The current interpretation of the Second Amendment amounts to a murder-suicide pact. That’s because in states with permissive gun laws (i.e., most states), it requires citizens to tolerate the presence of heavily armed people in public spaces.
Until the moment they start mowing down passersby, the heavily armed person is “just being a person, doing what he had the right to do.” (NYT gift link):
ATLANTA — Two days after a gunman killed 10 people at a Colorado grocery store, leaving many Americans on high alert, Rico Marley was arrested as he emerged from the bathroom at a Publix supermarket in Atlanta. He was wearing body armor and carrying six loaded weapons — four handguns in his jacket pockets, and in a guitar bag, a semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Moments earlier, an Instacart delivery driver had alerted a store employee after seeing Mr. Marley in the bathroom, along with the AR-15-style rifle, which was propped against a wall. A grand jury indictment later described what had come next: “panic, terror and the evacuation of the Publix.”
Mr. Marley, then 22, was arrested without incident that day in March 2021. His lawyer, Charles Brant, noted that he had not made any threats or fired any shots, and had legally purchased his guns. Mr. Marley did not violate Georgia law, Mr. Brant said; he was “just being a person, doing what he had the right to do.”
This isn’t a problem in other industrialized countries because they aren’t as fucking stupid about guns as we Americans are. We got even stupider in June when the corrupt conservatives on the Supreme Court struck down limits on carrying guns in public in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen case.
States that aren’t run by members of the pro-mass murder party are enacting legislation that they hope will survive another review by the pro-mass murder majority on the Supreme Court. But hard-right Justice Alito’s comment on the dissenting opinion demonstrates the mindset we’re dealing with here:
“It is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section,” he wrote. “Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities?”
No, you stupid fuck of an ivory tower-dwelling Alito — most of us who’ve passed a fifth grade social studies class realize the mere existence of laws doesn’t prevent every crime! The dissenting justices were rubbing your stupid face in the blood-soaked results of your stupid reasoning.
The Atlanta case against inactive shooter Rico Marley is ongoing. He was denied bond and charged with an attempt to commit 11 felonies, but then charges were dismissed and he was released. After 10 months, he was rearrested when a grand jury indicted him on 10 misdemeanor counts. He pleaded not guilty and is currently in custody.
Anyhoo, one of the most surprising things in the article is the following sentence:
Taking out the rifle in the men’s room would have most likely violated the law in Illinois, Florida and California, where open carry is banned, Mr. Charles said. But states with more lenient gun laws have struggled with scenarios similar to the one involving Mr. Marley.
Florida — along with Illinois and California — is not currently an “open carry” state. The recently reelected governor plans to remedy that as soon as the wingnut supermajority statehouse sends him a “constitutional carry” bill to sign.
That will mean anyone who legally owns a gun can carry it in public — concealed or not — with no training, license, permit, etc., except where restricted by law, i.e., in statehouses, courthouses, airports, private property where disallowed, etc.
I mean, it’s Florida. What could possibly go wrong?
Open thread.
Open Thread: Us and Them
anon
The short term solution is to call police whenever you see someone with a gun and there’s the slightest doubt about their intentions. Let the police earn their pay. If you yourself are carrying and have big enough brass ones, you can play good guy with a gun.
Baud
This is the most surprising part
Because Mr. Marley is a young black man.
Starfish
The grocery store shooter in Colorado is not considered mentally fit to stand trial.
Open carry states have more violence.
Hoodie
It’s Georgia, not Florida. Georgia is open carry. However, you’d think a creative PI attorney could bring a case of intentional infliction of emotional distress in a case like this. This is beyond just wearing a gun strapped to your hip.
Cameron
You mean the same Florida that pioneered ‘Stand Your Ground?’ I see no downside at all.
The Moar You Know
The all guns all the time crowd is going after this one hard. And they’ve won in some places.
I own guns and like shooting them at the range, but this shit cannot be allowed to continue. I used to tell people at the range, back when you could have rational discussion about this, that gun owners were going to have to start regulating themselves or we were going to lose the right.
We’re going to lose the right. We should. Gun owners these days act like four year olds, and that includes a real shitty attitude about range rules and basic safety. I rarely go to the range anymore because people there won’t stop doing stupid shit and the management won’t enforce their own rules anymore.
Mike in NC
Called our friends in Tampa last night to wish them a Happy New Year. Their house goes on the market in a few weeks and they absolutely cannot wait to bug the fuck out of Florida. New house is under construction in the Asheville area, so we’ll have a place to visit in the mountains.
wombat probabilty cloud
The exemption for statehouses and courthouses seems incongruous with the current Supremes’ “logic.” Not to mention airports. Danger for thee but not for me?
