By Francis Wilkinson
I often focus on the dangers of reckless people with guns, rather than criminals with guns, for two reasons. First, reckless people seem very plentiful. Second, they are invariably ignored in gun-rights rhetoric. The gun-rights movement advances a Manichean vision of criminals and "law-abiding citizens," with the latter always and everywhere in need of heavy firepower to defeat the former.
National Rifle Association Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre's rhetoric about criminals -- "so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons" -- is basically pornographic at its peaks. But LaPierre is silent about the legion of gun-toting clods, bumblers, stoners, wife-beaters, fools and drunks who kill, or injure, Americans every day. (Once in possession of a gun, you don't need to be actively stupid to produce tragedy; you can be passively stupid.)
John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, also tends to divide the world into responsible citizens you can trust with a gun on one side, and hardened criminals on the other, with little room for nincompoops in between. But he is intelligent, gracious and patient in explaining, for example, the political -- and surprising constitutional -- differences he perceives between open and concealed carry. Between April 9 and 14, we communicated via e-mail about his advocacy of the open carry of guns, which he views as both a right and a way to habituate society to gun-carrying. An edited version of our exchange is below. (I've included a link at the bottom for the even longer, unedited version.)
More:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articl...ry-concealed-carry-and-crazy-carry?cmpid=yhoo
