Weer'd World

This is a really interesting one:

So yeah at it’s face it’s implying being white and walking around with a real gun, you might attract some attention, but you’ll be fine. But a Black child with even a toy gun will be shot dead on sight because WHITE PRIVILEGE.

Ok first the “belligerent man” at the airport:

Jim Cooley said he carried his gun with a 100-round drum through parts of the terminal when he and his wife went to drop their daughter off for a flight Tuesday, a local ABC affiliate reported.

“You can carry in unsecured areas of the airport. Past TSA, never,” he explained.

Mr. Cooley said he was first approached by a fire marshal who asked him why he was carrying the gun in the airport. He said he was then approached by a police officer, who asked him about the gun and whether he was permitted to open carry, ABC reported.

Mr. Cooley said he told the officials that he was carrying the gun for his own safety.

“It shouldn’t matter what I carry, just that I choose to carry,” he said. “You never know where something might happen.”

He said the same police officer from earlier approached him and his wife again as they were exiting the airport. The officer called for backup and Mr. Cooley said a police lieutenant and two officers followed the couple to their car and took pictures of it, ABC reported.

An APD police report says, “At no time was Mr. Cooley deprived of his ability to leave property or freely move around the airport with the weapon. Officers followed to assure the safety of all patrons at the airport.”

First up, he sounds WICKED belligerent, doesn’t he? Also makes him look totally angry and unhinged how he pleasantly poses for that photograph with his daughter.

I carry EVERYWHERE I am permitted to do so, it’s pretty dump to chalk off areas where you CAN carry but choose not to, and areas where you CAN carry and choose to. My thoughts are best summed up by the great Kathy Jackson here:

The question, earnest as it is, always bemuses me somewhat. You see, I don’t usually carry a gun to anywhere in particular, but I do go places and do things. And I simply carry, wherever I might be.

Go read the whole thing, if you haven’t already.

Still I’m not the hugest fan of carrying rifles for daily defense. Even the smallest lightest PDW or Carbine is big, heavy, and requires some strong logistical choices to carry, unlike a pistol, and instances like this where the gun is on a tactical sling, often simply applying your hands to the gun is the equivalent to low ready, and on the ragged edge of brandishing.

You carry a pistol because you don’t think you’re going to need a gun, you carry a rifle or shotgun because you think you are going to need a gun. Just how I see it, but let’s face it, all these incidents and there have been exactly ZERO problems, so I’m being a frumpy little bitch. Also as Miguel noted on his blog, Texas has been rife with IN YOUR FACE style activists carrying rifles around, and making a big old scene….and before you know it you’ll be able to legally carry a pistol openly in Texas AND on University grounds. Meanwhile Florida has no end in sight with it’s campus carry ban, as well as it’s ban of open carry in a state with a tropical climate. Small data set, but it does appear I’m the wrong one here….

Now onto the poor dead kid

First up, there is a lot of talk about officers facing murder charges, I really don’t know if this shoot was a good one or not, but murder charges are hardly a racist system, and cops misjudging a scene is a danger that faces all races, genders, colors and creeds.

Still the big difference we have here is an adult man walking with a slung rifle calmly though an airport with his family, and a teenage boy with a Colt-branded airsoft gun that had the orange plug removed from the barrel, who was wandering around a park alone pointing his gun at random people enough that somebody decided to dial 911 and report him.

Boy, once we get down to the fact it really doesn’t sound so much like race anymore, does it?