“Flashing” is the slang term for indecent exposure: showing one’s genitalia to an unsuspecting stranger. It’s a serious sexual crime. In firearms terms, “flashing your gun” is known legally as” brandishing.” Unless the gun owner (or people in his or her care) is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, brandishing a firearm is also a crime. So, when theindychannel.com headlined their report on a Black Friday Open Carry demo Gun Advocates Flash Firearms Downtown, you can rest assured that they’re being deliberately misleading and provocative. To be 100 percent clear: the demonstrators didn’t “flash” their firearms at anyone. They carried them in full and plain sight, legally. Now about that picture . . .
Why did the news service choose to use such a nasty ass picture of the demo? Not only is the image barely distinguishable full stop, it doesn’t show the demonstrators’ faces or the surrounding environment. Which is, I’d like to suggest, the raison d’etre of this exercise. Open Carry. As in public.
Instead, the snap focuses on the big bad guns. Which is, I’d like to suggest, the liberal newspaper editors’ problem with Open Carry. Open carry. As in nut cases with weapons on city streets.
Indiana’s Open Carry one dozen-strong cohort certainly don’t sound like extremists. And why would they? The whole point of “gun normalization” is, uh, normality.
“We’re just really trying to educate the people about the gun laws here in Indiana,” said Steve Jensen [not shown]. “We generally have pretty good gun laws in Indiana, but we think a lot of people freak out when they see a gun in public because they’re not used to it.”
So how’d that work out for you? The paper fails to quote a single observer—which is probably just as well. Most news reports on gun demos are filled with quotes selected for maximum divergence. In fact, as a recent Gallup poll found, most people couldn’t give a rat’s ass about gun control issues, one way or the other. But we know of one group that cares deeply . . .
Gun advocates said Indianapolis police have harassed them on downtown streets by holding them for unreasonably long times after checking their permits.
IMPD said that in the current atmosphere, police need to check permits and a gun carrier’s intentions.
What current atmosphere might that be? Since when does the free exercise of a constitutional right—in full accordance with local and state law—depend on the police’s divination of the “current atmosphere”? Open Carry may scare a lot of people. But that unattributed quote scares me more.
Did you see this quote?
"Our recommendation to individuals who are exercising their rights is to
cooperate with officers and if the citizen believes their rights are
being violated the time to discuss that is likely later at a more safe
time," said Sgt. Thompson.
Tie that in with the "Current Atmosphere" quote, and you have some pretty scary implications..
Why this story wasn't the best, Fox59 here in town did a much better story, compared to the story the the Indy Channel did last Tuesday I see it as a positive.
Also in Indiana we don't have a brandishing law, we have pointing a firearm, felony if it's loaded, misdemeanor if it's unloaded.
Correct, there are no laws broken simply by open carrying a longgun and as long as the individual has a license to carry a handgun, they are legit.
Flashing….
I just got an image of a gun owner, in a trench coat, walking downtown and throwing the coat open to assail innocent citizens with the view of his twin sidearms in matching holsters… 😉
One of the biggest adjustments I had to make when moving away from small town middle Tennessee is the hysteria people seem to have up North at the very sight of a firearm. Where I grew up, it seemed like nearly everyone had a gun handy in the home, if not on their person. Last I remember we didn’t have blood flowing through the streets. Quite the contrary.
When the police are the only group that carries openly, they have power denied to people outside the closed fraternity. When citizens carry openly, the police monopoly of power is broken, and they don't like it. The "current atmosphere" that the IMPD resents is the one where citizens may to exercise their right to self-defense by carrying the means to protect themselves. Let's face facts — some officers join just for the power expressed by the gun, the badge and the uniform. Sgt.Thompson is clearly one of those. When we carry concealed, we make him less important than he thought he was. When we carry openly, then it really goes up his ass.
I have been reading all this. And for my 2 cents worth. I believe in the right to carry a hand gun open or canceled. But there is a place for both. If your in a crowed place down town, shopping center, Burger King. Use some common since. if I’m in a public place I pull me shirt over my holster or use inside belt clip. its their and I know it And there is no reason to flaunt it. I carrier a gun daily. But some of the morons protesting downtown that day scarred the hell out of me. Most of them didn’t look like they the brains to come out of the rain much less carry a gun.
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