As do I. But this is an exercise that we may need to go through.
In the spirit of Brooks’ stated intent to try to drill down on a more granular position I’ll cast my vote.
1 Like
Or, it can be looked at as a binary search.
When polling humans, a forced choice (either this or that) is the only thing that works. I suspect, after a reasonable time, @bscharff will follow-up with a refinement of this poll. Iterating until, hopefully, a reasonable compromise is reached.
The simple fact is that there are people who are uncomfortable around firearms. Be excellent to one another means we should, at the very least, attempt to accommodate our fellow makers.
2 Likes
Or, put another way, I trust myself to handle a firearm safely, but not many others.
Also, as someone who grew up to respect guns and know how and when to use them, people having them out in a non-gun context (hunting, shooting range) makes me pretty uncomfortable.
1 Like
I would vote for Open carry, but there should be conditions in Place.
I find the open firearm discussion interesting. These are just my opinions, people are gonna do what they want regardless.
I own firearms myself, but for some reason I don’t see a need to show what I have at the space. Lets take a look at why alot people come in to the space, its therapeutic, a get away, a decompression chamber. Some folks may suffer from anxiety and come to the space to relaxe the brain.
To see someone openly carrying a firearm regardless of the intent is going to immediately take away that persons joy of coming to the space. I mean some folks are flat out visual, you piss somebody off and they have that firearm in view, something bad could transpire, vs… if its concealed, you might think about what your gonna do a little more.
Its funny we argue more about these machines and we can or cannot do to preserve them, and based on the machine use we argue about what we can or cannot do with them. Cant cut plastics or metal, not safe yet, cant laser certain materials releases gases, too unsafe. Cant use spray paint in the building too unsafe. So oddly enough those rules set by DMS are followed.
Yet when we talk guns, there seems to be no regard for the perception and or havok it could cause.
There is always a time and place for everything, at a gun range sure open carry, or whever guns are common denominator. At that point everyone is on the same page. You wouldnt take a gun to a bowling alley and be that one guy or girl that everyone is like what in the world.
I just hope everyone takes into considerations of all of the pros and cons, its one of those just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
There are kids around the space and there are future members being shown around, what do you think that will portray walking around a corner and a member has an AR-15 strapped around his back.
So be mindful, the handful that want to open carry, yeah you have the right to do so, buttttt, you risk having members drop off, and or new members not even bother to sign up, then this place will have to be turned into a gun range, cause thats all that gonna be in here is members with guns.
Pack your heat if you feel a need to, but hide it, lets try to keep the space therapeutic, and not a place of tension and worry.
6 Likes
I grew up in a household that abhorred guns and ‘gun culture’. As a child I was not even allowed to own a toy gun. My only experience with firearms was the shoot-them-ups on the boob tube. When I started working I spent some time in Arizona, which has allowed open carry for at least the last few decades.
It was shocking to go into a restaurant and see multiple individuals with a side arm that weren’t wearing uniforms. I will freely admit that this made me uncomfortable. What made me even more uncomfortable was being on the receiving end of multiple irate citizens when I was explaining what the future road system would look like for their area. These public involvement meetings are always (or nearly so) loud and confrontational. In Arizona, there were always at least a few folks with a gun on their hip during these sessions. I expressed my concern to our client, a public agency in the area, and was told that I didn’t need to worry about it, the most I would receive was what I had come to expect in other parts of the country–getting shouted at and told I was evil… 
After a while it sunk in that these folks were not going to call me out for a duel, or shoot me if they didn’t agree with me (which they most assuredly didn’t). In other words my fears and concerns were based not on reality, but my emotional responses. Emotional responses driven by a lack of experience and knowledge. The same arguments get pulled off the shelf every time a state has passed a more permissive gun law. A couple of decades ago when Texas was considering CHL, we heard frequent use of the argument that “something bad could transpire”, that folks would have duels over road rage. The fact is that such behavior is as rare now as it was before the passage of the new laws.
There is a real problem with letting one groups perceived problems drive our rule making. Since these problems only exist as perceptions in the mind of our members; where do we draw the line? For instance if we have members (and we almost certainly do) who are made uncomfortable by the presence of Muslims, homosexuals, children, Republicans, Lawyers (my personal one ), etc… do we need rules to make these people more comfortable?
I say no, because we already have a rule that applies, and it applies to both sides in every case. “Be excellent” to one another. That translates to is your being a Republican bothers somebody, then trry to avoid them. And if your the one being bothered, you to have an obligation to ‘live and let live’. Just because Republican’s make you uncomfortable, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t allow them in the space.