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
What about the emotional distress of the person not allowed to carry his loaded penis extender in public?
I haven’t really noticed a large number of women open carrying. Seems to be mostly
boysmen with a maturity level of a 5 yr old.Cameron
Florida: wear a gun, not a mask.
Old School
Now that the metal detectors are gone, Kevin McCarthy should wear a similar outfit to the House floor tomorrow. That’ll show he means business.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Moar You Know: Hear hear.
I’ve said this for years: “If we, as responsible gun owners, are not willing to engage honestly with people who simply don’t want kids killed in job lots at school, eventually that precious 2nd will go by the boards.
Because ‘fuck your dead kids’ is a terrible campaign slogan.”
Ruckus
@Cameron:
How many are wearing a mask?
If this country had made wearing a mask mandatory how many would have fought that?
brantl
I keep expecting to hear of some Florida nursing home winding up with a multi-fatality shootout that starts with some near-sighted old fart cleaning a loaded gun.
Roger Moore
Guess who had to shelter in place today because of an armed person nearby? The gun lobby and their stooges in the government can go fuck themselves.
Miss Bianca
@Cameron: Shoot the virus!
realbtl
I’m pleasantly surprised that in 20+ years of Living in Montana I’ve never seen someone wandering the streets, stores etc carrying a gun. Maybe because for a majority a gun is still considered a tool. I mean you wouldn’t open carry your framing hammer say.
Cameron
@Ruckus: Don’t know about nation-wide, but in my neck of the woods in Florida, mask-wearers are few and far between. I’m often the only person on the bus wearing one.
And I’m not sure who would have fought a mask mandate, absent the MAGA noise machine. Didn’t they have some government controls during the 1918 flu epidemic?
brantl
@realbtl: I might have that, if I was working on a job and went to lunch, it would be in the hammer loop in my carpenter’s pants.
brantl
California passed gun legislation in a Republican-led bill, when the Black Panthers started getting concealed carry permits.
Cameron
@brantl: Ronald Reagan saw the light – all it took was a group of Panthers carrying long guns to show up in Sacramento.
Gravenstone
How insecure and paranoid must one be to carry a literal arsenal on and about their person, only to consider it “doing what he had the right to do”?
Edmund Dantes
@Cameron: there were anti maskers in 1918 also.
Sure Lurkalot
Alito’s and more generally the Republican position on guns is the same as the anti COVID mitigation crowd. If something isn’t 100% effective, it’s worthless.
I’m sincerely freaked out that millions of people in this country are fine that it’s awash in guns and disease. I followed a “good idea to think about masking indoors considering transmission rates” Twitter thread and what a cesspool of humans.
The Moar You Know
@Cameron: Quite a few. The same thing happened that happened with this pandemic; a bunch of people freaked out, national anti-mask leagues were formed, and it had long lasting political effects, not the least of which were laws against wearing masks in public, some of which are still on the books today.
HypersphericalCow
So if Neo walks into a restaurant the way he walked into that building, that’s cool, right?
Edmund Dantes
@anon: if they are white, go for it. If their complexion is darker, don’t become an accessory to their potential murder by cops.
Roger Moore
@brantl:
That’s not quite correct. The California- passed when Reagan was governor- law was about open carry, not concealed carry. California had restrictions on concealed carry long before that, and the Panthers were taking advantage of the law allowing open carry without a permit. That obviously didn’t sit well with the bigots, and the law forbidding open carry passed quickly and with little opposition.
That said, I fully support laws banning open carry, even if the origin of the law is suspect. I’d be a lot happier if we were allowed to ban concealed carry, too.
cain
If you want to get robbed, yeah, feel free to open carry. That looks like an easy grand or so that they can fence once they get a hold of it.
Cameron
@Edmund Dantes: I’m sure there were objectors to Washington’s order that all Colonial troops should be vaccinated for smallpox, too.
What I think is different today is that it’s considered A-OK to insult (and occasionally assault) people who are trying to follow public health guidelines. To be fair, this is something I’ve read about but not experienced. Even though as a mask-wearer I’m distinctly in the minority, people don’t give me a second look. Of course, they might not give me a second look if I were carrying a machine gun, either.
