This is interesting.
First of all the sheriff should spend a little time on the other side of the bars. He used his badge to intimidate someone from exercising a Right, or in this case a quasi-Right or privilege.
Pa. requires a permit to carry, openly or concealed. That's an infringement of a Right in & of itself. It's submitting to conditions, paying a fee & waiting for approval to exercise a Right. I see no difference between applying for a permit to carry, concealed or openly & applying for a permit to join a religious group, or speak freely in a public place.
It is disturbing that some people, some gun owners rather, seem to have no qualms about trading in their Rights for a privilege license. Hell, some even look at it with pride, like they're members of some elite club. I'd think it was pretty shameful myself if I had to pay for someone's permission to exercise a Right.
Anyway, another thing I find disturbing is the attempts to justify or even commend the sheriff in this situation. Granted I was not there, as most of us weren't, but judging strictly from the transcript I gotta say the sheriff really needs to find a new line of work.
& the guy's appearance or motives? Irrelevant. doesn't matter what he was trying to accomplish. All that matters is he was not committing any crime. All the discussion revolving around this being an attempt to get attention or some other ulterior motive is simply none of our business. The guy could have been on a dare or he could have wanted to revisit some long lost childhood memory by watching other kids & their parents at the carnival. It simply does not matter.
Was what he did tactful, or polite? Again, none of our friggin' business. What he was doing was legal. Further it was (aside from that whole nonsense about the permit) an exercise of a Right.
Did the biker give gun owners a bad rap by doing that? Nope. Not one bit. What does give gun owners a bad rap is the way we turn on each other over peripheral issues such as the possibility that public opinion was swayed. It's cowardice to do that. Cowardly to condemn a man for simply carrying a firearm with peaceful intent. It is the same logic that says if a person exercises their Rights openly it will cause those Rights to be restricted as it is when a person claims that the women was looking to get raped because her skirt was too short. You simply cannot justify the bad actions of one person or group on the nuetral or good actions of another person or group.
& the sheriff was doing him a favor? How? by drilling in the fact that permits & even Rights are subject to the whim of the head thug in charge?
As to the person who alledged a Right to be free from fear, you sir have a serious misunderstanding of what constitutes a Right. Walk with me for a moment...
A Right is something that is necessary & practicable, among other things. There are many types of Rights; collective, individual, natural or God-given, political, etc... Now we have 3 real big ones: Life, Liberty & Property. From these 3 derive all the rest. Now from Life, Liberty & Property we have the Right of Self Defense. See sometimes in order to keep Life, Liberty & Property ya have to defend them. A natural derivitive of Self Defense is the Right to Arms. See, in order to effectively defend ones' self it helps to have weapons of the same type as those who you're trying to defend yourself from, or at least ones that are efective as you can manage.
Now let us look at fear. It's an emotional state that's object is to warn us of danger. If a Right to be free from fear did exist, wouldn't that be contradictary? Since fear is a natural defense mechanism that all creatures have, wouldn't an attempt to remove that mechanism be unnatural?
& the idea that fear is a Right is further complicated by any attempts I have made to trace this alledged Right back to a source. It doesn't evolve from Life, since fear can help you keep Life. It doesn't evolve from Liberty, since knowing when to run can keep you free, nor does it evolve from Property, since fear can alert you to any attempts at theft.
It would be just as ludicrous to propose that we have a Right to be free from contentment. Or happiness. Or safety. Or love. Or hate. Or anger. Or compassion. Or pity. Or pride.
So I would propose that this so called Right to be free from fear is nothing more than a misunderstanding that comes from either ignorance of the definition of a Right, or malice in that it's deliberately used to justify taking away the Rights of others.
What this biker did was proper, at least until the sheriff attempted to put his boot across his throat, so to speak. Whether we like it or not, no one here or anyplace else in this world has any authority to force a person to behave in a certain manner when that behavior involves the exercise of a Right & threatens no immediete, imminent harm.
Now as far as anti-leo sentiment goes - sure I have some. every gun owner should. This is not because all leo's are bad. In fact I figure the ratio of good to bad is just like the general population, some are really good, some are really bad, with the rest falling somewhere in between.
What we should be upset about is not so much the leo's themselves, but the departments & system that they operate within. The system that lets this sheriff in question do what he did w/o any fear of repercussion.
& personally I'm ticked every time I think of an leo with a 15 or even 11 round mag that just came from the factory while us mere peasants are stuck with ten rounders if we want new.
& cops being disarmed? Definitely. Any leo who is in a place where non-leo's cannot carry should not carry themselves. & in places where non-leo's are restricted as to what they can carry or purchase then the leo's should be restricted to that as well.
The leo's are not a priviliged class & should not be treated as such. they should abide by the same laws us serfs have to abide by.
One last thing: I have noticed CCW permit holders look down their noses at those who carry openly. This is shameful as the pretext for dissapproval is usually that it scares the public & turns some against gun ownership. In actuality what it is appears to be jealousy. Those who carry openly (with some exceptions) usually do so in states where open carry is treated as a Right, not a privilige. No permit, no fees, in short you don't have to pay your dues to get into an elite club. This kind of jealousy (I had too, so why didn't he???) is particularly dangerous, as it clothes itself in righteous indignation & it's nakedness is difficult to see. So I'd ask y'all to reconsier. I know most won't & will get ticked at my saying this, but perhaps someone is intellectually honest enough to see that there's no good reason for looking down on someone who does something you can't or won't, especially when it's a Right we're talking about.
Oh, perhaps one more thing: y'all are in good company. In Colorado Springs, Co. a few months back, the NRA turned its back on a member who peaceably carried his shotgun to a city council meeting. They disavowed him, although not to the extent that some of y'all have this biker, as an irresponsible gun owner for daring to exercise the Right to carry openly that the NRA claims credit for getting in Co. (A pre-emption law recently passed that prohibited city's from banning guns & carry).
That should have made me enough friends to last a while.