Arizona Stands with Open Carry Texas

At this time of year in Arizona, I open carry.   I was in a McDonald’s, drinking coffee and using the Internet when I considered how ordinary this all was, and how much heat was being put on Open Carry Texas for merely working to obtain the same freedoms in Texas.   Freedoms that are part of the law in most states of the union, somewhere around 44 states, at last count.  It was particularly surprising how much of the heat was coming from within the gun culture. 

So I decided to stand with Texas.   I saw a gentleman who did not seem too occupied, and asked him to take my picture.    He was happy to do so.  You can see the result above.   There were a group of three moms and four girls that watched the process.   I mentioned that I was writing an article, and one of the moms,  Shanna Godinez, said:

I approve of open carry.   Then we know who is carrying and who is not.  

Interestingly, this was the most common attitude of the population up until the 1930s.  It is how concealed carry came to be restricted.   The open carry of long guns did not elicit any negatives from the population up until at least the 1950′s, even in New York City.    I told her of the campaign to show open carriers as irresponsible, and she said:

Gun owners are more responsible than other people!

I should have taken a picture of the group.   They were excited and happy, and one of the girls, who appeared to be about 10, gave me a big, friendly smile as she went out the door.

I regretted not taking their picture, so I decided to ask Luis P. Sevilla, the gentleman who had taken my picture, if I could take his.   He had no problem with that, and we started to talk guns.   He said that he had open carried himself, many times, with a local Charro group (Mexican cowboys) in numerous parades.    We discussed the stupidity of California gun law.

What struck me about the experience was the support that I received.   Shanna volunteered that she supported open carry.   As I recall, she said she was from Phoenix.   I asked Luis to take the picture at the spur of the moment, and he was supportive as well, and had open carried himself.   None of us had ever met before.

True, Arizona is a pretty gun friendly state, but so is Texas.  The false narrative that Moms Demand Action is trying to push, is that the people in that McDonalds are ordinarily terrified of people like me.   The overriding response to open carry, which I have observed in several states, and have had relayed to me by numerous other open carriers is… support.   Support and indifference are the two most common reactions. 

Negative reactions are a tiny minority of the responses, but the Bloomberg media campaign is attempting to create the false narrative that the tiny minority is a large majority.

 ©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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