Carrying guns openly in public doesn't help basic logic skills
It was just an ordinary day on twitter, when I suddenly noticed Open Carry Texas was acting all smug because Moms Demand Action for Gunsense in America wouldn’t meet with them. OCT has a long history of attempting to intimidate Moms Demand of course, and I decided maybe I should call them on that.
Yes, their members have a history of murder. Here’s the link I tweeted to them. They tried to blow that off as a one-time thing, after trying to deny it first. Hey, no big deal one of their own suddenly snapped and killed her family, it was just the one time! They’d also prefer we ignore some of the criminal records their various followers possess.
Not to mention the intimidating way they introduced themselves to Moms Demand by displaying their guns to them while they met for lunch; using female mannequins to stand in for the Moms to be shot up; along with their constant swarming of Moms Demand members on twitter and Facebook, along with whomever else supports responsible firearms legislation, this writer included.
At this point, I informed them how often I get death threats from gun lobby supporters and suggested that might be contributing to their image problems. I showed them this screenshot as an example:
I wasn’t expecting sympathy from Open Carry Texas on this, but I did want to illustrate why Moms Demand didn’t want to talk to them. Besides OCT’s constant smear campaigns against them, that is. It took them a day to answer, and their response was that both sides were equally complicit in death threats against children, a laughable premise, and tried to dismiss it entirely:
My answer was to say that threatening the life of a child was unjustifiable. They simply insulted me in response, and said I was the one threatening them:
Open Carry Texas thinks they are the ones getting bullied. They were the ones crying “victim” in the first place, that’s what got me to engage them. Those mean Moms won’t talk to them! Why can’t anyone see that they’re nice, reasonable people!
Also, I was apparently the one threatening them, even though I’d done nothing of the sort. Unless pointing out their history and the flaws in their arguments were what Open Carry Texas considered “threats.” If so, this should bring up grave concerns as to what they see as a threat while they’re walking around with firearms.
It was during this exchange a fellow by the name of Gavan Boucher challenged OCT over how they must feel weak without their guns. Open Carry Texas didn’t seem to grasp his point, and went ahead and confirmed it:
So, as they were sticking with the whole “death threats against your kid don’t mean shit because people threaten us sometimes” angle, I stayed on them with how that’s not ethically sound. I pointed out how they could barely handle pushback against their own arguments, so probably shouldn’t try to justify death threats. The next day, Open Carry Texas made another attempt to do just that:
Open Carry Texas had taken three days to issue these responses. Perhaps the organizational account was being handled by several people who weren’t bothering to check how the conversation had gone previously, and decided to just miss the points previously made and insult me as their predecessors had done. Perhaps it was just one person, with no idea how to present or defend an argument.
But it was clear that OCT wasn’t very good at debating. They’d been run in a circle, had utterly failed to prove they weren’t comprised of dangerous people, and certainly weren’t very pleasant to deal with. They couldn’t even condemn death threats against a child, instead trying to justify them with “Well we get threats sometimes too!” Yet they claimed it was Moms Demand who were bullying OCT?
Then OCT tried to “Rand Paul” their tweets, saying they didn’t say what they’d just said. I simply sat back and let them continue destroying their own arguments. Like what happened next, when they disavowed Kory Watkins, after I reminded them of his recent antics:
Mmm. Open Carry Texas had nothing to do with how Kory Watkins got so big. Even though his picture is present on the OCT website several times and he used their platform to raise himself to greater prominence, they can’t be held responsible.
Oh really, Open Carry Texas? If you can’t take even partial responsibility for Kory Watkins implying lawmakers who oppose Open Carry’s goals deserve death; Hell, if you can’t even take responsibility for your own words, then how can you be trusted to take responsibility for a firearm?
This isn’t blaming guns, as Open Carry Texas likes to say, it’s blaming people. One simple twitter conversation easily exposed OCT’s inability to hold together a solid argument or even admit to their own words on screenshot. They are unable to condemn those who threaten the life of a child. They admitted they feel weak without guns. All they had to offer was hatefulness and insults. And they can’t even be honest about it.
And that was pretty much it. They blocked me after that, just like John Lott did when he couldn’t out-debate me, and the blatantly racist NRA Cheerleader “Raging” Rob Kinnison did as well.
