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Here comes one of my endless rants.......

What Middle Age Russ says about the limits where one’s rights bump up against the rights of another make absolute sense, and to a large extent, I agree with that sentiment. But there have been times, and I continue on rare occasion to run into instances where I will take the opposite stance, including with both private rights and the rights of the state. But when I have done so, it has always been with careful consideration. This has taken several different forms.

Back when I lived in California, in Los Angeles County, and I had virtually ZERO chance of ever being granted a permit to carry, I sometimes broke the law because that was the only alternative available to me for those times when I calculated that it was riskier to not have a gun than to have one. I did so fully cognizant of the possible consequences if I were exposed; and I made a deliberate calculation of odds of exposure against odds of neeeding a gun, and I chose the gun. Keep in mind that the VAST majority of the time, I went unarmed other than having a pocket knife. Two friends of mine at the time - one an LAPD officer, and the other an investigator with the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement (California’s “DEA”) - both told me that whenever they ran across a guy like me, a middle-aged white guy of apparent means in a decent car, who happened to have a gun in his car for personal protection, they would simply ignore the fact of the gun and let him go on about his business. Racist? Possibly. Classist? Definitely. Against the law? Most certainly. But even they recognized that to not be armed at certain times, in certain places, was an act of foolishness. It wasn’t a 2nd Amendment issue so much as it was a Common Sense issue.

When I moved to Texas in 2006, I set about trying to familiarize myself with Texas gun laws - which took a while given my then predisposition to the California-born fallacy that all things are illegal unless gov’t makes them legal. When I figured out how relatively easy it was to get a CHL, I got mine. But from mid-April 2006 until MPA became law on 9//1/07, I skirted the edges of Texas law by having a handgun in my car when I drove into/through sketchy areas of Dallas - which was frequently because my employer at the time was located in a sketchy area. After MPA passed the risk of exposure went away. I took the CHL class in December ‘07 and have been carrying ever since. But even before MPA passed and finally getting my CHL, I made a conscious calculation of the odds of being exposed versus the need to have a firearm handy, and I chose to have a firearm handy. That calculation included the fact that Texas is a much more 2nd Amendment friendly state than California. Again, before MPA I didn’t have a gun in the car all the time....just when I felt the need (I hadn’t yet read Longtooth’s dictum to “guess right, or carry 24/7/365”)....but I worried less about the implications if caught because I expected that a Texas LEO would not be as surprised by it as a California LEO. Maybe I was wrong about that, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

Today, the decision is not whether or not to carry all the time - I do - but whether or not to carry past signs (compliant or not) that make it plain that my gun is not welcome.....which is essentially a private property rights issue rather than a rights of the state issue. As a general thing, I will obey 30.06/30.07 signs and take my business elsewhere. That’s because, most of the time, I have choices. There have been a couple of times when I intentionally carried (concealed) past a compliant 30.06 sign. My rationale at the time was that (A) I didn’t have the option of taking my business elsewhere [loved one unexpectedly in the hospital], and (B) it was a bad idea to leave my gun in my vehicle in the large, poorly lit parking lot of a major hospital in the middle of the night, where the available spaces were nearer the street than the building. Yeah, I broke the law, but NOT breaking the law was a worse idea. Why? Because I can’t truly be in control of the firearm that the law expects me to be in control of, if that firearm is locked in a vehicle where there is a credible chance of it being robbed. There has even been litigation an another area other than firearms rights, having to do with availability of choices and the exercise of a constitutionally protected right.

Allegedly, access to abortion is a constitutionally protected right. In 2017, the ACLU sued the FDA seeking to force the FDA to require all pharmacies to carry RU-486 - the “morning after abortion pill”. The basis of the lawsuit is that if a pharmacy is the only one that serves an area, and it refuses to carry RU-486, then the pharmacy is de facto restricting a woman’s right to a “morning after” abortion. Now, the pharmacy is a private business - conducting its affairs in accordance with its own corporate culture and the rights of conscience of its owners/employers. But the ACLU seeks to force that business to violate the rights of conscience of its owners/employees, in order to protect the right of a woman to an abortion.

