Soccer mom gets CCW permit back

I believe this shows that open carry should be done more, not less.

Why? No other reason than desensitization of the public to the sight of guns carried by lawful citizens. Reduces any credibility to the anti-gun mantra "it made me fearful!" and all its variants.

Granted concealed carry is more effective crime prevention, but it seems obvious to me that public desensitization is becoming nearly as important!

I believe this shows that, where legal, open carry should be conducted in conjunction WITH concealed carry.

The open carry gun should not be loaded.

If examined in front of the cowering crowd of sheeple, the opened carry gun will easily be seen by all the sheeple to be no rational grounds for fear--since a holstered weapon can almost never be accurately known to be loaded until it is unholstered and opened.

Then, after the idiotic onlookers wipe the buckets of fear-sweat from their brows, the LOADED concealed carry firearm can be mentioned and brought out (if the LEO asks for it).

Perhaps THEN the false sense of security which people have in NOT seeing visibly carried guns will begin to evaporate.

Then the following truths may be grasped by some members of the anti-armed-self-defense-crowd:

1) The mere fact that someone is visibly carrying a gun does not entail that the gun is loaded.

2) The mere fact that someone does NOT visibly appear to be carrying a gun does not entail that the person is NOT CARRYING A LOADED FIREARM.

3) CARRYING IS A SAFER OPTION THAN NOT CARRYING, SINCE NO ONE CAN TELL WHO IS CARRYING A LOADED GUN OR NOT UNTIL IT IS TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING THAT MIGHT NEED TO BE DONE.

and the man who would take her gun just might get his ass shot off. And deservedly so.

One of the commenters on the story had this to say: "Posted by dex on 10/18/08 at 4:46PM
Well little "BigBear", I didn't tell anyone that they couldn't carry. My whole point is that it doesn't make sense to carry to a child's soccer game. I will be sure to carry a .45 into your synagogue next time I visit the ghetto.

Not being registered there I could not post this, but it did occur to me that if more people had done just that in the ghettoes of Europe more than 13 million people could not have been so easily murdered, six million of them Jews.

I have no idea if the synagogue comment was a slur of if he knew the man to whom he was responding and the statement was not intended to connote any anti-semitism or ascribe evil intent to Judaism.

Some fathers are idiots. The fact that they're trying to move the games to school property

The insane ignorant emotionally challenged leaving comments really should seek help.

Like this woman who admits she would engage in the same tactics as the KKK in her effort to not have to see a gun, don't think so? Swap "coloreds" or "negroes" for "guns"

"usmmr:
I would have walked up to her and asked if she were an off duty member of law enforcement and if she said no I would have told her to put the gun away. Then I would have called a cop and watched happily as she got arrested.

I do not like to see guns. My kids would not be allowed to play with her kid and I would organise all the parents to make Meleanie Hain's life unpleasant until she conformed with our wishes not to frighten our children.

Hey gun nuts: there's a reason we call you nuts."

If we don't stand up for our rights, we can hardly be said to have them. I applaud Ms. Hain. I rarely carry openly, for professional reasons, but heartily support it.

I don't know if we are ever going to convince the majority of gun-fearing cowards that a gun is no different from any other inanimate object. A newspaper, properly handled, is a lethal weapon. I've seen wheel-chair-bound martial artists do remarkable things with the handles of their chairs. But such facts do not penetrate the minds of the irrational.

So, while we should still try to educate and convince, in the end we have to be ready to resist any efforts to deprive us of our rights.

Tom, why are you teaching your children to be frightened? Do you think people should be punished just because they are doing something you don't like, even if it's legal? Who are you to tell others what to do? What is your police officer going to arrest her for, First Degree Upsetting Tom?

Poppa, I think you may have missed the quoting of a comment from the site by a closet bigot who doesn't recognize that fact.

I have no children, but if I did they would be taught properly as I was. They would also face a swift hard spanking as I was when they break the rules, liberal touchy-feely parenting and police state be damned. Perhaps someday, but until then I'll just be the "cool uncle" to friends children.

I don't normally carry a gun, but I make damn sure to pay extra attention when I do not. I have no fear or guns or a large, very large percentage of people carrying them. I've applauded this woman and posted comments in response to usmmr as "bigoth8r" on the linked story.

I'm happy to see many pro-rights people have done the same.

Tom-Sorry, a" mis-identification" of commenters on my part.

I have a slightly different take on this. Keep in mind that open carry is not common in Pennsylvania. It might be legal, but other than a handful of activists in the state, you don't really seeing people doing it. As such, the culture is not as accepting of it as it is in a place like, say, Arizona.

I agree that the sheriff was wrong, both legally and ethically, for revoking her license to carry concealed. I agree she has a right to carry a firearm openly, and that the parents involved are being hysterical.

But I think people setting out to move a public that is not used to seeing guns openly displayed in public, to accept it, needs to tread carefully, have a plan, and a protocol, for making that work. Too many in the movement here, as of late, seem to be more interested in being right legally, rather than appearing right to the public. I think in the early stages the latter is far more important, until the public gets used to the idea.

Changing the culture is difficult, especially in a state where all you have to do to be able to carry concealed is fork over 26 dollars, fill out an application, and turn it into the sheriff. I appreciate that there are folks out there who are intent on changing the culture in this state to accept open carry. But in order to change the culture, you have to make the people who are in that culture think. If all you're doing is making them hysterical, you're not only failing to accomplish your goal, you're actually having the opposite effect of what's intended.

Mr. Sebastian.
You will not get those terrified people to "think". They have their minds made up and its either their way or no way.
My own wife was terrified of guns and raised her children that way...now she's been married to me for 12 years and has a different opinion. She LIKES having that .38 next to the bed when I am away late into the night.
But, she didnt have the total closed mindset of the masses who have gun fear...to them its like a religion.

Sebastian said: "But I think people setting out to move a public that is not used to seeing guns openly displayed in public, to accept it..."

I understand what you are saying here (folks, read this statement in the context in which it was said). But I want to point out something that is very important. It's not that the public isn't used to seeing guns openly carried. They are totally used to that, because police carry open all the time. The public errs not in that they are scared to see guns openly carried, but in that they view the carrying of guns as a class issue ... when the police class does it, fine. When regular citizens do it, PSH.

It's foolishness, but we are up against these class-based ideologies more than we are up against a gun issue.

Anthony:

It's not the pant shitters you're really looking to reach, it's the people in the middle who aren't sure how they feel about it, or who think that the idea of carrying a soccer game is just a bit much. What you don't want is the pant shitters going out and motivating other parents against open carry, and taking the issue in front of the media, where other people are going to see it, and just think this woman is crazy or an attention whore. There's a lot of context missing in these media stories.

Carl:

Most people can understand why a cop would want to carry because police deal with the scum of humanity on a regular basis. In a culture where open carry is not at all common, people are left wondering what's so dangerous about a kids soccer game that someone would put themselves through a lot of social and legal trouble in order to keep doing it. Without the media providing any context, there's just no way for the public to develop any understanding here.

Actually, there is an excellent reason for open carry, particularly for a woman.

Where else would you put the blasted thing?

Seriously, this is an issue that Massad Ayoob mentioned years ago in his books. A man in shirt sleeves really does not have a good way to conceal anything but a small pocket pistol. A woman is in worse case...women's clothing tends to be more tightly fitted, leaving her with far fewer concealed carry options.

Which leaves either off-body carry, or open carry. And from a weapon retention standpoint, the latter is far safer.