Tag Archives: RKBA

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In Support of the Open Carry Society

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Gun photo from RGBStock

“I don’t care if it’s constitutional or not at this point,” Cleveland police union president Stephen Loomis told CNN as Republicans gathered in his city for their 2016 national convention. “I want [Ohio governor John Kasich] to absolutely outlaw open-carry in Cuyahoga County until this RNC is over.”

Kasich, to his credit, demurred, responding “Ohio governors do not have the power to arbitrarily suspend federal and state constitutional rights or state laws as suggested.”

“Open carry” — that is, legal recognition of the right to carry a weapon without concealing it from view — is a hot topic this week, not only due to Loomis’s appeal for suspension of the US Constitution in Ohio, but in the aftermath of a July 17 gunfight in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in which three police officers and a former US Marine from Kansas City were killed.

The police version of the Baton Rouge incident is that 29-year-old Gavin Long “lured” police officers to his location where he “intentionally targeted and assassinated” them. Left unexplained is why several officers rushed to his location on the basis of a 911 call (not made by Long himself) reporting something perfectly legal  in 44 states, including Louisiana: A man carrying a gun.

Yes, perfectly legal. Only California, Florida, Illinois, New York, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia prohibit the open carry of firearms. Some other states require a permit, but those schemes as well as the prohibitions are clearly unconstitutional.

Did Long “lure” police officers to their “assassinations” or did he respond to actions he perceived as an armed attack by police in a city on edge since the July 5 police killing of a black man, caught on camera? We may never know. But we can and should draw this lesson from Baton Rouge and from Cleveland:

For some reason, police seem to consider open carry of firearms, even where formally legal (the US Constitution says it’s legal everywhere in America, but that’s another column), to constitute prima facie evidence of criminal intent. It isn’t, and treating it as such can only lead to unnecessary violent outcomes.

More than 100 million Americans own more than 300 million guns.

An infinitesimal portion of those gun owners commit crimes using those guns, and that tiny criminal fraction would do so whether open carry (or concealed carry) was legal or not, because committing crimes is what criminals do.

It neither is nor should be the responsibility of millions of non-criminal gun-owning Americans to coddle and cater to hoplophobia (“a mental aberration consisting of an unreasoning terror of gadgetry, specifically, weapons”) on the part of their fellow citizens, or especially of their putative employees, the police.

Guns, and gun owners, are here to stay. Get used to us.

[Correction: The original version of this op-ed listed Texas as a state prohibiting open carry. Thanks to MamaLiberty for letting me know that Texas now has a “permit” system under which open carry is legal – TLK]

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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There’s No Such Thing as an Illegal Knife

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“Nationwide, knife laws vary in neighboring towns, counties, cities and states,” writes Jesse J. Holland for the Associated Press. “This mishmash makes it difficult for citizens to comply.”

The AP’s interest in knife laws stems from the recent death, in police custody in Baltimore, of Freddie Gray. Police justified Gray’s arrest by claiming he was carrying an “illegal”  switchblade knife. It turned out that the knife was a perfectly “legal” blade.

That aside, Holland is wrong in any case. Knife laws don’t vary from town to town, county to county, state to state. There’s one federal knife law. It applies to all levels of government in the United States, and unlike most laws these days it is simply written and impossible to misunderstand:

“[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

You may recognize that as the operant clause of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. And you should recall that the US Constitution proclaims itself the “supreme law of the land,” superseding all others which conflict with it in any way. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Madison v. Marbury, “an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.”

Freddie Gray’s knife was not illegal, because in valid US law there is no such thing as an illegal knife (or gun). State, county and local ordinances which infringe on the right to own or carry any weapon are plainly unconstitutional and therefore void. They are also indescribably stupid and evil.

Stupid, because laws are only effective  if they are obeyed. Since criminals don’t obey laws, the sole effect of laws prohibiting possession of weapons is to disarm victims.

Evil, because in the priority of rights — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — life comes first. You can’t be free, nor can you seek happiness, if you’re dead.

Indisputably corollary to the right to life is the right to defend that life against any and all threats. Lacking the anatomical defenses found in other animals (claws, poison glands, etc.), we must instead rely on wit and invention. To forbid us possession of the tools of self-defense is to preemptively deny us the exercise of our primary right.

There’s no such thing as an illegal knife. There’s no such thing as an illegal gun. That claim, made explicit in the 2nd Amendment, is implicit in the laws of nature.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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