And when does my legal open carry become open activism.

I thought the media report linked in the original post was actually pretty fair ….. I didn’t go to see what the Brady bunch had to say since it probably had something to do with, let me guess, guns are bad. What would you expect?

And what would you have MI Open Carry say? I generally don’t think the media is owed jack bone of an explanation, and the public not much more, And I found the forum thread that you linked to in the ‘Hot Topics’ section of their site … isn’t that enough for you? Or would you rather they fire up the Brazen Bull?

I like reading your blog Sebastian, but I’m with markofafreeman …. your condescension degrades your stature.

You can bet if this had happened at a PAFOA event, there would have been a press release about it.

You want open carry activism to be treated seriously, you have to be serious.

But even so, I wouldn’t put open carry activism in the same class as GOA. That would be an insult to open carry activism I wouldn’t make.

But I’m with M Gallo above. I was with you, Sebastian, right up until that last line. You’ve got a problem with open carrying in general and with this post you’ve demonstrated that you will take any opportunity to blast them. Similar to your criticism of GOA.

Some of it is justified, some not, but don’t think you don’t affect your own credibility when you pounce when you would have shown better judgement by acknowledging that they (open carriers or GOA) do get it right probably more often than you are willing to admit. Heck, you’ve done that for Alinsky, forpetesake!

All of what you said is true except that you’re taking open carriers to task for “doing what they do,” that you grudgingly accept. Yes, it is a “responsibility” but it is an inalienable right that’s just as protected as conceal carry (your post a while ago about “signals” notwithstanding).

This post demonstrates conflation. Your conflating your opposition (or at least leeriness, or over-cautiousness) of open carrying with the bad image an AD or ND can give gunowners.

(I do, however, take vociferous issue with what many in the open carry movement say…and that is the “open carry is the right, conceal carry is the privilege” mantra I’ve heard from many of them when they speak with the press. I’d like to know where they pulled that out of.)

I suspect that it is based not upon objective observation but instead upon incorrectly projecting one’s own great familiarity with the topic and issues onto the average person.

I don’t think the majority of people even have the faintest idea that open carry is legal. Thus, as a rule, whenever the gatekeeper media allows the mere mention of the possibility, it seems to me to be far more potentially advantageous to OC than disadvantageous because of the slanted context in which it is presented. It would take an extraordinarily and extremely negative context to overcome that benefit.

This has been, BTW, my own direct activist experience with a similarly censored and emotionally charged issue. It is far better for us to have our issue addressed by the gatekeeper media simply because of how it undermines and invalidates the common taboo against discussing it at all.

M Gallo:

Everyone has a responsibility to do everything possible to avoid a discharge in a public place, whether carrying openly or concealed. That goes double if you’re at a pro-gun event. I’m not saying that the law isn’t bad, and shouldn’t be changed. But that doesn’t excuse the ND. I would also suggest that if you’re going to have an open carry event in a state where you can’t carry in a car, and know people are going to be loading an unloading firearms, you have a clearing barrel available, or at the least a bucket of sand. You still might hear a loud bang, but you’ll have an easier time defeating charges of reckless use if you do.

I don’t buy the nonsense that everyone will have an ND at some point. If you follow good gun handling practices, it doesn’t have to happen.