The surprising thing about the conversation was how little interference I got from OCT’s followers. No doubt they were trying to pile on, but I’d been speaking out against gun lobbies for a year now, and the worst and most awful of the gun troll accounts were previously blocked. Accounts, it needs to be said, with a history of threatening and insulting those who don’t go along with their Molon Labe viewpoints. Accounts repeatedly retweeted by… Drum Roll… Open Carry Texas!
The takeaway here is that the most vocal pro-gun people count on insults and intimidation to get their way. I’ve proven this before, here and here. They are certain to continue along these lines. For proof, just look to the comments underneath pieces like these. They are invariably jammed with gun lobby supporters trying to virtually shout me down.
Many of the commenters, it needs to be said, have had to be blocked from my personal profiles for vile attacks on my family as well as myself. That’s just how they roll. But there aren’t as many of them as they’d like you to believe. And most of them are in Texas.
Stand up to Open Carry Texas, and all those like them. Don’t let them have their way. OCT are not good guys, but bullies. They are dishonest about their motivations. They can’t even defend their own arguments. And if all they have are threats and insults, then just block them. The rest won’t be able to handle you, and they will block you.
But where you block them for threats and scorn, they will block you for the truth. You can’t get a clearer distinction of right and wrong than that.
“Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Crock of shit
statically speaking you are more likely to be killed by lightning than by an Ar-15 yet you idiots seem to be so keen on regulating something which in terms of the actual numbers has less chance to hurt you than even a hammer.
“statically” you are more likely to become a pacifist than to recognise how completely absurd that attempt at logical discourse is.
admittedly the sentence structure could use some work, but it was late after a long day.
however everything i said was true. you are more likely to be killed by lightning or a hammer than you are an AR-15. The irrational fear shown by people like you for such weapons it cute though.
As the author specifically illustrated the issue was not with guns but the meatheads wielding them, your comment does not apply here.
The others are right, you are falling all over yourself to prove the points made in this article.
Please proceed.
Oh, so what you are really saying is its a people problem not a gun problem? fancy that.
But this author has little in the way of rational points. He is a political pundit up there with Shannon Watts. He has no ability to reasonably argue why anyone should submit to gun regulations without insulting or committing the “appeal to emotion” fallacy. Not that anyone on the gun control side as of yet has been able to.
And so many on your side use the mantra “we don’t want to ban guns, just regulate them” but are incapable of showing an example where “regulation” hasn’t lead to a ban. P.S. i think there is like one. And then are stupid enough to try and compare non-regulation of firearms to Somalia. Like how mentally deficient can you be to think that is any kind of comparison?
But whatever, with the new congress you guys are SOL for at least a few years, and if Obama wants to pass his cute little ban on AR-15 ammo he is just going to piss people off even more, so digging his own political grave on that one.
But please, tell me more about how I am the apparent meathead here since none of you are capable of refuting any of my points and can only seem to amount to a “nuh uh” essence statement.
Pkay, now THAT’s rich — “Obama’s digging his political grave”? WHAT ELSE IS HE GOING TO RUN FOR? He’s in the last 18 months of his last term as POTUS, and has no declared plans to go back to Congress. Some folks want to “draft” him for SCOTUS, but that’s a whole other can of worms. You’re more foolish than I first thought, and that’s saying something.
It is a FACT that is AGAINST EXISTING FEDERAL LAW for any “registration”, “background check”, etc., measure to turn into confiscation or a ban. The so-called “assault weapons ban” actually only affected the cost of ownership and the availability of magazines.
Why are you afraid of a background check? Some employers check your credit before hiring you, the home-buying process involves a credit check on YOU AND a title history search on the PROPERTY! If you apply for a driver’s license in a state other than the first one you got a license from, your background gets checked. Suspended/revoked license from the home state? No license! That’s a bad thing?
OHH, WAIT, I KNOW….it’s your precious GUNS under scrutiny, more dear to your heart than religion. In fact, it IS your religion.
Hi, jackass — I’m an atheist.
the thing is, if there is a thunderstorm going on, people with sense go inside, this cuts down greatly on the likelihood of being struck by lightning. By not allowing idiots to carry whatever guns they want wherever they want to carry them, we are essentially ‘coming in from the storm’. The idiot who stays outside it more likely to get struck. The idiot who waves a gun around everywhere he goes is more likely to shoot or get shot. You may not be able to comprehend it, but others will.
which brings me back to my original point. Open carry essentially did not exist before people like the author started trying to get congress to regulate firearms. think of it as a counter protest if you will.
