You're still framing this incident in terms of "oh, that's a hassle which disrupts my day."
That misrepresents what these guys were doing. As I pointed out before, this is a TACTIC. (And a good one, which works.) They fully understood that they might spend an hour -- or possibly even a night in jail! -- to produce the change they want to see. ...Or, that they'd spend no time at all being hassled and so determine and show that the right is honored.
You wouldn't "waste your time" like this because this particular manifestation of the right is not important to you (apparently at all). That's fine, though it would be great to hear gun rights supporters express themselves that way rather than insulting, ridiculing, and essentially DISCOURAGING, those other gun rights supporters who are willing to invest some time and trouble into furthering the right.
Even if you will NEVER EVER EVER exercise your right to walk down the street with a firearm in plain sight, having that degree of freedom established and respected is a buffer between whatever it is you choose to do and encroaching oppressiveness by law enforcement. If you can visualize gun rights (or any rights, really) as a spectrum of activities that have outlying "extremes" of what is accepted as within your rights, it is always more comfortable to have someone else stand on and maintain those extremes for you. Then you can exercise whatever rights you DO care about comfortably and without worrying that you'll find your own activities on the "extreme" edge, and targeted for harassment.
This is an excellently articulated post.
I am going to steal it (with credit) for later use, here and elsewhere.
Anyway you look at it, I don't take issue with police questioning IF it is done in a lawful and professional manner.
Law enforcement detaining people requires that they articulate a reasonable suspicion that a crime was, is, or is about to be committed.
Please read the thread for some discussion on this.
No Sam, I don't mean other folks on the internet, I mean you, and folks who share your view here on THR. You know, the folks telling me I'm wrong.
I've yet to hear a first person account of such an incident.
I have open carried my rifle through town.
I wasn't going to mention it because this thread isn't
supposed to be about you, or me, or Sam, but you seem to want it that way.
I have done so multiple times. AR15 slung, in the front, multiple times with a loaded magazine inserted (but with a chamber flag, for the benefit of the people at my destination who don't want loaded firearms handled in the store).
I got some interesting comments and sparked some good discussion, but nothing more.
(I also had a large Midway range bag in one hand)
So you can stop with this...whatever it is...line of insinuating insults against people ITT as if to call us out for not "putting our money where our mouth is"...or whatever it is you are going for.
What change are they hoping to see? We already have the right to do this.
No...they do NOT have the right to do that.
You don't have the Right to do something when you get disarmed, cuffed, and detained by LE for doing it.
This is a very simple concept. No matter how many times you claim otherwise, you are still wrong.
