Year: 2009

Open Carry Issue in Pennsylvania

Yesterday we covered the incident with the Milwaukee Police Cheif in Wisconsin.  Now it looks like we have another media relations issue brewing here in Pennsylvania with some of our open carry activists over a planned picnic.  Reporting in the Hazleton Standard Speaker:

The gun rights group that held a picnic in Hazle Township Community Park last year in a public demonstration of their right to openly carry firearms is planning a spring picnic at the park.

This time, they’ve selected a date that they believe will guarantee a large public crowd.

Members and supporters of the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association have scheduled their picnic for May 16 – the same date as the local American Red Cross’ Celebration of Life Walk, which is held annually at the township park on American Armed Forces Day.

The double date is not a coincidence, the gun owners say.

They make it sound like it was intentional, but it wasn’t.  I confirmed on the thread at PAFOA that they scheduled their picnic that date before they knew about the Red Cross.  The problem is, once they knew about it:

The small and large pavilions are both being rented by the American Red Cross, as it seems they hold an annual run/walk at the park every Armed Forces day. This is one of the reasons I decided to go ahead and take the other pavilion, as it will give us some great exposure to the many people who will no doubt be there for the other activities going on.

And then this:

Red Cross Walk/Run… Yep… they walk through the entire park, but when they pass by the middle pavilion, they run!

Which was dutifully picked up on by the media, and reported.  They also reported this:

Do I have to carry, or open carry if I come?
No. There is no requirement that you carry, or to carry in any particular manner if you do. However, because of the holiday (Armed Forces Day), and The Red Cross walk/run in the park, we believe this will be an excellent opportunity to portray gun owners and carriers in a positive light to the general public. Because of this great opportunity, we are encouraging folks to open carry if they are comfortable doing so, but again, you are absolutely welcome regardless of your decision on if/how you carry.

It would seem that when this story hit the media, a lot of groups participating in the Red Cross walk freaked out and said they would pull out.  Red Cross is now suggesting they will cancel the event.

Whatever the intent of this picnic, and I do believe the intent was originally just to have a picnic, the story now in the media is “Gun owners distrupt Red Cross veterans benefit event.”  It’s not fair, but that’s the situation, and things said on a public forum fed right into that narrative.  Being a gun rights activist will make you enemies, especially in the media, and if you don’t have a plan, they’ll pretty quickly make you look like jackasses.

Open Carry needs to be a casual thing.  If a bunch of PAFOA members want to get together and plan a picnic, great.  If someone people want to carry openly, no problem there.  It’s not illegal in this Commonwealth.  You have a right to do it.  But as soon as you make Open Carry into a form of overt activism, as soon as you being salivating over the chance to expose your guns to a bunch of kids and veterans, you’re going to give the media a chance to smear you, and by association all gun owners.

They gay rights movement didn’t succeed because of gay pride parades (NSFW, or anywhere really).  If anything, it succeeds despite the fringes of its movement, not because of it.  Gays won acceptance because they came out of the closet and started talking to people about it.  Not because they got half naked and put on leather and got in everyone’s face.  I am generally supportive of equal rights for gays, but I don’t like having someone’s sexuality waved in front of my face.   Most people feel that way about this and other issues.

If this had just been a picnic, there never would have been a controversy, even if it was known by organizers and attendees that people would show up open carrying.  My stance on open carry is just do it.  Making plans to shove it in people’s face isn’t going to make you friends, and gives plenty of ammunition to our enemies, as we have seen here.

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A Compromise on the Cell Phone Issue

The State House passed a bill yesterday that would address the cell phone while driving issue.

Ross’s proposal would impose additional fines for a person cited for careless driving if they were found, among other things, to be reading, eating, grooming, or gabbing on a cell phone. Unlike Rep. Josh Shapiro’s cell-phone amendment, Ross’s amendment would make those violations a secondary, rather than primary offense.

I think that’s a fair compromise.  If you can’t talk on the cell phone without commiting the traffic offense of careless driving, then I don’t have any problem with the secondary offense.  It also includes a number of other items that are equally hazardous.  Shapiro’s bill was too draconian.  If I’m stuck in traffic, I don’t want to risk a fine because I call the office to tell them I’m running late.  Not much of a risk to the public for calls of that nature.

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Talk About Over the Top

Robert Legge of the Culpeper Star Exponent, is helping the newspaper live up to its name by some exponentially sour rhetoric about the National Rifle Association:

Joining the NRA became almost a patriotic duty, especially for rural Americans. But somewhere along the way, the NRA’s tenor grew more ominous. After the 1994 sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the NRA leadership whipped up anti-government hysteria, culminating in a famous fundraising letter warning of “jackbooted thugs … (who could) break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and injure or kill us.”