Roger Moore
@Sure Lurkalot:
If something they don’t like isn’t 100% effective, it’s worthless. You don’t see them suggesting we should give up the war on drugs, patrolling the border, or regulating abortion because laws on those things aren’t 100% effective.
Ruckus
@Cameron:
Here in SoCal I’d say indoors it might get as high as 40%. Just a wild ass guess but I still have neighbors who wear them to walk their dog. I wear one while shopping, age makes me a bit cautious, as does always being around a lot of people, which around here, you always are. Remember that LA county has a larger population than 40 states. Which, if we didn’t have a fixed number of reps in the house would mean LA county would have more reps than 40 states as well.
trnc
We all have the right to do plenty of things, but society doesn’t function very well if people choose to do some of them as often as they can just because they can. We have the right to make our kids stay at home and not let them go out at all. Who thinks that would make any kid grow up to be a stable adult?
“All the rights and none of the responsibility” gets old for anything.
davecb
“Mills bomb”, as my old Sergeant-Major would say. Qv (:-))
anon
@Roger Moore: bingo
HinTN
@brantl: Which St Ronnie signed!
Sure Lurkalot
@Roger Moore:
You’re absolutely right, not only are they sick fucks but they’re hypocrites too.
Freemark
@Ruckus: When I first started reading I thought you were talking about wearing a gun…lol. SoCal made me realize pretty quick what you meant. But there are areas of the country my first assumption would be correct.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: I’m sorry you experienced that. I’m in that club too, and it can make your views on guns a lot more…personal.
IMO, that will cause the tipping point, eventually. Not classrooms of dead children but rather sheer numbers of voters who acquire personal experience with the business end of a gun, either as those who shelter in place themselves or those who exchange panicked texts with loved ones, including kids, in that situation.
coin operated
I looked up Mr. Marley before reading the comments. I am surprised his skin color didn’t get him extrajudicially executed.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: My experience was many, many years ago, and that was getting held up at gunpoint and getting my head split open. Didn’t make me a gun believer. At all.
jnfr
This has come up in Colorado before. We’ve had an awful lot of mass shootings in our state. The last one I remember had a guy walking around a neighborhood with some kind of long gun slung over his back, and several people called police who could do nothing because he was not threatening anyone.
That ended with three people dead. Then they were allowed to arrest him.
Roger Moore
@jnfr:
I do kind of wonder how open carry is supposed to interact with Stand Your Ground, because a lot of the people who like to open carry make me honestly fear for my life. Does that mean it’s OK to shoot them first?
Kelly
The only person I’ve seen open carrying around here was a woman probably in her 20’s. Lavender grips and skintight black tacticool pants. The rarity is kinda surprising given the number of aggressively pro-gun stickers on pickups and SUVs around here.
jnfr
@Roger Moore:
Pretty sure we lose because reasons.
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: Answer depends on how you (and they) score on the Paper Bag test.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
AFAIAC, open carry is of the devil. We all should have the common-sense right to regard the sight of a non-LEO carrying a gun in public as a danger and a threat. We should be able to call the cops to come and arrest that person and confiscate their firearm. Legal open carry entirely defeats that.
I can see some justification for limited concealed carry, such as if your job has you going into a dangerous part of town. (And if it’s dangerous for you, then it’s also dangerous for the people who have to live there, therefore…) But IMHO a concealed carry permit should be limited to the specific situation for which you’ve demonstrated a distinct need for it; a concealed carry permit shouldn’t give you the right to carry wherever you choose.
But open carry? Fuck that insanity.
Honus
@brantl: I framed houses for fifteen years, and never wore my framing hammer off the job site. Tool belts are uncomfortable in addition to looking dorky at a lunch counter.
Feathers
Even at the time, it was clear that these laws were intended to make this nation ungovernable. It only emboldens the anti-government crowd. https://twitter.com/kyleclark/status/1610416322432696321?s=46&t=42QiSYDt5m8O89dOWw_JeQ
Kelly
In other news Damar Hamlin’s toy drive GoFundMe is at about $5.5 million of a $2,500 goal. Not much change in his condition although I have a lot of hope due to the prompt, professional, well equipped care.
Honus
@Roger Moore: Virginia has been the opposite. Open carry was always legal; concealed carry was a felony. I remember being taught that if I had a handgun in the glove compartment and got pulled over to be sure and take it out and put it on the dash before the officer got to the car, otherwise it was concealed and I would be arrested if they saw it when I opened the glove box to get my registration.
Cameron
@Kelly: I hope he makes it and enjoys a full recovery. This country (this world) needs a whole lot more people like him and a whole lot fewer who think they’re Jesse James.