And with your thunderstorm comment, even though such is the case you are still about as likely to be struck by lightning as shot by an Ar-15.
Again, the real issue here is not necessarily whether or not the proposals on the gun control side have merit, but rather or not the government can be trusted to faithfully execute them without turning them into a political weapon. And they have already proven on multiple occasions they can not.
I think I would rather take my chances on getting hit by lightning than come across an idiot with a gun…LMAO!!!!
i got blocked by them a long time ago. I just get amused by their “arguments”.
see the underlying problem here is that groups like OCT exists precisely because of people like you. They are born out of your desire to control the lives of people who live thousands of miles away from you.
Oh wow, thank you so much for further proving his point. XD
oh please, do tell how pointing out how it is precisely because of people like him that there groups exist is proving his point? because that is a fact. when you go after a large part of someones life, what do you expect their reaction to be? “well shuks, these people that i will probably never meet want me to do these things because they think it is “common sense” even though most of them never have and never will handle a firearm so i guess i should just do what they tell me.”
You either didn’t read the article at all, or completely failed to understand it. Silversoul is correct–you just further proved Mike’s point.
That’s typical — you ignore the FACT that a gun in the home is far more likely to kill a family member than an intruder, and that a “good guy with a gun” is the worst lie you people tell, since your actions never prevent crimes, but many innocent people have been wounded and/or murdered by psychotic pseudo-cowboys. Here’s another fact for you: you’re a pathetic coward, and a liar, and a very real threat to public safety, and that is why those groups exist.
A U.S. citizen is, statistically, more likely to be killed by a toddler with a found weapon (or an adult with toddler mentality, like those who do nothing but deny actual facts while stomping their feet and crying because we want them to be responsible and safe with their toys) than a terrorist attack, yet you blindly flood the country with more guns while insisting on no background checks, safety instruction, etc., and standing behind every act of war that actually only kill foreign civilians, in the hunt for phantom enemies. You’re a joke. You’re a social cancer.
nicely said my friend
False, my self and several family members have been in situations where the danger was lessened or averted precisely because we had a gun. And i can give you many, many, many examples of such. That you call such things a lie is to be utterly ignorant of the truth. but i don’t expect much from a gun ignorant buffoon.
statically speaking you are more likely to be killed by lightning than by an Ar-15 yet you idiots seem to be so keen on regulating something which in terms of the actual numbers has less chance to hurt you than even a hammer.
However, certainly it would be nice to be able to trust government to have some sort of vetting process to make sure guns don’t fall in the wrong hands. but as we have seen in many instances where such regulation is in effect, it becomes a political weapon to wield by those in power to disbar their opponents from accessing firearms at the very least in an appropriately timely manner if at all.
You idiots like to say stuff like ” we don’t want to ban guns, just control them” yet in practice those controls become a defacto ban if not (as in every other comparable situation) evolve into and outright ban.
The social cancer here is you, and should one day nanny government stops working it won’t be people like you who survive the fallout, it will be people like me. Idiots like you NEED society to survive, i don’t.
Please oh please learn how to spell. It’s ‘statistically’ not statically. Your spelling is just as accurate as your statics. Idiot!!!
“Your spelling is just as accurate as your statics. Idiot!!!”
^LOL
Paul Joe G
Can you cite a source that backs your claim that having a gun in the home raises the chance of the people living there becoming victims of violent crime? If you’re trying to use the Kellerman study, that study has been debunked time and time again. According to how that data was collected, having a gun in the home increased your chances by 2.7x. It also showed that being a a renter raised it 4.7x. https://home.comcast.net/~dsmjd/tux/dsmjd/rkba/kellerman.htm
Paul Joe G.
The underlying problem is with the cowboy-fantasy cowards that only contribute to fear and violence. Grow up.
The question is, will the cops be even quicker to shoot someone who is carrying openly than they are to shoot some unarmed person they “think” might be reaching for a weapon.
And the problem is that the armed thugs, weather they have badges or gang tattoos, are such bad shots they catch innocent bystanders in the crossfire.