{"id":44032,"date":"2014-05-22T12:05:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T17:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=44032"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:37:00","slug":"on-the-one-hand-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=44032","title":{"rendered":"On The One Hand…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…if I\u00a0did\u00a0<\/em>have a gun and a carry permit, I’d never carry openly. \u00a0Part of it is that is that it’s the sort of thing you want to keep under wraps if you ever need it.<\/p>\n

Part of it is that the anti-gun movement has trained the weak-minded to be such incredible ninnies.<\/p>\n

And part of it is that it is, to some people, a scary imposition. \u00a0And while I disagree with them, there’s no point in picking fights I don’t need to.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there is a definite point to meeting people halfway in terms of perceptions.\u00a0 When the group that eventually became GOCRA got organized almost twenty years ago, one of its ironclad rules was “No Camo”; nobody was to wear camouflage to any of the group’s events.\u00a0 The point?\u00a0 Help people see that shooters were like them, not like their stereotypes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So while I understand and respect the opinions of many of my open-carry activist friends – “a right un-used is a right easily abridged” –\u00a0I’ll demur on carrying openly, since while there are as many good reasons to carry openly as there are to wear camouflage, there are exactly the same reasons not to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong; I disagree with Chipotle’s decision to ask shooters not to bring guns into its stores<\/a>.\u00a0 They’ve got a lot of customers to keep happy, and the bobbleheads who decided to use a Chipotle to stage their pro-open-carry protests ruffled some feathers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.<\/p>\n

But in a statement Monday, the company said that “the display of firearms in our restaurants has now created an environment that is potentially intimidating or uncomfortable for many of our customers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Of course, it’s not really about complaints from real people.\u00a0 There are professional <\/em>ninnies involved:<\/p>\n

The announcement came after a petition by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which has called on other companies to ban firearms in their stores as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Of course, there are two dumb calls here; the “protesters” picked a fight they really didn’t need to – and Chipotle caved in to an astroturf group’s toothless yapping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That said?\u00a0 I’m not boycotting Chipotle, for the same reason as\u00a0David Harsanyi: <\/a><\/p>\n

As a 2nd Amendment fan, I believe Chipotle is making a mistake. Yet, it isn\u2019t exactly undermining our Constitutional rights by asking consumers to keep their guns out of their businesses. (Please read Charles Cooke\u2019s dismantling of the perpetually confused Sally Kohn\u2019s attempt to conflate two very distinct ideas.) Though Chipotle acted for the wrong reasons, it has every right to create an experience for its consumers that it finds safe and inviting.<\/p>\n

Fact is, if the CEO of Qdoba\u2019s was a libertarian plutocrat who supported all my favorite organizations, I\u2019d still choose Chipotle because when it comes to food I owe more to a good product than a philosophically sound owner. Chipotle was founded on an exemplary idea and its execution and consistency have won my business \u2014 even when I disagree with its choices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here’s the key distinction, with emphasis added:<\/p>\n

Now, if this company was forking over millions to some finger-wagging Michael Bloomberg-funded gaggle of authoritarians I\u2019d would probably have to reconsider<\/strong>. But, as far as I know, that\u2019s not the case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0That’s the line, right there.<\/p>\n

I didn’t patronize Minnesota businesses that posted “No Firearms” signs in the wake of the Shall Issue law passing in 2003.\u00a0 Neither did so many others that the vast majority of those signs have disappeared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I personally didn’t patronize Hewlett-Packard, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, KFC or Taco Bell when they donated big bucks to the Brady Campaign.\u00a0 Either did hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of others – which is why those donations have evaporated.\u00a0 Working to show up Moms Want Action’s! message as the vapid lies they are, and destroy their credibility with thinking people?\u00a0 Goes without saying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But asking people to keep their guns out of plain sight in deference to the customers who may be hoplophobic ninnies, but whose money hits Chipotle’s bottom line with the same satisfying “ching” yours does?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m not thrilled, but I get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…if I\u00a0did\u00a0have a gun and a carry permit, I’d never carry openly. \u00a0Part of it is that is that it’s the sort of thing you want to keep under wraps if you ever need it. Part of it is that the anti-gun movement has trained the weak-minded to be such incredible ninnies. And part of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325,45,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-gun-control","category-gun-free-zones","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44032"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49739,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44032\/revisions\/49739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}