Kelly
@Feathers: Yep, open carry, plus all the defunding of government, defanging of regulation. Why they want to live in the mess they’re working to create is beyond me.
Kent
I see someone carrying that kind of weaponry into a local Target I’m calling 9-11 and reporting shots fired, active shooter.
Maybe it was a car backfiring, you never know. But you can’t be too careful.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
Alito and the other right-wing motherfuckers are also gun lobby stooges.
People with ties to the gun lobby are absolutely wining and dining those SOB’s to put a pro-gun lobby position in their ears, and they are absolutely okay with it.
Cameron
@Kent: I remember reading the suggestion a few years ago that when you’re in any place of business – including being in the middle of a meal at a restaurant – and somebody comes in open-carrying, leave immediately. If asked why (particularly if you’re bolting out of dinner), say that you don’t know this person and you’re in fear of your life. Don’t know if it could work or not, but it might be worth a try.
brantl
@Honus: reading for comprehension? “Carpenter pants.”
Roger Moore
@gene108:
The courts are part of the government.
Feathers
@Kelly: The fantasy is that the mess will result in all power being turned over to them, on their terms.
It makes me angry that Charles Manson was turned into a “dirty hippie” in people’s imagination. His actual plan was to start a race war that would end in victory for white people, with him in charge. There was even a novel recently, about the women in his cult, but it turned him into an anti-racist! I guess you couldn’t sell a book about a racist girl to respectable book groups. I brought it up at mine and folks got real pissy. That was in 2014 or so. No longer in that group. Curious if they think back on that now. Probably not.
Chetan Murthy
@coin operated: Shocked me also. And I thought to myself [only joking, not serious, repeat, *not* serious]
Gosh, one Black man carrying a small arsenal is a start; a few thousand Black men carrying small arsenals is *gun control*!
[again: ok, ok, ok, I know that some number of those men would meet with a bad end via extrajudicial execution, so again, I’m only joking.]
Cameron
@Feathers: I remember reading Ed Sanders’ The Family about a gazillion years ago, and his California was definitely not surf, sunshine, and happy acid trips.
Chetan Murthy
@Cameron: What suggestion? I’m not going to inhabit the same space as somebody open-carrying that isn’t LEO. I mean, that’s only common sense. GTFOT(here).
UncleEbeneezer
For K-drama fans, we started The Glory last night and it looks like it’s gonna be real good, and a hell of a ride. It’s revenge fantasy of a woman who was brutally bullied and abused in high school. It doesn’t pull any punches in conveying the brutality, so be warned. But it’s by one of the people who did Mr. Sunshine, which, imo, is the best K-drama that I’ve ever seen, so it will likely be absolutely epic.
We also just started The English on Amazon Prime and are really enjoying it so far. It’s a Western about a Native-American man (and a US Army Veteran) and a widowed woman and all the bullshit they have to fight and deal with in 1890’s America. It’s stunningly beautiful and well acted.
Cameron
@Chetan Murthy: Then you’re already with the program. My understanding of the logic behind it was that losing customers who specified that gun-toting strangers weren’t their cup of tea would turn the C of C types against permissive gun legislation. I don’t think it’s been tried (the complaining, that is, not the rapid exiting which I quite agree with you on), so I have no idea whether or not it would work.
gene108
@Feathers:
Adam probably has more to say on this, but I’m pretty damned convinced the gun lobby works for the interests of violent white supremacists.
Back in the 1990’s, when the “militia” movement started up, the people who wanted to stockpile an arsenal and talked about overthrowing the government were white supremacists.
The gun lobby’s been working to make it easier for people to have an arsenal and carry it in public.
Gun Owners of America, who claim to be the second biggest gun lobby group, are absolutely all in on enabling white supremacists. I wouldn’t be surprised if smaller gun lobby groups were all in as well.
The NRA clearly doesn’t have a problem with white supremacists having an easier time to get an arsenal together.
It’s an angle not really examined about the gun lobby, but I think it drives some of their decision making.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: It’s basically the Code Duello. If two of these people encounter each other they can both shoot at their leisure.
UncleEbeneezer
@Feathers: Wait what? Manson was notoriously and hideously racist. His whole premise was also that Black People wouldn’t be able to manage his post-Race-War scenario, thus enabling him to become the rightful leader. He was totally racist.
Sister Golden Bear
Don’t disagree with anything you said.
