Trend

[shootingthebreeze]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013...gun_owners_shows_us_a_nationalized_issue.html

Though the above article is a year old, similar trends to criminalize legitimate gun owners in the US are alive and well today. A recent post on the actions of the mayor of Grand Rapids MI on THR criminalizing legitimate gun owners is an alarming trend, a "back door" approach to make legitimate gun owners an aberration of society, working outside societal norms (the norms of those criminalizing legitimate gun owners), basically making legitimate gun owners pariahs of society.
There has been several attempts to publish legitimate gun owners names. This trend is basically an attempt to shame legitimate gun owners-like a modern Puritan stocks punishment. The problem with such an effort is that it would give criminals a road map to legitimate gun owners homes...And, if the trend continued towards publishing CPL holders, that would violate the reason behind CPL-"concealed carry" thus a private issue which should not be published.
This trend on criminalizing legitimate gun owners is disturbing. It's like criminalizing those who like to read books. Freedom of self expression is something many who push criminalizing legitimate gun owners would decry violently as tampering with their freedom of speech.
Thus the hypocrisy. As the article shows, hypocrisy is alive and well with any attempt to criminalize legitimate gun owners.

 

[Liberty1776]

I can't imagine the UP'ers (Yoopers) going for this in a big way...

 

[Tirod]

The story of the legal open carry bearer being arrested for "disorderly conduct" goes to officer discretion.

There is also the entire issue of open carry being brought into the discussion, with the overt and public display of a firearm. Right or not, it's arguable even in the firearms community - context has a great deal to do with where it's acceptable, and where it's not.

Gas station in the country near well know hunting areas, few give it a second thought.

Social gathering places where men are prone to disagree about the perceived status and rank of strangers or even members of their own peer group? Would that be considered a provocation to violence? "I have a gun and you don't!"

Stating facts as a gun carrier with confidence the legality is a decided measure can appear as arrogant and "in your face." Some people ignorantly assume the law is on their side. The issue is less about "criminalizing" gun owners as much as going out and looking for trouble.

A Gay Day parade in "appropriate" dress should have the same legal protection, too. Yet it is considered highly offensive to some, just as much as open carry is to others. I'm barely any student of the law, but I suspect the exact same Constitutional issues are involved in both.

If someone wants to cross dress and invite bikers to buy them drinks in their roadhouse saloon, they might have every right. And shouldn't be endangered by an equal and opposite opinion.

Yeah, sure.

So saying that someone who deliberately open carries in the same environment should also be able to exercise their Constitutional right, we need to accept that there will also be equal and opposite opinions.

In this entirely speculative and imaginative scenario, the charge of disorderly conduct could be equally pressed for either "victim."

Just because you have a right, do you have the right to disturb others at a local gathering where it can and should be assumed others of equal and opposite opinion may attend?

Do Raiders fans showing up at Kaufmann Stadium get smiles and backslaps with welcoming greetings like "Have a good game?"

Read the reports of the beatings before replying. Exercising "free speech" sometimes has unintended consequences. Men have been buried in earthen dams for doing it, the history of Civil Rights in America is littered with corpses.

(Hey I'm getting on a roll, here.) Do we really expect others to be protective of our rights when we won't respect theirs, too? Are we whining about "criminalization" when the issue is really one of "I can have it my way whether you like it or not!"

No different than slipping on those size 12 high heels and walking down Main Street.

Let them be the obnoxious whiners with offensive public displays, and exercise your right to appear as a mature adult who isn't out to inflame others with arrogant exercises of your rights.

You want to carry, fine, there's an old saying, keep it in your pants. What would have happened in the linked incident if the gun carrier had been IWB and no gun was noticed?

No offense, no charge is the much more likely result.

When the President visits tornado stricken zones, are you aware that the local populace is instructed to put away all the tools, rakes, and crowbars so that they won't be a danger? Doesn't that violate their Constitutional rights? Some don't think so.

If you are cleaning up your property and the Secret Service instruct you to put your tools away, do you protest and cling to your rake shouting, "FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS!!"

Well, I'm aware that a lot just packed up and left. Really minimized the photo op. An intrusion, yes. Sorry. Price we pay for deifying politicians. But why go to jail over it?

