Even if we were to give Andreychenko the benefit of the doubt and assume that his intent in “shopping” at Walmart armed with a rifle and wearing body armor, days after a mass shooting at another Walmart under similar circumstances, was 100% well-intentioned, defending this conduct on Second Amendment grounds is politically foolish, and catastrophically so.
Just because some conduct is lawful doesn’t mean it’s smart, and if one’s self-claimed mission is support of the Second Amendment, exercising that right in such a way that your conduct can be reasonably be expected to scare the heck out of normal people out in public—each of whom has exactly the same vote that you have—is politically idiotic.
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I presume all of you are aware that there exists a Tenth Amendment. It states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Although the Tenth Amendment is explicitly intended to constrain the Federal government, in favor of the States, in our modern society it is effectively a dead Amendment, with essentially no political or legal effect whatever. Was the Tenth Amendment repealed? Nope. It’s still on the books. It is simply impotent, for the very practical reason that today’s society has chosen for it to be impotent.
The same precise fate awaits the Second Amendment if it suffers a comparable loss in generalized political support. I urge all true Second Amendment supporters to conduct themselves in a manner that increases, rather than decreases, generalized political support for our gun rights.
This is what I’ve been preaching ever since the Texas group that shall not be named, led by he who shall not be named, started their open carry demonstrations with long guns. Open carry demonstrations with empty holsters was a good idea. Being THIS guy is just stupid:
I
like that I can open carry, and I believe that doing so is a right; but I’m neither politically nor socially tone deaf. Unfortunately, there are some in the gun community who are as socially/politically tone deaf as any AntiFa is on the other side.
There is a level of inappropriateness in political action that average people simply won’t tolerate. The nation endured THREE mass shootings in the span of 9 days—two of them just 12 hours apart—all of them committed with the semiautomatic civilian variant of a military pattern rifle. In what SANE world does a
rational person—even someone who is militantly pro-2nd Amendment—think that walking into another Walmart gunned up and wearing body armor is a
defensible idea? It’s not.
oljames3 wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2019 11:30 pm
In discussing this incident, we must remember it occurred in Missouri and that Branca is discussing Missouri law, not Texas law.
Yes, but Texas law has a similar provision WRT to open carry of long guns. It may not be worded the same, but the intent is the same.....to whit that if you’re open carrying that long gun in a manner calculated to cause alarm, you’ve broken the law. And whether or not the person carrying it is alarmed is irrelevant. The controlling factor is if
OTHER people are alarmed. Since that is not something the carrier can control, he or she must have a compelling reason that would justify it to the alarmed person. For instance, when Stephen Willeford ran out of his house with an AR15 to confront the Sutherland Springs shooter, a rational bystander would easily come to the correct assumption....that he was coming to the defense of the church. BUT HAD THERE BEEN NO ACTIVE SHOOTER AT THE CHURCH, and Stephen Willeford ran out of the house toward the church with his AR15 in hand, a rational observer may well have concluded that he
might be ABOUT TO COMMIT a church shooting; and that rational observer would have been suitably alarmed. Why? Because of a past history of mass shootings around the country, including at churches.
The days when the average American could walk into his church and lean his rifle against the wall before taking his seat in the pews ended at least 100 years ago. I’m not saying that’s good or bad....just that it’s a fact. That means that
most of your fellow citizens, even those who own guns and are generally 2nd Amendment supporters, are simply not used to seeing people openly carry long guns in environments outside of a gun show, shooting range, or the hunting fields. And because outside of those environments, many of those pro-gun people will tend to associate the open carry of a long gun with either an imminent self defense OR assaultive situation, they are likely to be alarmed by it. It’s a normal reaction. Imagine how alarmed that half of the country that thinks guns are too easy to obtain would be.
To not acknowledge this is to invite a catastrophic loss of our rights. Attorney Andrew Branca is absolutely right about Dmitriy N. Andreychenko, and the effect that his display could have on the national discourse. Does anybody seriously believe that Andreychenko's actions did NOT energize the the anti gun left? Is there anyone who seriously believes that his actions will make NO difference when Congress convenes to consider red flag laws? Is there anyone who seriously believes that a bill won’t contain an
expansive lack of due process for those flagged because of Andreychenko's actions? And in light of the past three mass shootings and Andreychenko's stunt, is there anybody who seriously believes that congress is NOT going to pass such a bill, or that Trump won’t sign it?
We must most vocally defend our liberties, including the RKBA; but we have to do it responsibly, aware that our actions do not take place in a vacuum, and that our goal is to win people over—not to scare them into thinking that we perhaps shouldn’t be allowed to own firearms at all.
