Year: 2014

As I mentioned in an post yesterday, if you give skittish lawmakers more excuses to drag their feet, it won’t help anything. This article outlines the trouble that’s being created in Texas for the open carry bill from the sponsors themselves:

“I have told the groups that I have talked to not to do this right now. This could be harmful in getting it passed,” Lavender, who has twice failed to pass open-carry legislation, said of open-carry demonstrations breaking out around the state. “At this point, when we have everything lined up to pass, why take a chance on bad publicity to set us back?”

Patterson, one of the state’s most ardent gun aficionados, said of the armed demonstrations: “In certain cases it’s not helping, it’s actually probably hurting.”

You have to get to know legislators. Like I said in yesterday’s post, you will tend to a very small number of real friends in any legislative body. The rest will only go along to the extent they think your issue will help them win more votes than it will cost them. For most lawmakers, it is entirely a political calculus; they could actually give a crap about your pet issue if they themselves don’t have a personal stake in it. Sure, many might abstractly support your pet issue, as a sort of vague concept (which they will speak to you about at lengths, enthusiastically and vaguely), but when the chips are down, all of them have breaking points. Under the bus you will go if things get too dicey, and you risk losing them entirely if the lawmaker perceives he or she can get more votes or money from the other guy.

You have to push politicians; they’ll happily speak platitudes about your issue all day long otherwise. You need a keen ear for when sunshine is being blown up your back side. But you definitely need to know, or at least get some instinct for where their breaking points are. You can’t push beyond that point. When you hear lawmakers who are sponsoring these bills talking like these Texas lawmakers, it’s a warning that the coalition needed to get your bill passed is fracturing.

Politicians are a lot of things, but they are not courageous. Some of them might we war heroes, and other heroic types in a different life, but politics is a different context. Lawmakers who make a habit of taking “courageous” votes are what we typically call lobbyists and consultants, who catch a lucrative gig influencing their old allies after getting booted from office. Your average voter doesn’t appreciate courage or conviction. They appreciate a firm handshake, a smile, and who says the right things about doing something about X, Y, and/or Z that is bothering them.

It is a difficult situation to operate in. Pennsylvania already has unlicensed open carry, but I’d like to see constitutional carry in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, I’m nearly certain I’d lose all but perhaps one or two of our local lawmakers if that issue came up, and if the FOP went against it, probably all of them. Maybe unlicensed carry in a vehicle would be a workable next step? I’m fairly certain our side could work up several more votes against, say, an assault weapons ban, but moving forward is more baby steps. Our side is much better at the stick than the carrot. The stick, unfortunately, is a defensive weapon. You need to carrot to move forward. I’ve asked Bitter to write up an article about the use of the carrot with lawmakers today, since I’ll be in the office.

A lot of news organizations have been picking it up, if only to make snarky comments about it. But regardless if the snark, it’s serving NRA’s purposes. The short-term risk in what OCT is doing is that we’re going to have more business ban guns on their premises, but there’s also a longer term risk that this behavior could push gun rights back out of the mainstream, and back to the fringes. Almost all the gains we’ve made have happened because we brought this issue out from the fringes and made it mainstream. Sure, urban and suburban elites still hate it, but we’re not a constituency that can be simply written off by legislators as a small bunch of kooks.

Dave Weigel at Salon reacts to the article by noting that NRA is not, in fact, mellowing out. A lot of media seem to be latching on to the smart gun statement as if it represents another topic NRA is weakening on. No. I think it was just an opportunity to get the smart gun message out to an audience that normally doesn’t pay close attention to NRA, and might also wonder why in the world NRA would oppose smart gun technology. It’s not a signal of weakness, but just a way to get part of it’s message in with people not part of the gun rights circle. Mashable does their best for our opponents and tries to suggest NRA thinks semi-automatic rifles are scary, but apparently they don’t know the definition of machine guns, and even after correcting can’t help but display what morons they are when it comes to guns. Bloomberg View is also lending a helping hand. All these articles are infuriating, but they are getting the message out there.

OCT, in the meantime, are busy cutting up their NRA cards. Personally, I consider that a win. I am glad they are making a public and visible separation from the mainstream of this issue. DrewM over at Ace of Spades seems to be glad that NRA is taking a stand against this behavior as well.

The authorities are reacting as well, with Open Carry Tarrant County being investigated for running an illegal raffle. Now, I’m no fan of gambling laws, and I’m also no fan of singling out a group for prosecution because the powers that be don’t like what they have to say. But apparently what caught the attention of police was the fact that they called to ask about the law beforehand, then made the executive decision not to comply with it and have the raffle anyway. This is yet another sign that the leadership and members of this group have a tendency to act without thinking.