Yes that last example is a bit comical, but it illustrates the problem. Do we really want to be passing rules to accommodate members concerns based not upon objective problems (which haven’t occurred yet) but rather upon emotionally driven prejudices and perceptions?
Finally, if we had a member or group of members who chose to have one of these televised ‘gun rights’ events at the space, we already have a means of dealing with that. We ask them to leave. We don’t need a rule or policy on guns to address it. In much the same way that we have asked members who have caused conflicts/drama in the past to 'go home and cool off" for a while we can do so the first time here as well. Only IF this becomes a regular pattern should we be considering a rule to deal with it at all.
12 Likes
FYI - I think you can already openly carry ‘an AR-15 on your back’ as you say with current TX gun laws. You have been able to carry long guns openly in TX for some time. I have yet to see that happen at DMS even though it has been legal to do so.
The new law applies specifically to handguns. It only, to my understanding, allows for a handgun to be carried in a waist or shoulder holster.
GUN FREE zones get people killed. They are not safe.
1 Like
Can you cite your sources, please?
1 Like
The Facts about Mass Shootings
[quote]
“Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings
happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard
Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. [/quote]
P.S. I will say that since these are such rare occurrences, the data can’t really say if the lack of guns is a causal factor. But since we are only dealing with ‘feelings’ here, and not objective data the above quote should suffice.
We can say that most of the recent spate of such events have occurred in places where the chances of encountering someone with a gun is slight.
1 Like
I can copy/paste a list of links if you want… I dont think that is needed you can google for yourself. I will say that an FBI statistics link cited 13% of mass shootings happened in gun free zones. It also stated 38% of shooters were prohibited from owning a firearm.
It stands to reason that for someone who is bent on killing people the safest place for them to do so is a gun free zone. They would know that law abiding citizens will not be armed in a gun free zone by definition correct?
So either I’m misunderstanding, or you’re saying 87% of shootings happen in non-gun-free zones, and 62% of shooters were legally armed?
A study in active shooter events
The above is the FBI report he mentioned. Feel free to read. However, I will remind you’ll of Samuel Clemen’s quote before you or anyone else posts on the information…
Don’t get me wrong, I didnt say don’t carry, i said don’t open carry. There isnt a need for it.
Plus lets be realistic, if somebody came in blasting, and we all decided we want to heat packing rogues, we’d probably all shoot each other, cause everybody would start blasting.
So I’m just saying until that happens, i dont see a reason to brandish your heat out in the open, create un-needed tension and have folks questioning whether to go up to the space or not…
1 Like
Again, see my post above. There are many good reasons to prefer to carry ‘open’ rather then concealed at the space.
Also ‘brandish’ is a legal term and you are using it incorrectly when you are referring to someone with a holstered gun.
1 Like
OK, as my first post stated, these are my opinions, you guys are going to do what you want anyway…Until somebody gets hurt or something traumatic happens, and it gets tied back to this conversation. Then maybe folks might see it differently.
Brandish is a figure of speech, in literal terms TO SHOW your weapon. This isn’t about laws or law terms, its about “I can but should I”
Regardless, the whole conversation is moot, people are going to wild wild west it anyway, then somebody is going to take that priveledge and abuse it. Then when it gets to the point where you cant control it, then as stated, the space will turn into a gun club.
I mean we have a problem with folks abusing the machine and space priveledges now, what do you think is gonna happen with this…
However this is just me, i’m off to get my bullet proof vest and my riot helmet…I’ll be damned if it cant cut my wood
As has been mentioned multiple times, nothing is really going to happen with this, since for long guns it has been legal for years. And we haven’t had a problem yet.
BTW, your perception that a holstered weapon is brandishing is precisely the problem we are discussing.
1 Like
Careful. It’s a right, not a privilege. The latter is granted by government, the former is not.
There are other countries where that is not the case, should anyone care to relocate in order to avoid all of this.
1 Like
Actually, he was correct in this case. You do not have a right to possess a firearm on someone else’s private property, which DMS is. While I think it would be a horrible idea, DMS does have the authority and right to ban open carry, or carry of any kind.
1 Like
Ah, yes, ok. I think you’re probably right, but then DMS would assume responsibility for my safety while I was in a disarmed state? (Reasoning that I could have defended myself but was prohibited from doing so)
1 Like
Gotcha, ok i retract brandish sir…
How about just a simple line of showing your weapon so everyone els can see it.
Your right in that since, people are gonna do what they want when they feel like it, sometimes regardless of what the laws state…