It seems that gun rights are becoming a major issue in other states as they are open carrying at political events where allowed.  This news has already made it to a business blog strangely enough.  I have heard some people say that open carrying at a political event is detrimental to our cause.  However, some people fully support it and feel that it is supportive of 2nd Amendment rights.  If nothing else, it gets people to focus on those rights.

http://www.businesspundit.com/open-carry-states-list/

Open Carry States List

After reading about protesters bringing guns to anti-Obama rallies, I grew curious about which states are open-carry; that is, they allow people to carry guns in public, as long as the guns are visible. I made this list from the map
graphic at OpenCarry.org:

Open carry states:

Alaska
Montana
Idaho
Wyoming
Nevada
Arizona
New Mexico
South Dakota
Vermont
Kentucky
Virginia

Open carry–with restrictions (eg. permit requirements):

Utah
North Dakota
Minnesota
Iowa
Tennessee
Mississippi
Georgia
Indiana
Maryland
New Jersey
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Massachusetts

Many other states have their own versions of open carry–eg. it is allowed in some rural areas of California. See the map for details.

Using a loaded gun to demonstrate your right to bear arms at a presidential event is a dumb idea. Maybe you’re a responsible gun owner, but what about the 50 people next to you? Who’s to say someone won’t get excited and start firing? And if that happens, the government will be even more interested in restricting gun rights. Demonstrators either need to keep their guns unloaded, or not bring them at all.

Using a loaded gun to demonstrate your right to bear arms at a presidential event is a dumb idea. Maybe you’re a responsible gun owner, but what about the 50 people next to you? Who’s to say someone won’t get excited and start firing? And if that happens, the government will be even more interested in restricting gun rights. Demonstrators either need to keep their guns unloaded, or not bring them at all.

Time will tell whether or not showing up at a political event will help or hurt our 2A cause but suggesting people carry unloaded guns is, it think foolish.  If you are going to carry, unless restricted by local law, and in that case why carry at all, a gun should always be loaded.  After all we are taught that a gun should always be considered loaded for safety sake.  If someone in the crowd is going to attack another person just because that person is legally OC then what good will an unloaded gun be.

Well it appears that carrying at a political event is hurting our cause at the moment.  The mainstream media loves to slant the view saying that the open carriers were doing so just feet away from the President, that it was white people carrying because they are racist.  The fact is that the people reported in the news were doing so at events blocks away from the President and one carrying the rifle was black.  Here is a good article clearing up some of the misconceptions.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/31/false-reports-about-guns/

Many media outlets have misfired about guns. Countless newspapers and television networks -- from CBS to MSNBC -- have misreported that conservative protesters are threatening President Obama with guns at public events. It hasn't happened.

In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a gun, William Kostric, joined an Aug. 11 health care protest. This was blocks away and hours before Mr. Obama's town-hall meeting in that city. Mr. Kostric was given permission to be on church property where the protest occurred and was not at the place the president visited. What most of the coverage left out was that Mr. Kostric didn't carry his gun only for the protest; he legally carries a gun with him all the time for protection.

While the media regularly used terms such as "hotheads" to mischaracterize the situation, the coverage ignored that union members who opposed the protest had attacked Mr. Kostric and a friend, kicking, pushing and spitting on them. Despite violence against him by Mr. Obama's supporters, Mr. Kostric did not draw his gun or threaten anyone.

On the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric asked, "Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the president is speaking?" Deliberately or not, she got the facts wrong. As we know, Mr. Kostric did bring a gun to the church, but the president was not there and never was scheduled to speak there. Mr. Obama spoke at a separate event at a local high school at a different time. Not letting facts get in the way of her hysterical story line, Ms. Couric linked Mr. Kostric's gun to "fear and frankly ignorance drown[ing] out the serious debate that needs to take place about an issue that affects the lives of millions of people."

In another case in Arizona, a black man staged an event with a local radio host and carried a semiautomatic rifle a few blocks away from another Obama town-hall meeting. According to the radio station, the staged event was "partially motivated to do so because of the controversy surrounding William Kostric." This occurrence was not an example of an outraged gun-toting Obama protester, but a stunt to garner attention for a shock jock. Of course, this inconvenient truth was ignored by most news outlets.