We haven't been passing CCW in states, getting licenses revised to mandatory issue rather than privileged, all because open carriers are strutting around in public getting charged with being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It really has very little to do with "criminalization." The anti gunners are quite honest about it now, owning guns at all is criminal to them, and they are bent on wholesale confiscation. Getting wholesale cooperation from the police nationwide to participate in "Make a gun owner look bad" isn't high on their list, they have their hands full dealing with real criminals doing exactly that, plus having us constantly demanding they do more with less.

 

[shootingthebreeze]

http://www.examiner.com/article/mayors-against-illegal-guns-not-a-gun-ban-organization-part-2

This article shows HOW MAIG and the Brady organization criminalizes legitimate firearm owners. They appear on the surface as a "good thing" however their actions tell a different story.
As Bloomberg steamrolls through states salting lots of his money, efforts are being made to create a hostile environment for legitimate firearm owners. MAIG and Brady are working around their surface agenda against "illegal guns". The backdoor approach is to enact a host or ordinances which target NOT criminals but legitimate firearm owners. Basically, criminalizing legitimate gun owners.
The challenge to MAIG and Brady is to legally challenge them in Federal Court for their infringement on the Second Amendment. What I see is that their initial surface mission, "illegal guns", is a cover to undermine legitimate gun owns and create situations which would criminalize them, basically tie the hands of legitimate gun owners, make it expensive to own firearms, and basically create such a hostile environment with the hope that gun owners throw in the towel and turn in their firearms. This is actually illegal on the part of MAIG, and actually violates the Constitution thus violating Federal Law.
If one created an environment hostile to lets say gays today, I can bet you that within a day there would be Federal Law suits by the dozens. Same situation. Actually, there is no difference.

 

[larryh1108]

I see is that their initial surface mission, "illegal guns", is a cover to undermine legitimate gun owns and create situations which would criminalize them, basically tie the hands of legitimate gun owners, make it expensive to own firearms, and basically create such a hostile environment with the hope that gun owners throw in the towel and turn in their firearms.

I see it as taking an honest, American citizen and making his firearm illegal (like your "assault rifle") thru "common sense legislation" and you now own an illegal firearm. Same citizen, same rifle but you are now the criminal. That is why they are against illegal guns.... they just legislate them to be illegal.

 

[Ryanxia]

This article shows HOW MAIG and the Brady organization criminalizes legitimate firearm owners. They appear on the surface as a "good thing" however their actions tell a different story.
As Bloomberg steamrolls through states salting lots of his money, efforts are being made to create a hostile environment for legitimate firearm owners. MAIG and Brady are working around their surface agenda against "illegal guns". The backdoor approach is to enact a host or ordinances which target NOT criminals but legitimate firearm owners. Basically, criminalizing legitimate gun owners.

And these are the people who draft the "universal background check" laws that we've been fighting so hard against (and winning against as of NH yesterday). Something to ponder.

 

[shootingthebreeze]

"host of ordinances"

...is what I meant.

It's not a pretty picture when a group openly violates the Second Amendment thru ordinances which criminalize legitimate gun owners by using their organization to promote and sell to the public something "good".

That is the highest form of hypocrisy. I wonder how MAIG would react if their First Amendment rights were stepped on.

Based on another post on THR mayors are leaving MAIG as they uncover MAIG's true agenda. It's one thing to sell, puzzle out, discuss firearm safety-it's another when that agenda is used to attack legitimate gun owners. Hopefully MAIG's primary objective, to criminalize legitimate gun owners will back fire soon putting them out of business.

 

[Ryanxia]

As has been said many times, if the true goal was to help make America safer, this would have been easy. Now, however, it's a polarized issue such as earlier debates like Prohibition and Civil Rights (which this is also). It's so critical that Americans can't take the chance, we can't let our Religion, Freedom of speech or any other Rights to Freedom be stripped away as has been done time and time again throughout history.

I saw a meme that was from The Office; "I already won the lottery, I was born American." We were given our Rights by sweat and blood and we aim to keep those Rights.

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

It's all about prejudice and bigotry. We should gift many of these anti types with a flood of white sheets.

 

[Trent]

The problem with such an effort is that it would give criminals a road map to legitimate gun owners homes...

... and we'd see a dramatic reduction in the amount of criminals practicing their trade.