The LA Times reports that an open carry protest rally get together hoe-down thingie went well enough—given that the Redondo Beach congregants were banned from the pier onto which they’d planned to gather. A dozen participants had a little pow-wow with a dozen police officers. Fortunately, no one played the dozens; the protestors agreed not to transgress the pier and no other civil disobedience occurred. The article on the rally attempts to end on a cheerful note, what with a couple of the protestors stepping onto the forbidden zone with a banana in their holsters (and boy were they glad to see you). But scribe Mike Anton’s interviewee makes an [unintentional] bad taste joke instead.
Saturday’s show of support for the current open carry law went off without incident. When Jeff and Tammy Cude stepped across the line — and onto the pier — they did so without guns in their holsters.
They packed bananas instead. Jeff had written “Glock” on his.
“It’s our little protest,” he said. He wore a Mickey Mouse cap and a T-shirt depicting various types of handguns and the message “Celebrate Diversity.” “This is all so ridiculous.”
And although his banana wouldn’t do much in the way of self-defense, it had other advantages.
“If I get hungry,” Cude said, “I’ll just eat my gun.”
Ooooh, that is bad taste.
Actually it depends on your tastes in bananas. I think they taste pretty good.
LA Times generally does not like open carry so when they do not get anything juicy they stick to the tasteless. The open carry advocates including myself met with police as a courtesy to address concerns. We had broader permissions in writing than what were exercised on this event. The event it originally was decided to be on the pier but after speaking to police and addressing concerns over poorly written policy and lack of clarifications by the city attorney who was reluctant to get back to me and Harley we agreed to open carry in a designated zone which we had a walk though with police to determine before the event.
We all were conversing, talking and having a good time at the event and I want to say thank you to the Redondo Beach Pier Police and the Redondo Beach Police for meeting with us to address concerns.
I hope that in the near future we can get certification to the broad and loosely formed terminology that is being used. The pier has 4 different names because there is nothing written that clearly defines the space the way the city attorney defined it.
Looking at the adopted regulations it is apparent there cannot be a clear definition of "other weapons" that would be enforceable. It is not open carries intention to challenge the police in anyway and that is clear. The media speculation and misreporting before hand created a hostile tone and concerned open carriers and the police. Open Carry has never been hostile to police, these are our respected public servants who help us. It is too bad there are people so hostile toward open carry who wish to misreport and try to stir trouble through gossip and rumors. This concerns both sides and causes public fear which is unnecessary. Using fear to foster a story is wrong in many ways.
Open Carry are law abiding citizens and police have nothing to fear. Police are here to enforce the law and watch for those breaking it. Open Carriers are not the ones breaking the laws and do what they can for the police when requested. The police and open carry have a positive relationship. If there was anything otherwise it would have been immediately aired by one of the people with the many cameras that are always present at these events.
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