Armed protestors show up for meeting of Mom's against guns

[Beiruty]

related:

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/Gun ... 14741.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyone can post the law for trespassing in a "public place"?

[G.A. Heath]

I think I will offer up 4 rules for open carry, these rules will be a guide to get good Public Relations.

Rule 1: Don't be an @** and don't let others make you look like one too.
The point of this rule is the key to getting good PR, The other three rules ensure this one is followed.

Rule 2: Don't touch your weapon, unless it is needed.
If you touch your weapon you give the opposition a chance to violate rule number 1. This simple and seemingly innocent act can result in a negative photo opportunity for the opposition and even allow them to file a police report against you or your group.

Rule 3: Interaction is critical.
When you encounter law enforcement you have to interact with them for the good of your event, your organisation, and the rest of the gun rights movement. You personally have a right not to interact with law enforcement, but for P.R. purposes you need to interact to avoid violating Rule #1. When approached by the media you must interact with them in the most professional manner possible. Interacting with the public and getting good PR is the goal, so you must put forward an effort to look as good as possible to the media and the general public. Having an open carry food drive for a local food bank will generate good PR, adopting a very busy highway and picking up litter is another high profile way to generate good PR. Confrontation must be avoided as it makes it easy to violate Rule #1.

Rule 4: Control your event and your crowd.
Keep your event on target, if you are having an open carry event then have just an open carry event. Ranting about Obamacare, tax rates, and other topics will distract from your purpose and confuse the public. Keep your crowd under control, do NOT allow them to hurt your image and the image of everyone involved in gun rights.

What exactly is the point of these events? When you've gathered x-number of people at point-A open-carrying rifles, shotguns, and antiques; then what? By what means do you consider an event successful or not successful?

In theory, and publicly stated, the purpose is to raise awareness, educate the public, and generate publicity for open carry. In actuallity I suspect its more of a get your cool-kids club card (more difficult to get since the admin here now tends to ban people from specific forums rather than the site over the OC topic*), get arrested if possible (the more times the better), and in general cause some sort of disturbance.

* = Violating the rules to push the OC agenda in their own unique way and get banned from TexasCHLforum.com was a favorite past time of the open carry movement until the last legislative session. Their own unique way included violating nearly every rule the administration of this forum had. After getting banned the violator would go back to which ever forum he was most comfortable in and proclaim "I got banned from the chl forum for talking about open carry..."

--edited to add the above qualification.

[VMI77]

If we'd just keep quiet, not bring attention to ourselves, and quit being confrontational, the anti-gunners will leave us alone.

[steveincowtown]

If we'd just keep quiet, not bring attention to ourselves, and quit being confrontational, the anti-gunners will leave us alone.

Hopefully this is tongue in cheek? I agree that these in your face tactics will do more harm than good, but to think for an instant that the left wingers will ditch their anti gun efforts if we just "keep quiet" is just not the case.

[TexasCajun]

I think I will offer up 4 rules for open carry, these rules will be a guide to get good Public Relations.

Rule 1: Don't be an @** and don't let others make you look like one too.
The point of this rule is the key to getting good PR, The other three rules ensure this one is followed.

Rule 2: Don't touch your weapon, unless it is needed.
If you touch your weapon you give the opposition a chance to violate rule number 1. This simple and seemingly innocent act can result in a negative photo opportunity for the opposition and even allow them to file a police report against you or your group.

Rule 3: Interaction is critical.
When you encounter law enforcement you have to interact with them for the good of your event, your organisation, and the rest of the gun rights movement. You personally have a right not to interact with law enforcement, but for P.R. purposes you need to interact to avoid violating Rule #1. When approached by the media you must interact with them in the most professional manner possible. Interacting with the public and getting good PR is the goal, so you must put forward an effort to look as good as possible to the media and the general public. Having an open carry food drive for a local food bank will generate good PR, adopting a very busy highway and picking up litter is another high profile way to generate good PR. Confrontation must be avoided as it makes it easy to violate Rule #1.

Rule 4: Control your event and your crowd.
Keep your event on target, if you are having an open carry event then have just an open carry event. Ranting about Obamacare, tax rates, and other topics will distract from your purpose and confuse the public. Keep your crowd under control, do NOT allow them to hurt your image and the image of everyone involved in gun rights.

What exactly is the point of these events? When you've gathered x-number of people at point-A open-carrying rifles, shotguns, and antiques; then what? By what means do you consider an event successful or not successful?

In theory, and publicly stated, the purpose is to raise awareness, educate the public, and generate publicity for open carry. In actuallity I suspect its more of a get your cool-kids club card (more difficult to get since the admin here now tends to ban people from specific forums rather than the site over the OC topic*), get arrested if possible (the more times the better), and in general cause some sort of disturbance.