MSNBC misrepresented the facts to try to back up a bogus claim about racism being behind opposition to Mr. Obama's agenda. On Donny Deutsch's Aug. 18 show about the Arizona town-hall meeting, the producers aired a clip of the anonymous black man carrying the so-called assault rifle -- but the network edited the tape so the man's race was obscured. Truth be damned, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer said, "There are questions whether this has a racial overtone. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists." Another commentator on the same show worried about the "anger about a black person being president." The supposed result: "You know we see these hate groups rising up."

MSNBC's irresponsible behavior is more than just bad journalism; it sows distrust between races. Ernest Hancock, the radio host who staged the event, was hoping to get some free publicity for himself and his show. Whatever one thinks of this PR stunt, it had nothing to do with race. MSNBC misrepresented a black man carrying a gun as a white man to invent a racial dynamic that didn't exist.

Media disinformation about guns is a sad sign of the drastic action liberals will take to undermine support for gun rights for law-abiding citizens. It's also an indication of liberals' extreme desperation as Mr. Obama's agenda unravels.

Not only misrepresented, but inaccurate in the first place.  in this list, for example:

Open carry states:

Alaska
Montana
Idaho
Wyoming
Nevada
Arizona
New Mexico
South Dakota
Vermont
Kentucky
Virginia

.... Colorado is not mentioned and it is an open carry State except for Denver --a legal anomoly which should be rectified.

I'm frankly sort of wishy-washy on using Open Carry (OC) as a demonstration/statement and I'm still thinking about it in terms of the Public Relations effects. Right now to me it sort of depends more on the locale than the particular event  (like the presence of a High Official) and my mind seems to want to break the locales down into:

(1) Those areas where Open Carry is expressedly forbidden.

(2) Highly urbanized areas where the populace has been acculturated into thinking "guns is bad" and only the police and military should have guns.

(3) Less populated areas where guns are viewed more as tools than Evil Instruments Of Death (EIOD) and open carry is legal and more or less unremarkable anyhow.

For (1) and (2) there are other options, like the "empty holster" demonstrations on some college campuses of late. One could also carry a completely inactivated firearm, I suppose, or an empty rifle case with a broomhandle in it.

For (3), I lean toward the "go for it" and "shock troops" attitude, and would not condemn anyone from a public relations perspective for carrying a full bandolier of ammo over the shoulder and maybe some of  the most intimidating long arms and let the press and the rest of the nation make of it what they will.  Like a fully tricked-out AR or AK with lights and lasers or a Mosin-Nagant with that long pigsticker bayonet or a Yugoslavian SKS with the bayonet and grenade sight extended.    (But one could run afoul of local knife laws in those cases.)

So I'm still mulling it all over.  I'll admit that I'm more sensitive to PR than some. For example, I will tend to use the softer terms "firearm" or "defensive firearm" sometimes than "GUHHNNN," depending on my audience.

Mull, mull, mull...

Feel free to attack the above muddy thinking all you want.  I'd welcome it.  And my attitudes sort of shift around on a day-to-day basis depending on how ballsy I happen to feel that morning.

I'll certainly agree 100%, though, on the scurrility of the media's reporting on firearms in general.  Gr. Snarl. Growf.


Terry, 230RN

What gets me is that this is even considered newsworthy.  Let's take a look at some other equally applicable headlines that could be used for these situations, shall we?

Citizens Peaceably Assembled!
Citizens Express Opinions!
Protests covered by Free Press!

These are all equally remarkable in that people were exercising their constitutionally protected 1a rights.  Why no screaming headlines?  Heck, for that matter:

Citizens at Protest Say No Soldiers Are Quarter at Their Houses!
Due Process Observed at Rally!
Protesters Not Compelled to Bear Witness Against Themselves!
Citizens At Protest Who in the Past Were Subject to Lawsuits Had Speedy Trials by Jury of Peers!
No Cruel or Unusual Punishments, nor Excessive Bails, Used Against Demonstrators!

It simply infuriates me that people can so take for granted the exercise of 1a rights but not recognize the relevance of that to their other guaranteed rights.