I think some people are misconstruing what I’m saying in regards to changing minds and pushing people’s comort levels. I am not suggesting that we, as gun owners, have to always be accommodating to people’s sensibilities, and I’m certainly not saying we should never push people’s comfort zones. But I think it’s foolish not to be aware of them, or to have no regard for them, especially in a medium that’s more prone to soundbites and memes than actual discussion. But let’s look quickly at one of the thoughtful arguments made in the comments:
Imagine the following was written in the early 1960s, and change a few terms.
“We can’t have people openly violating laws on buses or at lunch counters. We can’t get this radical over our rights, even if they are rights. The white people outnumber us by the millions. They out vote us.
We’ll never convince the white people to accept us if we keep having people on “our side†doing stupid things like sit-ins at lunch counters, violating state laws on public buses, or blocking public roadways with organized marches.
That kind of radical behavior will only cause more backlash against us, and won’t accomplish anything.
It’s sad we have such radicals messing up our public image like this.â€
There’s a great difference between standing up for your civil rights, and engaging in civil disobedience, and what these armed protesters are doing. There’s a difference in both the moral gravity of what they are doing, and in the strategic implications of each act.
Let me first concentrate on the analogy from a moral perspective. Open carry is not unlawful. In fact, in Arizona, as it is in most states, it’s a constitutionally protected right. It is not an act of defiance or civil disobedience to show up at a public event and engage in a shocking, but legal activity. There is no civil right being defended, because, as far as I am aware, there is no serious movement to make open carry illegal in Arizona. If this guy had just been a man in the crowd open carrying a pistol, hey, it’s Arizona, and I would have agreed the press was just out looking for an issue. But that becomes different when you sling a rifle on your back and head out looking for the press. By contrast, Rosa Parks was committing an act of civil disobedience. It was illegal for her to refuse to move to the back of the bus. Same with the folks who refused to sit at the “right” lunch counter. These were people who were prepared to suffer the consequences for violating an immoral and unjust law. These incidents can’t be compared to that.
I also think you have to look at the strategic implications of getting people to accept your point of view. Nearly all people can understand why someone would want to be treated as an equal member of society, and be afforded the dignity of not being treated like a second class citizen because of a condition of birth. While there are certainly many parallels that can be drawn, and lessons that can be learned between our struggle, and the struggle to end Jim Crow, I do not think you can make direct comparisons. Gun ownership is not a condition of birth. You choose whether or not to be a gun owner. Sure, you have a right to choose that, and I certainly don’t believe we should acquiesce to that right being stomped on, but it’s not the same, and I doubt most people would view it the same.
We also have issues we can use to appeal to ordinary people to accept our point of view. Most people can understand wanting to protect themselves and their families. Americans, quite uniquely among peoples of the world, generally don’t believe in relying exclusively or nearly exclusively on community protection. Even very liberal Americans tend to understand this, even if guns make them uncomfortable.  Most people also understand having a pastime, hobby or interests, and generally aren’t all that interested in interfering with someone else’s enjoyment. If this wasn’t the case, the gun control movement wouldn’t have had to go to great lengths to convince the public that the gun controls they propose won’t affect people’s pastimes, or their ability to protect themselves. When we push people’s comfort zones based on these kinds of common values, I think we can win people over. But you have to appeal to a common value. Few men were better than this than Martin Luther King, who’s strategy involved appealing to the very American “all men are created equal” and then shaming his country for not living up to the very values we pretended to care about.
If we are to win this struggle, it will have to be through common American values, and there I think we have a lot more to work with than the other side. But I don’t think there’s any context in which most people can understand taking a loaded rifle to a political rally. I think we’re lucky if most people are taking this for the publicity stunt that it is. In that context, most people can probably understand it and dismiss it. But political violence is a touchy thing for most of the public, and there’s no appeal to it that’s going to find acceptance. Gun rights has to be a mainstream issue if it’s going to win out in the end. If it’s seen as a fringe issue, exercised by “dangerous” people, we’re going to suffer for it over the long run.