That said, I’ll give you one guess what the guy’s skin color was. I doubt he would’ve been arrested otherwise.
gene108
@Kelly:
From what I’ve seen regarding right-wing rhetoric, I think they believe they’d come out on top, if things really breakdown and can then order this country as they see fit.
The whole “Second Amendment is to protect our rights from government tyranny” argument basically has the underlying assumption that (1) violence is an option to settle political differences, and (2) the gun humpers would come out on top.
It’s the same sort of logic behind Timothy McVeigh destroying a federal building, in order to start a race war. When a flashpoint triggers the breakdown of society, their side will be ready for violence and come out on top.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know:
Honestly, I can’t imagine it happening. Legalized murder is a more likely endpoint.
Geminid
@Kelly: Virginia is an open carry state but I can count the number of times I’ve noticed someone carrying on one hand. But for a while a couple years ago I heard about groups of people packing pistols who showed up at Starbucks shops to demonstrate their right to bear arms (and maybe gloat about scaring other customers).
There were a lot of firearms carried at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, though, a couple hundred at least among the white nationalists and a dozen or so among a left wing militia group ostensibly protecting counter-demonstrators.
As tragic as was the outcome of the rally, I thought afterwards that the city escaped what could have been a bloodbath. At one point when the militia were vacating Lee Park one of them fired a warning shot near a counter-demonstrator, but this did not trigger a bigger firefight. The shooter, a Maryland Klansman, was given a 7 year prison term for reckless discharge of a firearm.
In 2020 Democrats in the General Asembly passed a law allowing localities to ban weapons at demonstrations. Last year Republicans in the lowertried to repeal that and other gun safety laws but were stopped by Senator Louise Lucas’s “Brick Wall” in the state Senate. I think these gun safety laws will be a principle issue in Novembers legislative elections and I think this will help Democrats, especially in suburban districts.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Someone was point out the movie Zardoz was supposed to happen in 2023 and all this crazy stuff with guns is going on.
PIGL
@Roger Moore: Yes. The court of PIGL finds for the defendant.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s not true; Zardoz is set in the year 2293. I don’t remember if some event in 2023 figures in the movie’s backstory.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: You are a little ray of darkness, ain’t ya?
Miss Bianca
@Kelly: Poor young man. I had no idea who he was, but the little I have learned about him just crushes me with the realization of what a loss his death would be to the world and his family. Here’s hoping he lives, recovers, and remains a light in the world.
Feathers
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, absolutely! When I got to that part of the book I nearly threw it across the room.
The book is The Girls by Emma Cline, it was a best seller and got rave reviews. I read a bunch at the time and didn’t find any that caught the literal white-washing of the Manson cult’s racism. The book isn’t specifically about the Mansons, but the marketing certainly pushed it as a look at what sort of girls would get drawn into that sort of group. Pretending that it was all peace and love rather than we’re starting a race war and part of the fuel will be white women driving Black men sexually insane is kind of a leap. I brought this up, got real pushback and only stayed in the group another month or two.
Really bad because how many people read that book and now have this completely incorrect view of the Mansons. If Cline had had the guts to tell the truth, a lot of people would be more understanding of who all the white women going tradwife and voting for Trump are. But it wouldn’t have gotten on all the book club lists, would it?
Citizen Alan
@gene108: This is why I despise people who talk about guns being necessary to prevent tyranny. Because if and when real Fascism comes to power in this country, these garbage-humans won’t be screaming “Wolverines” while they do guerrilla warfare for democracy. They’ll be the ones goosestepping down the streets in homemade uniforms looking for undesirables to herd into camps.
kindness
Out here in California, it was Ronnie Reagan as Governor who enacted strong anti-open carry legislation when the Black Panthers started walking around with shotguns and long guns. I suspect when Supreme Court Justices start getting offed by lunatics, then the Supreme Court might start re-thinking their current fantasy world view of the 2nd Amendment. I don’t want to see that happen, but depending on which Justice got tagged, I might not cry all that much. Jesus Christ I ain’t.
dave319
@Feathers: Absolutely. The destabilizing terrorism is the reason, and has been since Saint Ronnie(spit) winked and nodded to the paramilitary “survivalists” back in the 80s. The Freikorps in post WWI Getmany held on to their weapons and engaged in running gun battles with Communists and the police, such as they were, and the citizenry was forced into a state of constant fear until they abandoned social democracy completely and embraced the strongman.
E@L
@anon: just call the police any time there is anyone with a gun. If you can call 911 because your McDonald’s coffee is to hot, then why not?