WTF?

[pecunium]

Recently, at work, something odd happened.

Guy came in, and started to ask me questions about knives. So far all is normal. Selling knives is a lot of what I do. We talk about this and that, and he starts being discoursive. He then asks me one of those questions I've had, now and again, though not here; at SLT.

"What do you think of women using knives?"


"I don't have any problem with it."

He went on, saying from things he'd seen them doing in the kitchen it gave him the willies. I said he ought to see the things I see men doing with knives. Then I tried to point out that it was more a matter of preconceptions than anything else. I told him I'd been in the army for 167 years, and I taught firearms handling, as well as knife skills. This was to lead into telling him that I far prefer to have female students (in firearms) than I do male ones (in knives it doesn't have the same gender skew, though there are traits I think I see more in women than in men. There are other traits I think I see in men more. some good, some bad, in both sexes).

That did, so I thoght, derail the conversation, but it was being a bit strange, and I wanted to done with it. He started asking me questions about guns, and I started actually moving him out of the store. On the way he started asking me about my thoughts on "open carry". My thoughts on the carryng of firearms are pretty simple. Most people shouldn't do it because they don't think it through carefully enough (for more detailed ideas of my thinking you can read the post/comments in places like Making Light (where the subject has come up, more than once).

I tried to say this, gently, but I was starting to get an odd vibe. I actually started pushing him out of the store (my boss actually noticed this). At the door he kept going, and then it happened, he explained why he was looking into things like "open carry" (which right he didn't know we had in Calif. never mind that as configured it's a mess... asking for trouble and conferring no real benefit to anyone who isn't willing to spend lots of time getting a number of drills down to pure muscle memory. Even if that's done the requirements still make you much more target than anything else... all of which I mentioned to him).

It's because of the political situation now, and the "trouble we have coming with the blacks and the browns".

I was croggled. He'd just given me what can only be described as the tea-bagger's secret handshake. I wasn't certain until he added, "You know I used to be a liberal."

The next say, he was back. Asked if I had a card, and then (when I said I didn't really. Which was true, in context. I don't have a card for my work, and I had no intent of sharing my personal one with him). That, it seemed was ok. He had one to give me, with a slightly conspiratorial leaning in as he said, "I might have some work for you."

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Women using knives? Like, say, that customer's mother making her kid's dinner? That customer's grandmother feeding her family? WTF? Even if one believes women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen, how the hell will they get anything done in said kitchen without wielding a knife?

Arizona (as you prob'ly know) allows open carry. People in town almost universally don't take advantage of that. People in the country mostly don't carry handguns on their hips, unless their work requires that they be prepared to kill a hurt animal or protect their critters from predators or varmints.

The exception is tourists in places like Tombstone. They wear their holstered pistols over their polo shirts and Bermuda shorts and think that gives them a connection to the gunfighters of long ago.

Not, perhaps, the worst reason to carry ever. But pretty close.

I always want to stop them and ask, "You do know that nobody's going to ride in and shoot up the town, right?"

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I know Arizona has open carry. I find it both amusing, and not.

The reasons are the same.

There is a fundamental difference between California's right to open carry and Arizona's.

In California the weapon must be empty. No cartridges in it at all.

Which is why I said legally engaging open carry here is really problematic. If I were to be engaging in some sort of thing which an armed person would be a detriment, I 1: know they are armed. 2: that, if they are carrying legally they either have a carry permit, and so some training, or they don't and they need to load before they can fire.

Which means it's (esp. now) a political statement, and the politics in question, annoy me.

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

My view on open carry is that if I see someone in a public place with a firearm, I call 911. Period. They can work it out with law enforcement. I am not interested in risking my life for someone else's attitude.

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

This opens you up to two problems: 1) The "Boy who cried wolf" effect, where the cops might be slower to respond to a genuine emergency if you have a history of what they believe to be frivolous calls, and 2) charges of Filing a False Police Report, or whatever your local jurisdiction calls it. The moral of this story is, if you live in a state with open carry, don't call the cops unless you have a valid reason to be suspicious besides "OMG I'm so scared of teh mean guns!!1!"

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

I'll let the cops explain that to me. I have no way to know a gun is licensed or legal, but it's utterly clear to me that it's a danger to myself and everyone else.

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want to operate in bad faith in order to harass your fellow citizens for exercising rights that you don't agree with, I can't stop you. Any more than I could stop someone determined to call the cops every time they see someone in Middle Eastern garb, under the assumption the _must_ be terrorists.

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

Lot more deaths by gun violence in this country every year than by terrorism. Many thousands more. Just sayin'. Guess which worries me more? :)

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

I really don't think harassing law-abiding citizens will lower gun violence rates. Criminals tend not to brandish unless they're actively perpetrating at that moment. Meanwhile, you plan to waste police resources with frivolous calls, which increases the chance they won't be able to respond to genuine crimes. How is this supposed to help, again?

Minor edit: Replace "Law abiding citizens" with "Citizens you have no valid reason to believe _aren't_ law abiding". Just for precision's sake.

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

Again, how do I know it's a legal firearm? That's a police matter, I'm certainly not going to ask anyone who feels a need to display a firearm if they have a carry permit. Any gun off the street is a safer street. Period.