Timothy McVeigh bought into that kind of incendiary rhetoric. A week after that NRA letter was sent, he blew up the federal Murrah building, killing many of the U.S. federal agents he so despised.

Actually, the infamous “jackbooted thugs” rhetoric can trace its origins to Congressman John Dingell (D-MI).  But why let the facts get in the way when you’re trying to pin McVeigh on the NRA.

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There’s No Winning

The Army’s new green training rounds carry with it a cancer risk because of the tungsten.  They’ve stopped production.  Maybe they should go talk to Dan Smith of ICC, who’s ammo we shot last summer at Blackwater with Todd Jarrett.  That stuff is non-toxic sintered copper and tin, and it worked well.

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Looking for the Facts

Robb Allen is trying to help a friend of his who is looking to buy his first firearm, only problem is, his friend’s wife thinks its dangerous to keep a gun in the house.  My advice is to seek out training after you make your decision.  If home defense is really what you’re looking for, a shotgun may be more competently wielded by beginner than a pistol, and a shotgun has far greater stopping power.  If kids are part of the picture, a shotgun is less accident prone.  If you really want a pistol, a quick open safe is recommended if there’s kids in the house.  Trigger locks are dangerous.  If one comes with your gun throw it away and find a better way to secure it.

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Gillibrand Sponsors Lautenberg Bill

JR reports she’s listed as a consponsor on the bill, and adds:

Isn’t this the same Kirsten Gillibrand everyone was sending money to because she was such a pro-gun Democrat?

I will admit I was thoroughly wrong about Kirsten Gillibrand.  But at the time I was her advocate, there was no evidence to doubt Gillibrand’s fidelity to the issue except for a lot of cynicism.  Sometimes cynicism turns out to be right, and this was one of those cases.  But cynicism is also destructive if taken too far.

But prior to her elevation to the Senate, she signed on to everything NRA ever asked her to, including co-sponsoring ATF reform, signing into the Heller brief, and voting for DC gun rights.  Do I regret supporting her?  Yep.  But hindsight is always 20/20.  You have to take chances sometimes.  They won’t always work out.  I’m taking one with my new State Representative.  Taking a back seat and seeing how things turn out is not going to be effective, because politicians don’t come to your view through the righteousness of it, they come to it by being influenced.  I don’t see any logic in standing outside of that process, and automatically cede that ground to our opponents.

Nonetheless, if you were a hoodwinked supporter of hers, I would encourage you to make your displeasure known to her here, as I have done, especially if you’re a resident of New York.  I would also note that even if her Republican opponent is anti-gun, you’d at least be helping put the Senate back in charge of lawmakers who will support us.

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Blue Trail Range Update

Blue Trail Range has been out of the news lately, but it looks like it’s still operating with its safety improvements.  We’ve blogged about their trials and tribulations often here.  Reader TacDriver ran some ballistic calculations on the range, based on topographical data.  As results indicated, the house that complained about being hit is in the ballistic shadow of the mountain.

btr_308smktrajectories

This is good work, I think, and I’m glad TacDriver took the time to do it, and share it with us.

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More Rally Coverage from Yesterday

The Allentown Morning Call has coverage of the event here.  Apparently they checked 63 guns in total.  Mine would be among them.  NUGUN also has some coverage here, here, some great photos here, and finally here.  What’s really interesting is that NUGUN got a photo of the reporter interviewing the Grumbines for the article above.  I noticed him because we follow his blog.

Allentown Morning Call Interview

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Feeling the Itch

I think it was Eric Raymond said that “Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch.”  Last week, Dave Carpenter, our Silhouette Director asked me about using database software to keep track of our matches.  That’s where the itch started.  As if I don’t yet have too little time with all that I’m doing, I’m thinking of starting a new Open Source software project.

It wouldn’t really be all that hard to program all the scoring parameters into software for the various NRA, IPSC, IHMSA, IDPA, and whatever other governing bodies you can think of, into a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) system that keeps track of people’s scores, averages, personal bests, and be able to track how shooters are moving in the rankings, and is able to generate match reports in either HTML, PDF, or whatever other format you can think up, and there is PHP code for.

I think this could be a great help to match directors, as compiling scores can be time consuming.  But is there anything else out there that does such a thing?  Dave currently uses spreadsheets to do it all, but it gets complicated in spreadsheet software.  Plus, I’m thinking of clubs could easily and quickly integrate match results into their web sites, that could be a fantastic way to keep people interested.

What do you all thing about such an idea?  Any match directors out there want to comment?

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