First, let’s talk about open carry versus concealed carry. Open carry is great, but it has its drawbacks. Remember when a Starbucks barista in Tempe asked several police officers to leave the building because “a customer didn’t feel safe” in their presence?
People have made it clear they don’t like to be around guns — or, to be more precise, visible guns. A photo of a man open-carrying in a coffee shop led at least one woman to say she’d call the police because if you’re carrying a gun around in plain sight, she’s going to assume you’re a bad guy. Just wait until the cops show up with their guns, which makes customers at coffee shops feel unsafe too.
In short, a lot of people believe their right to the pursuit of happiness trumps your right to carry a gun out in the open. If they see you with a gun, they’re not happy.
But then there’s concealed carry, the whole point of which is, you don’t know the person is carrying a gun. You’ve been around people carrying guns and don’t even know it.
As Twitchy reported earlier, expert Tom Nichols mixed it up with the Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy, who had pulled up a bunch of old tweets from Nichols saying, “Statistically, if you think you’re carrying to stop another church massacre, it’s stupid.” Nichols dug in, saying that it’s like refusing to fly if you hear there’s a plane crash — the statistics shouldn’t keep someone grounded.
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Nichols is still going, and we’d like to circle back to him because there’s a good argument about concealed carry going on. But first, let Nichols summarize what he’s been hearing from the conservative gun nuts.
Gun nut conservatives: Liberals worry too much about guns, they want to ban them because they're just weenies who have a fear of guns.
Also gun nut conservatives: People shooting it out in churches is so common that we should all be packing in the pews every Sunday morning.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
No. Gun avocates don’t say that. Liberals posing as conservatives create straw men who say that. What we say is we should be able to carry and protect ourselves anywhere we like. And one church shooting is enough to prove our point. And there is no downside to us carrying.
— Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) December 30, 2019
1. One, two, or even three, shootings is not enough to prove your point
2. I agree that you have a right to a weapon, I just wish you wouldn't carry it everywhere, because I think there's more risk to the rest of us from that
3. Of course there are downsides to carrying a weapon.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
Your 2 and 3 prove every other conservatives point today about your gun stance. You are safer if my friends and I are armed. Your danger comes in a room where no good guys are. If you do not believe that please don’t call yourself pro gun.
— Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) December 30, 2019
I am not pro-gun, I am pro-Constitution. I accept that you have the right to do things I think are unwise, and the last place I want to be is in a room with you and your gun-totin' pals.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
Don’t worry, you’re not invited ?
— Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) December 30, 2019
Not because I wouldn't want to hang and argue and head-butt with you guys, but I try not to hang out with guys who carry who aren't cops or retired LE. Not my, um, cultural background.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
So if you own a gun but aren’t a cop, what exactly is Nichols assuming about you?
Except you probably have and don’t know it — which is typically the point. People who carry concealed don’t go out of their way to tell people and aren’t drawing on people like Doc Holliday over an insult as you seem to think.
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 30, 2019
Sure seems to be a lot of bragging and bloviating about it right here. And I am never going to think it is normal or healthy for the average citizen to walk around the supermarket with a gun on their hip.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
< Insert hole_digging.GIF here >
Fortunately, there are no anecdotes about people losing their shit while carrying in church.https://t.co/WFmeekeUSV
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
Good thing Google was able to find that one example from *squints* 3.5 years ago.
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 30, 2019
I have a couple of more, would you like them? Seriously, what is the obsession with guns, and the need to carry them everywhere?
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
It’s not an obsession. Maybe start there.
— Coshoct (@Coshoct) December 30, 2019
Get those same things said whenever school shootings are the topic.
— MrHammondSCHistory (@hammond_history) December 30, 2019
Yes. Arm the teachers! What could go wrong.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 30, 2019
Let’s also step back and realize that “Arm the teachers!” in real life means letting teachers trained in the proper use of a firearm to carry if they so choose.
— Sean Cameron (@scriptcomes1st) December 30, 2019
What Tom's doing to that strawman rn… pic.twitter.com/Glf5NpKAUw
— ConservativeBlackMan ???? (@NevilleD35) December 30, 2019
Self described Expert: lets complain about a member of the congregation shooting the terrorist before he could kill others
— Glenn Amurgis (@gamurgis) December 30, 2019
Also gun nut conservatives: someone with a gun stopped many people from dying in church this Sunday. Those people had their guns at service, as they often do, without anyone knowing or getting hurt beforehand. There is no possibility of denying they saved lives.
— I'm just here to slay. (@Imjustheretosl1) December 30, 2019
I'm so sorry reality has hurt you in this way.
— ?? New Year's Terrapin Andii ?? (@Andiiterrapin) December 30, 2019
How ever common or uncommon shootings are in churches, what would be the likely impact at this point of telling all the good guys to leave their guns at home?
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) December 30, 2019
Fires are rare, but I keep an extinguisher in my kitchen & garage.
Break-ins are rare, but I lock my doors at night.
Lightning strikes are rare, but I stay inside during storms.
Hating preparedness against unlikely tragedy isn't even a hill worth getting wounded on.
— Holiday Cheersay (@RummaTumTums) December 30, 2019
You fire extinguisher-nut conservative!
— I. Noah Guy, The MSG Diet Plan will change ur life (@Decentguyusedto) December 30, 2019
It’s called insurance. And much like insurance, you hope you never get a return on your investment because then that means something really bad happened.
— AnRam (@AnRam13) December 30, 2019
I'm guessing you'd not only move into a 100-year floodplain, but you'd also forego any insurance as well.
— Aaron Lockhart?? (@arabbitorduck) December 30, 2019
Mass shootings are fairly infrequent events, but if one is in a location with a large number of individuals & a police presence is lacking, prudence dictates being prepared. Kind of like how terror attacks that kill thousands of Americans are infrequent, yet we take precautions.
— Harold Stickeehans (@StickeeNotes) December 30, 2019
It’s like we mentioned above: Some people just don’t like the sight of guns, and if someone is carrying a concealed weapon, they’ll never see it and (hopefully) never know about it until it’s used in a situation like this one. If you aren’t even comfortable with concealed carry, we can’t help you.
Related:
Jerry Dunleavy gets Tom Nichols to go full corncob over White Settlement church shooting and carrying guns in houses of worship https://t.co/pp6OXWju9s
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 30, 2019
