bodies on the steps of the capitol (figuratively speaking) after an election, you are going to have no clout at all with the General Assembly.

I think you can see the analogy: A percentage of the voters being offended by a handful of people open-carrying at a rally are not going to be the motivated constituency that will decide an election. A very small percentage of us offended by the encroachments on our rights, might very well be such a constituency. Do not worry unduly about what the voting public thinks. Work on motivating our own people.

I don’t advocate armed rebellion, but I do think it doesn’t hurt to remind our politicians who they work for.

I don’t think this can be reserved to an open carry only issue…