Rights are like muscles; if you don’t exercise them, they become weak and useless.
This was driven home to me in 1997 when my family visited Roswell, NM for the 50th anniversary of the UFO crash and coverup. One of the vendors of UFO/alien themed trinkets was a fellow who sold targets to sport shooters. He’d redone his bad-guy-behind-a-hostage, replacing the bad guy with an alien grey. (I bought some of these targets.)
As a vendor of targets, he normally wore his a Dirty Harry .44 magnum in a shoulder rig. He asked one of the Roswell PD officers if that would be okay and the officer indicated that it was perfectly legal. But the officer added that if this citizen, well within his rights, chose to do so, then every officer at the event would stop by, interrupting his business, to “check him out” to verify he’s a legal possessor and not a threat. In other words, harass him.
The vendor elected not to wear his gun. That’s when it occurred to me that by not wearing guns where and when we can, we are sending the wrong message. Absent positive role models of average citizens minding their own business, living their lives while wearing guns, we are left only with the TV/movie stereotype: anyone with a gun is suspect. Only Bad Guys (and cops) have guns.
If more people at the Roswell event had been sporting firearms, the police would not have time to harass them all.
If more people, generally, would carry a weapon when and where they could, eventually the general public would get used to it and have to admit that it’s no big deal—just people going about their business who happen to have a machine on their hip.
The incident shown here: is simply a symptom of the problem. People are being continually conditioned to believe that anyone with a gun is a threat. How can we fix this?
Instead of correcting this incorrect impression of gun owners, the emphasis of gun rights groups in recent years has been on “discreet” or concealed carry. While much progress has been made in securing the ability of people to practice this constitutionally-protected right, actual carry is still vilified.
Gun rights groups have been busy mollifying people instead of educating them.
You may disagree with the actions of Open Carry Texas but they were just exercising constitutionally-protected rights. No one should have the cops called on them for that. And they wouldn’t, if people were more accustomed to seeing armed citizens. The only way to get people over panicking when they see someone with a gun is to let them see lots of people with guns, and often.