I haven’t read the June issue of Playboy magazine. Truth be told, I haven’t read any magazine since 2004. Unless by “read’ you mean “look at the pictures.” Then sure, I’ve perused Guns & Ammo. As for Hugh Hefner’s rag, fuhgeddabout tit. Why pay for airbrushed areolae when you can get it for free online? As Playboy continues to ignore the fact that it’s almost as dead as its founder, the book’s editors continue to publish articles between pictorials of not entirely unattractive models (e.g., Ms. Corneliussen above, from a non-Playboy shoot). Since Armed & Dangerous. Has Gun Culture Gone Too Far? isn’t online, I haven’t read it. But a lot of bloggers have. In particular, John Pierce from opencarry.org. Who would do because he’s quoted. And here’s what he has to say about that . . .

[Pat] Jordan [not shown] wraps up with a litany of insults for us at OpenCarry.org, calling us a “liability”, “a wild card”, and the NRA’s “redheaded stepchild.”  But I have always said that, so long as they report what you actually said … and you didn’t say anything stupid, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

And think about it from another perspective.  We have Playboy running an article in which open carry is presented as the extreme alternative to the “righteous” activity of carrying concealed.

Think about that … We may not have finished our mission of normalizing open carry in every state, but we sure seem to have moved the bar a long way toward making concealed carry the new normal.  And that’s not a bad place to start … when you’re winning the culture war.

I’m sorry. What?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

28 COMMENTS

  1. “Has Gun Culture Gone Too Far?” NO!!! and I never noticed that PB had any words to read.

  2. It’s an application of the Overton Window. The idea behind the Overton Window is that there’s a scale of acceptability where an idea can fall that runs something like Unthinkable -> Radical -> Acceptable -> Sensible -> Popular -> Policy.

    The thing is, ideas can push one another along this scale. If an idea toward the left side of the scale (i.e. the less acceptable side) is put forward, an idea from the right side (i.e. the more acceptable side) can gain traction as a counter-proposal. So if people push for open carry (left side), concealed carry (right side) gets a boost because it’s seen as a “reasonable” counter to the less acceptable proposal.

    What ends up happening over time is that both ideas end up moving to the right side of the scale, shifting the window over.

  3. “Gun Culture” gone too far would be depriving people of the opportunity to get employment, credit or loans if they could not convincingly defend their three favorite cartridge preferences or excessively stigmatizing and descriminating against those who didn’t choose to be armed. Anything less is guaranteed by The Bill of Rights.

  6. I read the article, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. On the cover it said something along the lines of “has the gun culture gone too far?” but the article seemed to have a positive opinion of the second amendment and CCW. On open carry maybe not as much but better than I expected from Playboy.

  7. You know that the world is nuts when carrying on the down-low is considered dignified and open carrying is considered provocative. You’d think it would be the other way around.

    A person who carries his gun exposed to the world says that s/he is legal and above-board. Gangsters don’t carry openly. Cops carry openly. Yet in this “Through the Looking Glass” world we live in, the roles are reversed.

    • Great point. The public sees two types carrying open – cops and law-abiding citizens yet they still somehow equate citizens carrying open as something bad. I guess they’re too short-sighted and/or too stupid to realize that the idiots you really need to worry about will never ever open carry. I thank the stars I was never brought up to be a paranoid p***y.

  8. “Has Gun Culture Gone Too Far?

    No, but the Plastic Surgery Culture has. She has everything perfectly shaped in all the right places (except those ridiculous Duck Lips that are popular today), but there is nothing behind it all. No brain, an extremely shallow and self-centered personality, Nothing. Do people reaally think that deer-in-the-headlights expression is sexy?

  9. First, what the hell’s wrong with red-headed step-daughters? I knew a girl who had a step-father, and she was, well, hot.

    Second, it’s going to be an ugly world when the tissue of all these surgically puffed lips on models, actresses, and aging divorcees starts to collapse. Everywhere you go there will be hideously wrinkled but very large elephant lips.

        • That’s how hot they are. They’re done and gone and you’re left lying there asking yourself “Whose idea was that?”

    • my wife is a redhead. freckles and the entire works. the quickest way to get the “im gonna f–k you up” glare is when i use that expression 😀

  10. I hope the rest of the world is kinder to gun owners than you all are toward Playboy. Except for Matt Greg, who had the strange idea to actually read the article before being critical.

  11. That should read ‘areolae’. They usually come in pairs. I find that making a mental picture helps me remember hard words.

  12. My friend Jerry Henry, the Executive Director of GeorgiaCarry.Org, was interviewed by the author about 2 years ago. Jerry said the author used much literary license with events that did and did not happen. He also said he made up several quotes attributed to him and that he had never even heard of a fez before reading the article.

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