* = Violating the rules to push the OC agenda in their own unique way and get banned from TexasCHLforum.com was a favorite past time of the open carry movement until the last legislative session. Their own unique way included violating nearly every rule the administration of this forum had. After getting banned the violator would go back to which ever forum he was most comfortable in and proclaim "I got banned from the chl forum for talking about open carry..."

--edited to add the above qualification.

So according to this, was the event in question a success? If so, please qualify the achieved goal. If not, what gains (if any) were achieved by this event?

[VMI77]

If we'd just keep quiet, not bring attention to ourselves, and quit being confrontational, the anti-gunners will leave us alone.

Hopefully this is tongue in cheek? I agree that these in your face tactics will do more harm than good, but to think for an instant that the left wingers will ditch their anti gun efforts if we just "keep quiet" is just not the case.

Yeah, it's snark. While it's not illegal, there is effectively no open long gun carry in this State now. I haven't seen open long-gun carry in a public place for about 20 years; and I live in small town Texas, not the Big City (with one exception --a couple years ago I did see a guy open carry a deer rifle from his car into Academy to have his scope bore sighted). I'm also not an advocate of open carry for handguns. While I can see some slight benefits to it, as a rule I wouldn't open carry even if it was legal.

[Cedar Park Dad]

If we'd just keep quiet, not bring attention to ourselves, and quit being confrontational, the anti-gunners will leave us alone.

How about instead if you just protest like normal people, with signs and such, and not actively give the antigunners ammunition against all gun owners EVERY TIME YOU SURFACE.

[bayouhazard]

If someone doesn't stop them, before we know it they'll be eating at a Woolworth's lunch counter.

[Cedar Park Dad]

If someone doesn't stop them, before we know it they'll be eating at a Woolworth's lunch counter.

Really? You're going to make that comparison?

More accurately, "if someone doesn't stop them, before we know it all OC of any type will be banned."

[Purplehood]

If someone doesn't stop them, before we know it they'll be eating at a Woolworth's lunch counter.

The last bunch of folks to dine at the Woolworth's counter didn't 'you-know-what' in their own food to make a point.

[bayouhazard]

Neither do these guys except maybe to people who chug the Bloomberg koolaid.

[Cedar Park Dad]

Neither do these guys except maybe to people who chug the Bloomberg koolaid.

yea, they really do.

[Jumping Frog]

Seems like one weakness our movement has is the reflexive leap to crucify other pro-gun advocates if we don't agree with any aspect of their position.

I can't search and link adequately while on my phone, but there was an analogous counter-protest in Columbus OH about 3-4 months ago. There was an anti-gunner group scheduled a protest and announced on FB. About 6-7 people showed up to support that. Meanwhile, the counter-protest had over 100 people carrying NRA-ILA signs while open carrying handguns and rifles. The news coverage was very favorable about how it had turned into an NRA rally.

[G.A. Heath]

In theory, and publicly stated, the purpose is to raise awareness, educate the public, and generate publicity for open carry. In actuallity I suspect its more of a get your cool-kids club card (more difficult to get since the admin here now tends to ban people from specific forums rather than the site over the OC topic*), get arrested if possible (the more times the better), and in general cause some sort of disturbance.

* = Violating the rules to push the OC agenda in their own unique way and get banned from TexasCHLforum.com was a favorite past time of the open carry movement until the last legislative session. Their own unique way included violating nearly every rule the administration of this forum had. After getting banned the violator would go back to which ever forum he was most comfortable in and proclaim "I got banned from the chl forum for talking about open carry..."

--edited to add the above qualification.

So according to this, was the event in question a success? If so, please qualify the achieved goal. If not, what gains (if any) were achieved by this event?

Did they waise awareness of OC? I doubt it. Did they educate the public in anyway? Only that they are looking for a confrontation. Did they generate publicity? Yes, although it looks like it was bad publicity.

So on to what I suspect are the actual goals. Did they get their cool kids card? I don't care. Did any of them get arrested? Looks that way. Did they cause a disturbance? Looks like they caused a minor one.

My suggestions are aimed at preventing the problems they are causing, but I doubt they care.

[Rrash]

Lets say I were at a DU dinner, and a bunch of PETA nuts showed up outside the restaurant with signs, buckets of red paint, etc., I would take that as a threat.

I would love to see open carry pass, but assembling with open firearms does nothing but give anti-2A people the attention they want. In my opinion, you could have assembled with American flags, pro-2A/OC signs, passed out literature with statistics, attempted civil conversations with bystanders, etc.