Was I too harsh?
Mar. 21st, 2010 09:10 pmSo, on someone else's LJ, a commenter posted:
My view on open carry is that if I see someone in a public place with a firearm, I call 911. Period. They can work it out with law enforcement. I am not interested in risking my life for someone else's attitude.
I responded:
This opens you up to two problems: 1) The "Boy who cried wolf" effect, where the cops might be slower to respond to a genuine emergency if you have a history of what they believe to be frivolous calls, and 2) charges of Filing a False Police Report, or whatever your local jurisdiction calls it. The moral of this story is, if you live in a state with open carry, don't call the cops unless you have a valid reason to be suspicious besides "OMG I'm so scared of teh mean guns!!1!"
They replied:
I'll let the cops explain that to me. I have no way to know a gun is licensed or legal, but it's utterly clear to me that it's a danger to myself and everyone else.
And
FWIW, not that I should need to explain this, but I'm an excellent shot, well-trained in firearms safety and lettered in both riflery and archery back in the day. My intense distrust of guns is not founded on ignorance. Quite the opposite.
I said:
Well, if you want to operate in bad faith in order to harass your fellow citizens for exercising rights that you don't agree with, I can't stop you. Any more than I could stop someone determined to call the cops every time they see someone in Middle Eastern garb, under the assumption the _must_ be terrorists.
They retorted:
Lot more deaths by gun violence in this country every year than by terrorism. Many thousands more. Just sayin'. Guess which worries me more? :)
I said:
I really don't think harassing law-abiding citizens will lower gun violence rates. Criminals tend not to brandish unless they're actively perpetrating at that moment. Meanwhile, you plan to waste police resources with frivolous calls, which increases the chance they won't be able to respond to genuine crimes. How is this supposed to help, again?
Minor edit: Replace "Law abiding citizens" with "Citizens you have no valid reason to believe _aren't_ law abiding". Just for precision's sake.
They said:
Again, how do I know it's a legal firearm? That's a police matter, I'm certainly not going to ask anyone who feels a need to display a firearm if they have a carry permit. Any gun off the street is a safer street. Period.
(Then again, I'm one of those weirdos who thinks the Second Amendment applies to the National Guard, so I'm pretty sure we have an irreconcilable difference of viewpoint here.)
And
WRT to your edit, I generally don't see any valid reason for carrying a firearm in public in our contemporary society outside of law enforcement or specific security needs, so the presence of a visible firearm does not tend to reinforce my assumption of law-abiding citizenly behavior.
Finally, I said:
The standards of basic civic responsibility are that you don't call the cops unless you have reason to believe a crime is being committed, NOT that you call them whenever you don't know for positively, absolutely certain that one hasn't.
But yeah, we probably won't resolve this, so let's not continue the argument in an innocent third party's blog.
They agreed:
You have a good evening, then. And thank you for a civil discourse on a difficult topic.
So, I think that went well. Except for him not immediately agreeing with my superior logic and rapier wit, that is.
Edit: I should point out that my objection wasn't to gun control per se, but to the underhanded tactics advocated. Right up there with voting in another political parties primary, to try and nominate a candidate you don't intend to vote for; Something only an integrity deficient schmuck would do. IMO, of course.
My view on open carry is that if I see someone in a public place with a firearm, I call 911. Period. They can work it out with law enforcement. I am not interested in risking my life for someone else's attitude.
I responded:
This opens you up to two problems: 1) The "Boy who cried wolf" effect, where the cops might be slower to respond to a genuine emergency if you have a history of what they believe to be frivolous calls, and 2) charges of Filing a False Police Report, or whatever your local jurisdiction calls it. The moral of this story is, if you live in a state with open carry, don't call the cops unless you have a valid reason to be suspicious besides "OMG I'm so scared of teh mean guns!!1!"
They replied:
I'll let the cops explain that to me. I have no way to know a gun is licensed or legal, but it's utterly clear to me that it's a danger to myself and everyone else.
And
FWIW, not that I should need to explain this, but I'm an excellent shot, well-trained in firearms safety and lettered in both riflery and archery back in the day. My intense distrust of guns is not founded on ignorance. Quite the opposite.
I said:
Well, if you want to operate in bad faith in order to harass your fellow citizens for exercising rights that you don't agree with, I can't stop you. Any more than I could stop someone determined to call the cops every time they see someone in Middle Eastern garb, under the assumption the _must_ be terrorists.
They retorted:
Lot more deaths by gun violence in this country every year than by terrorism. Many thousands more. Just sayin'. Guess which worries me more? :)
I said:
I really don't think harassing law-abiding citizens will lower gun violence rates. Criminals tend not to brandish unless they're actively perpetrating at that moment. Meanwhile, you plan to waste police resources with frivolous calls, which increases the chance they won't be able to respond to genuine crimes. How is this supposed to help, again?
Minor edit: Replace "Law abiding citizens" with "Citizens you have no valid reason to believe _aren't_ law abiding". Just for precision's sake.
They said:
Again, how do I know it's a legal firearm? That's a police matter, I'm certainly not going to ask anyone who feels a need to display a firearm if they have a carry permit. Any gun off the street is a safer street. Period.
(Then again, I'm one of those weirdos who thinks the Second Amendment applies to the National Guard, so I'm pretty sure we have an irreconcilable difference of viewpoint here.)
And
WRT to your edit, I generally don't see any valid reason for carrying a firearm in public in our contemporary society outside of law enforcement or specific security needs, so the presence of a visible firearm does not tend to reinforce my assumption of law-abiding citizenly behavior.
Finally, I said:
The standards of basic civic responsibility are that you don't call the cops unless you have reason to believe a crime is being committed, NOT that you call them whenever you don't know for positively, absolutely certain that one hasn't.
But yeah, we probably won't resolve this, so let's not continue the argument in an innocent third party's blog.
They agreed:
You have a good evening, then. And thank you for a civil discourse on a difficult topic.
So, I think that went well. Except for him not immediately agreeing with my superior logic and rapier wit, that is.
Edit: I should point out that my objection wasn't to gun control per se, but to the underhanded tactics advocated. Right up there with voting in another political parties primary, to try and nominate a candidate you don't intend to vote for; Something only an integrity deficient schmuck would do. IMO, of course.