What you miss is that when I was in Arizona and went into a sandwich shop to order lunch and saw the young woman behind the counter with a gun on her hip, I fled the place because i don’t want to be killed by a stranger.

I’m not a fool. Yeah, I’m liberal, which you probably think is synonymous with pussy.

But I jump out of airplanes and climb things as tall as skyscrapers with my bare hands for sport.

But I’m terrified of being killed by someone with a gun.

And so no, I won’t go to places where people are allowed to carry them.

I guess I should either man up and buy my own gun or move to Europe, ja?

Chris, really?, kinda funny how you see that.
I live in a state where open carry is legal.
And yes OC of a rifle does seem kinda silly, however, what if they do not own a pistol?
More often then not people are scared into CC or face harassment.
Arrests for “disturbing the peace”, getting detained etc., or some BS like that.
In fact most of the officers here were so unaware of this that internal memo’s had to be published to educate the ones who are supposed to know.
(Also tons of false arrests causing civil lawsuits brought this to light.)
The fact is just like the dumb flag burning issue on September 2015 the basic concept of symbolic speech in the First Amendment, which reads that Congress can’t make laws that “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”
“The Supreme Court has interpreted ‘speech’ and ‘press’ broadly as covering not only talking, writing, and printing, but also broadcasting, using the Internet, and other forms of expression. The freedom of speech also applies to symbolic expression.
Get those words in your head, symbolic expression.
My OC of my weapons be them pistols or rifle are absolutely “saying something” and “communicating” a message and certainly “expressing a message”.
So the way this grand Nation of ours works is by “piggybacking” things they want with things others want and leave things up for interpretation purposely. this way there is no solid law to bind themselves to.
A constant play on words to be used by the media and others to forward their agenda. for example. “Stomp on my flag and I’ll stomp your *ss”
This can be interpreted as if I see you stomping on a flag I’m gonna hurt you!” (By the way yes i fight the urge to brutalize someone for doing so, but it currently is what it is.)
Now lets play with it to make it quite different.
“Stomp on MY flag and I’ll stomp your *ss”, well then this now announces it as a flag owned personally by me.
Now a different statement.
Welcome to the way the government works 101.
So if you oppose OC of ANY weapon or how stupid you feel it is then it is that little piece of what they need to start hacking away. ” Combat Vet of 20+ years calls open carry stupid!” you can see from most of the reactions here that is exactly what you got! even though people who actually read it all can see the difference.
But that is not how it actually works.
Look at the restrictions, compliance’s etc. that get situational grounds for wide scale banning.
All these “Common Sense” laws put into place by people who don’t even know what common sense is or chose to ignore it for their own personal agenda.
Like not knowing what a clip or magazine is, quoting things like “20mm semi fully automatic magazine clip”.
Like ban a NEW AR-15, lets see.
It fires a .223 or .556 in a semi auto fashion out of an approximate 16″ barrel right?. BANNED where I live as part of “common Sense”.
I own a newly manufactured Mini-14, now lets look at it hmmm.., what do you know, It fires a .223 or .556 in a semi auto fashion out of an approximate 16″ barrel. NOT banned.
We all know that little to no research was done and it was banned on appearance and not the function through ignorance and fear.
So people who know next to nothing are influencing the fearful uneducated people of this country.
I suggest you exercise better judgement and real common sense when it comes to speaking out on anything anti gun, I believe you to be better than that, it does give the anti gun impression to those who don’t know better and those that do but again twist for their benefit.
BTW I also side with you on the “at ready” with the rifle, that would be to me like walking with my hand on my pistol or popping the thumb break off my holster when walking in.

I will say this though – I have no intention of stepping foot in any open carry state as I’m adamantly opposed to the idea and frankly scares the pants off me.

Here, we exchange words or flip the bird at an arsehole.
I’m sure if tempers flare in your neck of the woods, many people are tempted to draw their weapon.
It just doesn’t make sense and yes indeed – you look like idiots running around with your gun slung around your chest/shoulder. It’s lunacy.

Gays kissing in public or blacks eating in a whites-only cafe do not have the ability to kill everyone in the room.

LOL! I said I criticize dumbasses. Having a little problem with understanding what the Constitution actually says, are we? 🙂