(Then again, I'm one of those weirdos who thinks the Second Amendment applies to the National Guard, so I'm pretty sure we have an irreconcilable difference of viewpoint here.)

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

WRT to your edit, I generally don't see any valid reason for carrying a firearm in public in our contemporary society outside of law enforcement or specific security needs, so the presence of a visible firearm does not tend to reinforce my assumption of law-abiding citizenly behavior.

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

Minor edit: Replace "Law abiding citizens" with "Citizens you have no valid reason to believe _aren't_ law abiding". Just for precision's sake.

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

FWIW, not that I should need to explain this, but I'm an excellent shot, well-trained in firearms safety and lettered in both riflery and archery back in the day. My intense distrust of guns is not founded on ignorance. Quite the opposite.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

What mystifies me is this: Since everyone in California knows that a civilian's legally open carried firearm must be unloaded, why would anyone want to carry one?

The usual cant about carrying firearms is that you never know when you're going to need to shoot a predator or something, but if your weapon is empty, you can't shoot it. So what's the point of displaying it? Or is it pure macho, nothing else?

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

That _is_ a drawback, yes. The I guess thinking is "Better a gun that takes a few seconds more to load, than no gun at all".

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

breaks my brain tho -

if you know I'm carrying, and you're a problem person, the fact that you know I'm carrying puts me at a... not advantage. I may not get those frew seconds, and that can be bad.

If you don't know, and if I'm ready, that's different.

I can't -imagine- wanting to carry unloaded and for all to see. What on earth is the point?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

And my thinking is... that's worse than no gun at all. It's in the open. Getting it out draws attention. The person who was the cause of your desire to shoot (why else draw), is really likely to 1: see you, and 2: have a firearm out.

At which point the odds of you being shot go from random, to almost certain.

The other thing (and where I understand, but for different reasons, disagree with jaylake), is that the people doing this are doing it for political statement. I'd really like the populace to make that sort of carry less pleasant (mosty by denying them service in establishments).

Calling the cops on them just confirms, to them, the need to carry. That will, of course, be used to recruit/propagandise.

What I might like to see, if they are not being dissuaded by merchants, I'd like to see a lot of persons of color carrying in the areas they tend to travel.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Ok, now if I ever go there I want a nice PLASTIC replica Colt. Possibly used as hat trim.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

Women using knives? Like, say, that customer's mother making her kid's dinner? That customer's grandmother feeding her family? WTF? Even if one believes women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen, how the hell will they get anything done in said kitchen without wielding a knife?</i? This was pretty much my exact question. Partially because I had just finished eating dinner, which I prepared using my nice knives, and I'm really not sure how I'd have managed without them—biting the veggies into the correct shapes just would not serve.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

BWAH-hah-hah-hah-hah! It's a whole new culinary art!

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I've known people who carried guns on their hips (other than soldiers and police officers). The first guy I knew who did was bludgeoned to death because he mistook a revolver for a magical death-dealing device, instead of a machine for making holes in things at a distance.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

I know someone who carries. But he lives out on a ranch an hour up a mine road in Livermore and he works alone most of his days outdoors. The chances of a rabid dog or other Critter are worth it.

Of course the other problem with living and working that Far Out is that you might be the lucky person to discover someone's clandestine meth lab on your property. Not good.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I lived in AZ ten years; I know people who carry. I also know (and have worked at) places with strict no-gun rules, not just in the building but anywhere on the property (e.g. Honeywell). I worked with one guy (in a different place, but he was a former employee at Honeywell) who said that he would never again work anywhere where he wasn't allowed to at least have his gun in his car. He was uncomfortable being without it.

Later on, I went on to work at Honeywell myself, at a couple of different sites over a period of four years. As a small unarmed female who grew up in a city, I never felt particularly unsafe there. What really scares me is the idea of someone so fearful carrying a gun. If you carry a gun, you need to be able to make conscious decisions about when to use it, not just start shooting out of fear.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I understand his attitude. I often feel a trifle naked, for lack of a firearm.

Some of that is PTSDish, and part of it is massive habit. I've spent a lot of time where the furthest a firearm was from my person was a bit more than arm's reach. There is a whole set of internal math that leads to.

I don't feel scared for lack of a firearm; when this happens, any more than I feel scared when I don't have cutlery on my hip. It's just that I feel a bit undressed.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

That makes sense (after all, William Penn made much the same complain to George Fox, IIRC). I apologize if I was too general. I've met a number of people who carry a knife in a scabbard and use it every day; I suspect they'd feel the same way.

I have a grandfather-in-law who's a master gunsmith; especially now that his wife is gone, there are rifles *everywhere* in his house. I think he'd probably agree with you about feeling naked without one to hand ... but I don't feel the least bit unsafe around him, no matter what armaments are there.

But in the specific case I'm thinking of, I really think it was fear rather than habit; he used words like "I feel unsafe" rather than "I feel underdressed". To my knowledge, he'd never been in the military or been a subsistence hunter (though I guess in the latter case you'd carry a rifle rather than a handgun anyway).

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

If he said unsafe... yeah minor alarm bells.