Open Carry Must Go

It was only a matter of time before some AR-15-carrying right-wing nutcase got so worked up that he shot a protester.  It happened last night in Albuquerque as protesters were attempting to remove a statue of a conquistador.

Do we want to make America the wild west again?  There is absolutely no reason for people to be allowed to carry firearms openly.  And for that matter, concealed carry licenses should only be granted to very few people who have a legitimate need.

There is a pathological romance with firearms in our society.  Small-minded men apparently need large guns to feel secure and significant.  This sickness infects all demographics, all ethnic groups and all neighborhoods.  The guy in the 'hood who doesn't feel like a man without his piece is no better or worse than the right-wing agitator who carries his AR-15 to a protest against COD-19 restrictions.  And the pathetic idiots who wander the country selling death in large numbers at gun shows would be worth pitying, if they weren't also a menace to public health.

The idea that society is somehow safer if large numbers of people are packing heat or toting automatic weapons is simply absurd.  The potential for violent conflict, road rage or accidental shootings is increased exponentially by having powerful weapons in the hands of the general public.  It just doesn’t make any sense at all. 

Proponents of open carry laws will trot out the old canard that if ‘guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns’, or the trope of the ‘good guy with a gun’.  Any serious research into the subject (if the NRA and its congressional lackies would allow serious research) would reveal that these are weak arguments.  

If we had strong gun laws with registration of all weapons, and a serious attempt to curtail gun sales and illegal ownership, along with a very strict criminal code for any crime using a weapon, eventually the veritable ocean of guns in this country would dry up.  

And it doesn’t take much analysis to recognize that ‘good guys with guns’ in a mass shooting or crime situation would simply add fuel to the chaos and confusion of the event and do more harm than good.

One of the major reasons that police are so highly adrenalized and prone to over-reaction is because of the massive number of guns in society that make each encounter a potentially lethal one.  Efforts need to be made to dramatically reduce this number.  How this can be done without the racial profiling and aggressive police tactics of 'stop and frisk' must be analyzed, but it is certainly possible with a concerted public effort.  Other countries have done it.

America is no longer a land of frontiers and rugged individualism.  Our freedom to hunt and target shoot should remain, but our freedom to carry weapons outside of our home must be curtailed dramatically if we are to make progress in policing reform and racial reconciliation.  These ideas may seem draconian, but they are long overdue and simply reflect the approach to weapons that Europe has benefitted from for many decades.