Replies

Carrying concealed does not imbue you with special knowledge about how business owners feel about armed patrons (I too am a CCW licensee in TX and nothing magic happened to my understanding of business liability issues when I got my license). I was responding to your remarks about business owners and the liability issue. You neither speak for business owners and obviously haven't thought it through. During the LA riots, business owners in Compton and Watts (the same ones you say are concerned about the liability of patrons shooting people) bought many guns during the riots and used them to prevent looting. Likewise many business owners stash guns in their business establishments and use them to protect themselves and their businesses. This is what I meant when I said you don't know what your talking about. What I should of said is don't make sweeping generalizations.

You call open carry advocates buffoons simply because Florida has a 10-15-Life law. In Florida you may be right, but in the broader context you are making a qualitative judgment based on what Florida law is, not on what truly is a good idea. If Florida law banned tea-drinking after 5 p.m. would that make drinking tea at 6 p.m. a bad idea. No. The quality or nature of something is not defined by the law. In practice the law should reinforce what is understood as good. We don't have (I don't believe) that same law in Texas. So your advocacy is moot outside of Florida.

You intimate that open carry may be an "intimidating" factor in minor incidences. I don't see how this is relevant unless what you're really arguing is that it is more likely that someone carrying open will use his side arm and conversely that someone carrying concealed wouldn't. This is a non-sequitor and I don't think you can prove that. If intimidation is your concern then Florida should outlaw being 6-foot 5 and weighing over 260 lbs. because that would intimidate me to no end if I had an accident and the guy in the other car looked like Atlas.

You may disagree with my point about policemen "regularly" killing innocents, and in retrospect that word may have been a poor one. But my point stands. Humans make mistakes including so-called trained experts. Don't point to one mistake and extrapolate from that that there will be wholsale mayhem (or as you say "wild west fantasies" or somesuch nonsense). It hasn't happened with concealed carry, why would open carry be any different?

For the sake of other readers, I am not hostile to police. I simply recognize that they too are humans with problems also (bad kids, financial problems, marital issues, job pressures) and they are not magical people. To assume so and subsequently yeild your rights based on this assumption is just plain foolish. Put a pair of shorts and a Hawiian shirt on a policeman and you have a regular citizen. If citizens have their foibles, then so do policemen.

Your arguments fail on several levels. First I have no problem with business owners, such as myself being armed, the point is PATRONS being armed!. It's the reason most gun shops and pawn brokers in these parts have big signs in their windows saying "NO LOADED WEAPONS ALLOWED". Believe me I have thought it through, if you think I'm so wrong about the liability issue, just give your insurance company a call and ask them how they feel about their customers allowing people, other than the police on the premises, they insure, being openly armed, see how they respond. As far as the LA riots are concerned, again the insurance industry would prefer business owners to NOT defend their business with firearms, due to the possibility of innocent patrons getting shot by poorly trained business owners. If you think I'm wrong here just contact any national convenience store chain such as 7-11, and ask them what their policy on their employees being armed. Even though a convenience store clerk is the most likely employee to be shot while on the job {even more so than bank tellers, and police}, the 7-11 chain as well as all other convenience store chains DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOW THEIR EMPLOYEES TO BE ARMED WHILE ON THE JOB. Why you ask??????? LIABILITY!!!!!!!!.

You also miss the point on the intimidation factor, in a fender bender for instance , it would be Very intimidating if the person who I just rear ended, is not only pissed off but openly carrying a loaded weapon, common sense dictates this, don't believe me?, next time your pulled over by the police get out of your car before the police approach you with your side arm on, and see how the police react {good luck}. Here in Florida the reason you cannot by law open carry is for that reason, you are even dissuaded from taking your concealed weapon out in plain view as not to alarm the public.

Again I must reaffirm the fact that you are having trouble with, which is the police are far better trained than are people with gun permits, this is simple common sense, and is why i don't have a problem with armed police entering my business because I know what I'm dealing with, I cannot say the same for some stranger who enters my business with a loaded open weapon, you see in my business I AM THE ONLY PERSON ALLOWED TO BE ARMED, AND I LIKE IT THAT WAY!