What I'm saying is that if Congress is allowed to skirt the Second Amendment, then none of our rights are safe. So even if one does not personally believe in open carry, it behooves them to either support it, or to lobby for its alteration or repeal through the legal means prescribed by the Constitution.
Congress can't outright skirt the Second Amendment. All they can do is pass laws which then will get challenged under the Federal court system, and eventually brought to the Supreme Court of the United States, who's job it is to determine whether a law does or does not violate the Constitution. If the SCOTUS decides it does, then they can essentially strike down what is a bad law. If they decide that it doesn't.
Then it doesn't. That's how the system works. That's how the founders built it.
So why would someone who favors the rule of law have to support right to carry laws?
Because it is specifically granted as a right by the highest law in the land.
Not if the body that the Constitution established to make such decisions says it doesn't, or doesn't the way you think it does. The Supreme Court has never, once, said that a law which prohibits persons from going about in public with an openly carried firearm violates the Constitution. Therefore, and until they DO say so, it doesn't in practice. So you're going to get no traction trying to convince people who love the rule of law (which, again, doesn't mean quite what you're saying) that they must agree with open carry, because that's what YOU say the Constitution means. The people who the Constitution says get to decide haven't agreed with you, and their opinion actually counts.
What do you mean, rule by fiat? Or by popular public opinion? I don't follow this at all.
Rule by decree, as opposed to the prescribed manner for passing, changing, and repealing laws. Such as passing a law prohibiting open carry when there is already a higher law granting it as a fundamental right.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find any state or federal laws restricting carrying of firearms that were passed by decree (with one or two exceptions, like maybe federal property rules). Laws have been passed following the exact legislative process set out in the Constitution. The fact that you THINK the 2nd Amendment grants you a fundamental right to openly carry a firearm in public doesn't actually mean anything. The power that the Constitution itself set up to make such determinations has never agreed with you, so you don't have any leg to stand on.
All you're doing is mis-characterizing our legitimate legislative process with "rule by fiat" and "by popular public opinion." And that's silly talk.
And those are perfectly valid points, except that carrying a concealed weapon does have a demonstrable usage case in halting the activities of common street criminals who we citizens are (considerably more, though still rarely) likely to run into. So carrying a concealed handgun is a) far easier and less hassle than a rifle, and b) actually does occasionally get used for the purpose we carry in preparation for at some statistically significant rate (though that's hotly debated). Neither of those things could be said about rifles, at all. Not even close.
That's simply because there's no precedent for it here in the US. In Israel, however, the carrying of long guns has been shown to be useful.
Hmm. Again, you've said that, but not showed or proved that it is so. Has the private citizens' carry of long guns reduced terrorism there? Do you know? Has it reduced the death toll? How do you know? Are our situations actually analogous? Explain in detail. Remember, Israel does not operate as simply every citizen goes about with a rifle, at will.
Really? I can't really fathom how in the world you would support that statement. What possible evidence could you have that more than a tiny handful of people would ever carry a rifle around with them daily -- even for a few weeks before they realized what every soldier knows: This sucks and I hate it and I never use it and I ain't gonna do it no' mo!
The fact that we're even talking about this suggests otherwise. Even under the threat of prison, loss of rights, and social consequences; there are still enough people willing to carry rifles right now that it's become this point of major debate for the nation as a whole. No, not everyone is going to carry all of the time. But it's not unreasonable to expect that enough people might carry enough of the time to harden public targets.
Harden public targets? Seriously? Man, I can't begin to express how unlikely I see that...and have I ever tried here!
Your contention that carrying a rifle is so horrible is also one I can't agree with. Strapping a lightweight SBR to your back is no more uncomfortable than wearing a full size pistol.
Oh come on, yes it is. That's goofy. Men won't even carry a soft shoulder bag everywhere. Heck, few women do anymore. It's a pain. Constantly set down, picked up, banging against things, left behind. Plus...nobody cares where a purse is pointing. You'd damned well better be aware of where the muzzle of your rifle is pointing at ALL times. It isn't the same as a holstered handgun. Few long guns are drop-safe, and accidentally sweeping someone with the muzzle of your slung rifle, loaded or not, will get you tossed off of pretty much any rifle range in the country. How is this any better when you're on the friggin' subway, or at the mall?
Let's explore weapon retention....like to get strangled from behind with your own rifle sling? ... sigh, never mind. If you can't envision the problems with this idea, me explaining them to you isn't probably going to make a dent.
I would certainly much rather carry around a lightweight SBR than have a pistol stuffed down my pants, and yet that's what I do much of the time simply because that's what the law requires if I want to carry at all.
I'll just say that my most considered opinion is that your honest view on that would change within a month, were you do actually do it. You need to keep control of that weapon. You need to keep strict muzzle discipline at all times. You need to protect it from banging against objects and having an accidental discharge. All of these things a holster does for you, along with keeping both hands free for actual living.
You know.... cops are issued AR-15 carbines mostly these days. Why don't they carry them everywhere they go? They get into a LOT more physically dangerous situations than any of us defensive minded citizens do. But the rifle lives in the trunk or the cruiser rack. Why? Because it's NOT a good thing to have to deal with hanging around your neck except for the few times a year when circumstances indicate it could be needed. It is not a good thing to have in the mix during a scuffle. It is NOT the right tool for a violent encounter with a bad guy at bad breath distance. It is a miserable thing to tote around while doing traffic stops, filing paperwork, getting in and out of the car, doing health and welfare checks, talking to store owners, and all the other sorts of mundane stuff an officer has to do.
All of that is just quadruply so for us average citizens who don't have a sworn duty to purposefully confront bad guys.
And yet it's rational to put National Guard troops in airports?
Not really. Considering what that was a response to, it made no sense whatsoever. Do you understand the concept of
security theater? You should.
Is it not rational for the French to have armed soldiers patrolling the streets of Paris?
I don't know. However, it calms the populace. No government can ever exist in the aftermath of a terrorist attack without making a big show of "
doing something." Realistically, there's practically nothing they can do that fixes, punishes, protects, or rectifies the public damage, but they have to wrap the public in a cuddly blanket of "protection" to calm the masses down and settle everyone's nerves. If a government said, "
Well, that was a sad thing, this attack, but these things happen and in reality only a very few people were actually hurt. We'll keep an eye out but y'all wouldn't want us to try and lock down society so fiercely that we might actually have a 2% chance of stopping someone from doing this kind of thing. So, keep calm and carry on..." they'd be out of office instantly, swept aside by whichever party promised to mobilize the troops, the coast guard, the Boy Scouts, and everyone down to the Daughers of the American Revolution to "defend the homeland."
So, we put some scary serious dudes with rifles in the lobbies of our airports ... to maybe shoot down the hijacked planes? Never quite did figure out what average Joe and Jane thought those soldiers were supposed to DO...
If these things are rational, given the limited number of troops available, then imagine how much more rational it is to have armed civilians everywhere.
Again, I don't think those are particularly rational responses, but that's moot because as I've pointed out in a number of ways now, we are never going to have "armed civilians
everywhere". People COULD carry concealed handguns now without almost any fuss at all. Yet only something (guessing here, based on known figures) like 1% actually DO. The idea that we're going to have 20 or 30 or ??? hundreds of rifle-armed citizens strolling through any given public venue is utter fantasy.