How is it that hospitals as private businesses are not subjected to the same kind of lawsuit - in which hospitals are compelled by the courts to allow concealed carry on their premises in order to protect the 2nd Amendment rights of people in areas where a given hospital is the only provider of hospital services to The People?

The point is, I have made those kinds of decisions many times over the years. When I did so, I did it with my eyes wide open, fully cognizant of the potential for a bad outcome. In each case, I judged that the potential for a bad outcome (me getting arrested) balanced acceptably against the potential for a worse outcome (arming a thief who breaks into my car), or the worst outcome (me REALLY needing a gun and not having one).

Yes, all of the above means that I cannot call myself a 100% law-abiding person. But the fact is, none of us can. How many of you all consciously drive above the posted speed limits? Here’s my personal standard: where the law makes good sense, I follow it without much question; where the law makes no sense, I make a calculated risk assessment which balances the likelihood and consequences of exposure against the likelihood of bad juju and consequences of not being armed.

It’s a question of priority. I do believe in private property rights, and the right of the property owner to keep my gun out. But, the priority of his right to keep my gun out of his establishment diminishes when balanced against (A) whether or not he holds a momentary monopoly on his services (for example my loved one unexpectedly in his hospital, not in some other provider’s hospital); and (B) whether or not he is able to guarantee the safety of my vehicle on his property against break-in or theft. There’s a Jared jewelry store in Southlake Town Center that is posted 30.06. A block way, across the street and a parking lot, 150 yards away as the crow flies, there is a James Avery jewelry store that is not posted. Jared does not have a temporary monopoly on jewelry sales in the area. I have choices. But beyond the issue of momentary monopoly, the fact is that I have yet to see a hospital in DFW that is NOT posted with 30.06/30.07 signs. So even when an individual hospital may not hold a monopoly on those kinds of medical services, industry-wide there is a de facto monopoly which prevents license carry in hospital facilities. When an entire industry, upon which society depends for its medical care, is monolithically suppressive of my 2nd Amendment right - NOT because the law requires them to suppress it, as with certain petrochemical industries, but because they monolithically choose to suppress it..... AS AN INDUSTRY .... then I am less likely to care a popcorn fart for their property rights, and the decision to walk past one of their signs in the middle of the night is made easy.

During the day, when the risks are lower, I will comply with their signs and disarm before entering. And if I have a planned visit at night, I can always leave my handgun at home and throw a Keltec Sub-2K carbine in my briefcase and lawfully carry that past the signs instead. My default position is to obey the sign, and the decision to carry past a sign is based on not having what I judge to be a morally reasonable alternative.

The point of all of this is to say that, where the rights of one bump up against the rights of another, there is sometimes a gray area. It’s not so cut and dried. And that is where one might be called as an individual to make choices FOR common sense, in a specific situation in which that choice may NOT be entirely lawful. If, for instance, a hospital is willing to (A) keep its parking lots brightly lit with controlled access and well patrolled, and (B) provide a security escort to and from your vehicle at night, then I am much more willing to disarm myself before entering the premises. But willfully disarming the lawfully armed, without providing a substitute for their personal security, when the hospital holds an objective monopoly over the service provided, and that service is absolutely essential to the preservation of life, the hospital’s decision is an immoral one because it forces the lawfully armed person into making a deal with the devil.

So by asserting their property rights in a situation where you have no choice but to deal with them alone, you are being forced to participate in their immorality. In such a case, I view it as my moral obligation to not comply. If they provide for a reasonable substitute for my personal security, then they are behaving morally, and I therefore have a moral obligation to be respectful of their rights. Maybe some day, the ACLU will sue the FDA to require hospitals to protect the exercise of the 2nd Amendment rights of their patrons.

I’m not holding my breath on that one. Therefore, I will take responsibility upon myself to protect my own rights whenever a hospital has a vitual monopoly over my access to services at a given moment in time, and that hospital makes the immoral decision to both suppress my 2nd Amendment right AND fail to provide a substitute protection for my personal security. If it means carrying concealed past their 30.06 sign when I have no choice, then that’s what I’ll do. Otherwise, it means carrying a concealed 9mm carbine past their sign - entirely lawfully, even if it violates the spirit of their stupid sign.