A battle over gun politics that first put the store chain Target in the crosshairs in Texas has begun to spread around the United States. Recently, several people have openly carried handguns into Target stores in Virginia and Oklahoma and posted pictures of themselves on Target’s Facebook page, responding to mounting pressure on Target by Action for Gun Sense in America, which denounced a string of open-carry demonstrations involving stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and Corpus Christi.
A man who displayed his gun at a Target store in Chesterfield, Virginia, on June 23 said he was carrying it for “self-defence” (presumably against the women and small children around him). But another Target customer, looking at an image of heavily armed men taken in a Dallas-Fort Worth store in March, (which included at least one member of a gun-activist group involved in intimidating women) commented: “Who needs an AR-15 to buy Lego or baby toys? I do not want to have my children near AR-15s when we shop for toys. I will shop elsewhere.”
An official with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said that Target has since instructed its staff in Texas to forbid firearms in stores there, as guns on the premises where the company sells alcohol would put it in violation of state regulations. (edited version of a story in Mother Jones).
Unbelievably, it is legal, with a state-issued permit, to openly carry handguns in public in Oklahoma and Virginia. Epicurus would probably classify these “gun enthusiasts” as the ultimate bullies, and would advocate confiscating all loaded firearms in public places and, at the very least, fining the irresponsible people involved. To defend one’s home is one thing (although the morality of it is dubious). To carry loaded weapons in crowded public places is a clear danger to the public and has to be designed to intimidate.
To suggest that the Founding Fathers, sons of the Enlightenment, cognizant of the evil of highwaymen and armed robbers in Europe, could support the idea of citizens being armed to the teeth (except when carrying out militia duties) is to insult to their intelligence. Who on Earth, setting up a new country, would want everyone to carry loaded guns around, unless they had had an attack of simple-mindedness?
Of which nation are you a citizen?
I am a citizen of the United States!!
I am also a former member of the armed services, who was almost killed by someone cleaning a rifle with a round up the spout. The near -assassination was not intentional, just a accident, but the bullet grazed my forehead as it passed by. Another half inch into the room and…….
The man concerned was rightly charged and imprisoned; unfortunately, I believe the gun lobby now values loaded guns in public places over people’s lives and would not allow punishment today.If this is wrong please put me right.