Hate to point it out, but you do live in a (basically) Red state that is big on 2nd Amendment gun "rights", and is only 20% non-white. This is why "open carry" laws exist in your state. States that are more diverse do not have open carry laws, and regular citizens cannot openly carry firearms. I think that such a law (allowing open carry of firearms) is evidence of a fearful populace, wherever it is. It is irresponsible and discomforting.
Yes and yes....
However, my bigger point and concern is t
hat he was not in compliance with any of the carry rules-the weapon was neither totally concealed as req'd for a concealed carry, nor was it totally visible as req'd for an open carry.
I was also pretty upset with the store MNGR lame ass answer of "state law says we cant keep him out of the store" as being complete and utter bullshit. It is a privately owned store and they can refuse to serve anyone they want (other than for ethnic reasons). I wasn't asking the Mngr to kick the guy out anyhow, just to approach him and ask him to be more cognizant and responsible while he was in the store.
This of course ties in to my other peeve about corporate greed and its influence on an entity and its employees doing the right thing. The real reason the Mngr wouldn't do anything was not because of any law but because of the fear of bringing a possible lawsuit or the loss of customers.
And even though this is PA,--and this goes way back to when I tried to give you a picture of the sensibilities of people in MY PART of the state when I had stated that we were (I think) the only rural county in PA to vote for Obama- look at any election map for the 08 election and you will see my county being the only one in blue that is not a metropolitan county or a county with a large city in it (like Centre with State College)-- This shows that we are atypical of much of rural PA (though not the only ones) and that we do not fit the stereotypes that many ppl have of us. TIED to this is the fact that in this county we are not "gun nuts"--yes ppl hunt and we have a very popular sporting and international air rifle range here, but we have few TEA-ist types or 'rednecks'.
Now go a county or 2 in either direction and this changes.
This guy I saw today is an anomaly for my area. Ppl don't ride around with gun racks in their vehicles or handguns on their hips "just because".
If I was able to find out, my guess is that this guy was either a 'transplant' from elsewhere or likely here for the holiday weekend (besides it being Easter, this is a weekend that many "city folk" use to come up here and get their camps cleaned up and ready for summer as well as it being the first week of Trout season)
The last accidental shooting death we had was with a family from Pittsburgh. At their camp/cabin, while the adults were outside drinking, little 4 yr old Johnny picked up the .357 from the table that was left loaded and manged to fire the weapon straight into his face.
The parents drove to the nearest facility and expected the doctor to be able to reattach the half of head that had been blown off
Same with many aggr assaults and traffic stupidity--normally caused from out of towners driving through or those who think they own the place just because they own a cabin in the hills
And
Since the cities always carry the state for the democratic Pres candidate than they could easily manage to get a bill through the state house to change the carry laws. The amount of legislative weight the cities carry is proportionate to sparsely populated rural counties, so they could easily win it--if they wanted to that is. I believe a bit of research would probably show far more (even more than the bigger population would naturally suggest) concealed carry and handgun ownership permits in the cities and the suburbs about them.
I'll have you know we here are GateFans don't take the kidnapping and replacement of our members with cybernetic Right wing clones very lightly. Don't make us unleash Patty Hearst on your ass.
