SmarterthanYou
rebel
The open carry movement caught some attention in California recently as state rep Lori Saldana put together a bill to criminalize the open carry of unloaded handguns unless you're licensed security or a cop. Her main claim is that the open show of a handgun is dangerous and intimidating to people, yet she showed up to the assembly debate wearing a body armor vest and an armed security detail.
Gun rights Examiner
Gun rights Examiner
Oakland's KTVU.com has posted a video of an open carry debate hosted by the Commonwealth Club in the East Bay city of Lafayette. At the end of it, we learn that CA Assembly member Lori Saldaña, author of a bill to ban the practice of open carry in California, travels under the protection of an armed security detail.
Click here to watch it and then come on back for a discussion.
The first thing that strikes me is how the media frames terms, and correspondent Debora Villalon crossed a line from objective reporter to editorialist when she characterized citizens carrying firearms as "flaunting their right to pack heat."
Karen Arntzen of the Brady Campaign stuck to the talking point that armed citizens are "extending personal risk out to society." This, of course, is the same argument they've used to fight concealed carry laws as well (along with making insulting and unfounded Dodge City analogies). Among the numerous problems with her contention: It directly contradicts a new admission by Brady Communications Director Peter Hamm:
Hamm said criminals are more likely to pick a target who isn't armed.
Of the attendees interviewed, the one who disappoints is the self-described "Second Amendment guy" who says he doesn't care. Just great, buddy. If it's not your ox being gored let the government do what it wants. So who's going to care when it is your ox?
Come we now to the focus of this piece, Lori Saldaña, a politician who is working to ensure you have no choice when it comes to armed personal defense. Saldana claims "it's really about intimidation" and "a real mistrust of law enforcement."
It's not that the irony of cops being the "Only Ones" armed (aside from criminals, of course) escapes her, it's that she doesn't care. She's got hers and intends to keep it that way as we learn she is traveling with an armed security detail because, as with testifying in a protective vest (see photo, above), it creates great media theater and provides an instant visual that her political opponents must be violent armed extremists.
Her justification for the armed escort? She's become a "lightning rod" and "she's had to step up her personal protection."
And if you have to "step up" yours?