Eric Reed, the President and Founder of Gun Rights Across America is less than pleased with NRA’s press release on the nonsense going on down in the Lone Star State:

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Gun owners in Texas have been screaming at the NRA for years to help pass legal open carry of a handgun, as it’s currently still illegal. Gun owners pleaded for NRA support in the 2013 session to pass H.B. 700, yet the bill was shelved, and died in committee.

After the 2013 session ended, many grassroots groups like Open Carry Texas, Come and Take it (CATI), American Gun Rights, Texas Carry, Texan Gun Rights, and Gun Rights Across America (GRAA) took matters into their own hands. A tremendous grassroots push commenced which included lawful carrying of long arms, as this is currently legal in Texas, and since the law does not permit the open carry of a handgun like so many other states already allow.

OK, so a bill got tabled in committee. That can happen. In fact, I’ve very rarely seen bills not take a few legislative sessions to get moving. You’ll typically have some skittish legislators that will take some more convincing and pressure before they’ll be OK with the bill hitting the floor. You know what doesn’t help skittish legislators? Seeing crap plastered all over the news about jackasses carrying rifles into fast food joints and home improvement stores.

You might think that legislators would make the connection, “Perhaps if we legalized pistol carry, this kind of thing would stop.” But they don’t. It just raises the anxiety level and makes them less likely to act. I’ve spent more time at political functions than is generally healthy for most people. I don’t enjoy it. But it’s important to know lawmakers and understand the behaviors and inclinations of politicus animalus.

Here’s the thing about legislators: most of them aren’t gun people. The ones that are, they are predominantly hunters, with perhaps some passing interest in the shotgun sports. Some do carry for self-protection, but they are the minority, and a lot of them who do have no problem with telling you that you can’t. Pennsylvania’s General Assembly has 253 lawmakers in it. Many of them are “sportsmen,” but I can probably count on one hand the number of them that are hard-core gun guys. Texas’ legislature might be a bit better, but I doubt by much. You’re dealing with a group of people who are exceptionally talented at two things: getting people to like them, and doing so without really saying much. These are not people born for deep conversation. To most people of that type, what OCT has been doing looks like sheer unadulterated lunacy. The only reaction political types want to get from people is a smile, and to make that connection that makes them feel pretty sure you’ll like them (and by virtue turn out for them next election). These are the types of people who, for better or worse (usually worse), that get to decide policy. These are the people you need to convince.

If legalizing open carry of pistols in Texas was an uphill climb before, it’s quickly growing into Mount Everest with every passing news story about long-gun open carry. Even if you can get it past the legislature, every Governor of Texas fancies himself President one day. Rick Perry has stated he’s wary of legalizing open carry. Rick Perry, who shot a coyote with his laser sighted pocket .380 while he was on a jog. Whether we like it or not, and I certainly don’t, Open Carry Texas, and the other rifle OC groups, are defining what OC is, and what OC means. Perry is clearly more concerned about the opposition ad potential of OCT’s behavior than he is about the people pushing legal OC in Texas through non-self-destructive channels.

I suspect there’s going to be a lot of butthurt from fringe groups flowing in the next several days about NRA’s statement. If they want to stand behind the happenings in Texas, that’s their choice. But these groups only are serving to undermine the very cause they claim to care deeply about by doing so.

As Uncle mentioned, I guess our side isn’t the only ones whose overly aggressive tactics can backfire. Apparently a group of open carriers in Oklahoma were visiting a local Chipotle after a protest by demanding mommies. Apparently because of their huge victory and all, their group decided on Chipotle. Unfortunately for them so did the open carriers. The Moms Demand folks began harassing the group, taking pictures, and generally being obnoxious. Apparently Chipotle has a policy against this kind of harassment of their customers by other customers:

I conducted an interview with the manager, and while I asked him if I could quote him directly, he asked that I do not. He said that he wasn’t going to have people treating paying customers rudely in his store. They simply do not allow customers to take pictures of other customers; it’s a “zero tolerance” policy if you will.

He also said that he has no position on open carry, and he understands that it is legal to carry in the state. Finally, he acknowledged that people behaving in the manner as MDA had in his store was actually more harmful to people than the act of lawfully carrying a firearm.

My bet is that Shannon Watts will completely ignore this. She already got what she wanted out of Chipotle, which is a positive press release and energy to feed back into her group. She’s not going to want to highlight her own people being jackasses, nor is she going to want to highlight the fact that her victories against all these fast food chains is a hollow one. The last thing Shannon Watts wants is her followers questioning whether these are really victories if people can actually still not only carry there, but do so openly.