In a new series, here is #1 on the list of things Joan Peterson, Board Member of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership Violence and proprietress of Common Gunsense.
No Open Carry. The sight of a person carrying a firearm while not wearing a State issued uniform appears to be a huge bugaboo for Joan. Apparently she is so scared of the sight of firearms that she wants to ban open carry. Here’s the first instance of Open Carry discussion. Starbucks looked at the bottom line and realized that getting in the middle of a discussion about the limits of the 2nd Amendment wasn’t going to help them sell coffee. Their solution? Whatever is legal according to State law was legal in Starbucks. What does Joan think of Open Carry?
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Clearly Joan has an issue with open carry. Let me let you in on the secret. Open carry is designed to re-normalize the carry of firearms in public. For the last 50 years a concerted effort has been underway to portray gun owners as dangerous. If you never see a gun except carried by a police officer or in the movies and TV used by a criminal, you forget that the typical gun owner is your neighbor.
When normal average people see that gun owners are normal average people, the stereotypes start to fail. When your average non gun owning citizen realizes that “gun control” affects Bob down the street more than the criminals, he starts to question the value of “one more law.” That’s the real reason Joan Peterson and the rest of her Brady cronies are up in arms (pun intended) over Open Carry. They know in their black little hearts that unless they can keep Susie Jane housewife terrified of teh ebil gunnzzz, they are finished as an organization. It’s why anti-gun fanatics spazzed out when they saw Sarah Palin with a hunting rifle.
It is imperative that the gun grabbers keep their fellow citizens as far away from the truth as possible. One of the best ways to make them all cry is to join a local Open Carry group and learn how you can be a positive force for change in your area. Do like I did Saturday in Raleigh and attend an open carry dinner. When you have fellow diners come up and speak to you, laughing about how no robbers better show up, you will learn how little your neighbors actually fear guns. Hiding in the gun closet makes you think that you are alone, in the minority. You aren’t. You might be the leading edge, but there are plenty who will be willing to follow you.
