Supposedly a real gun was found in the toy section of a Target store that had recently had open carry demonstrators parading through the place with all weapons “exposed.”
INDIANAPOLIS, June 5, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Responding to new reports that a loaded gun was found in the toy aisle of a Target in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is today reiterating its call on Target Corp. CEO John Mulligan to prohibit the open carry of guns in its stores. Yesterday
source=prno_target&utm_source=pr_n_&utm_medium=_o&utm_campaign=target”>Moms Demand Action launched a petition to Target that has already been signed by 25,000 Americans who support the prohibition of open carry in response to a gun extremist group that held demonstrations with loaded assault weapons in Target stores (photos here). The petition to Target comes on the heels of similar demonstrations at Chipotle, Sonic, Chili’s and Jack in the Box that led these companies to take swift action to stand with Moms and enforce or adopt policies that prohibit open carry to protect the safety of their employees and customers.
“Assault rifles and guns don’t belong in the baby aisle, they don’t belong in the toy aisle – and they don’t belong in any aisle of the stores that American moms frequent like Target,” said Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “We are grateful that a store employee found this loaded gun and reported it to the authorities – but we have to acknowledge that this situation could have had a much more tragic outcome. This event underscores why it is so important for Target to stand with moms and support the safety and security of our children when we shop in their stores. It’s time for Target, a store that American moms flock to, to follow the lead of Chipotle and Starbucks and prohibit the open carry of firearms.”
Gun extremists have been demonstrating at Target stores to promote their agenda of intimidation in Texas, Alabama, Ohio, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and Virginia. Despite ongoing demonstrations, Target has still not instituted policies prohibiting open carry. Yet according to Target, mothers and women are an important part of the company’s customer base – 80 to 90 percent of Target’s customers are female and 38 percent of guests have children, a share the company says is higher than other discount stores.
Regardless, this is unacceptable behavior. Walking around armed to the teeth in a retail store is just no way to behave. There apparently is no sure for stupidity and bad judgement. These clowns are just throwing their weight around and basically being in-your-face bullies.
My sympathy is rapidly waning for any open carry that isn’t out in the country or hunting.
“You can, however, shoot them if they threaten you by entering your home uninvited and illegally. You are not required to trust to their kindness.”
Perhaps, but I’d want the owner to retreat first. An uninvited guest is not in itself evidence of ill intent. Retreating gives you time to determine intent. I hear too many gun owners who don’t want to worry about retreat. They just want to blast away to save the silverware and the TV. That kind of recklessness is not part of the right to self defense that I support.
@ed myers
By your standards, then, we should still be under the English crown. Leave my own country because the government is acting tyrannical? Really?
And again, you bring up falsehoods: “because they didn’t like the results of an election or a SCOTUS ruling or the actions of the local police.”
You just can’t argue honestly, can you? What you describe is not tyranny. If you have recompense to political solutions, you are able to change things. A tyrannical government would be abusing your freedoms without the ability of you to change things without violence, ie….a police state, with no elections, for instance. You cannot have activism to change gov’t if said gov’t throws you in jail or kills you for it. You appear to be one of those people that think all gov’t law is just fine as long as it is popularly decided. “in conflict with the government as established through civil means.” At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, the Nazi’s were established through civil means…as were the Soviets.
Hunting with modern weaponry is still restricted by the limits set by hunting laws. If you wish to change them, start writing to your representative.
It is your insults and your advocacy for violence that labels you a bigot. If you wish to continue to demonstrate your fascination with genitalia, don’t let me stop you.
You want the owner to retreat first. So, you are one of those that want to give the District Attorneys the power to second guess people from the comfort of their office. You don’t get to decide what is needed for other people’s defense, Thank God.
Your hoplophobia does not give you the right to try and infringe upon our rights.
If those who prance around openly displaying firearms continue their behavior, I expect their rights, as you see them, will be infringed upon. The American public is simply not going to stand for such nonsense.
What me to turn into one of those people who vote on restricting public display of weapons? Let me run into a few of those jokers in a store. You can bet I will turn into one of those voters. Enjoy the ride while you can. I suspect it will be short lived.
Canada escaped colonialism without a war.
Tyranny is pretty subjective. The Millers of Arizona illustrates where your vision of revolting against all perceived tyranny leads.
The jury is made up of peers, not the DA. You don’t trust your neighbors to decide if a homeowner is justified in killing the kid next door who was drunk and entered the wrong house?
If you are going to make your case you have to have facts and logic since your gun doesn’t help you here. It appears your gun is a crutch in real life, it allows you to avoid treating people justly.
You should also stop repeating the falsehood that I advocate violence. People only need to read the thread to see how wrong you are. It reduces your credibility on all your other points.
@Ed Myers
Good for them. And they remained subjects for a LOoooong time. Of course, Canada had just been conquered near the time of the Revolution. And it was the handing of the Ohio valley to the Canadians that angered a lot of Americans. The Brits did that to placate those new French subjects while they hit the Americans with more taxes.
The Millers of Arizona illustrate nothing of the sort. Try again.
The DA is the one that would bring charges. The defendant is now liable for all costs regardless of outcome, may be in jail, and is being charged for defending oneself.
The DA is still going to investigate….. but one charge that shouldn’t be there is the subjective second guessing by a comfortable DA on the validity of retreat.
Your third paragraph makes no sense. Please point out where I don’t treat people justly.
You did advocate violence. You stated that people should run down anyone that they saw carrying a firearm. Just…run…them….down.
You do remember these words, right?
You said it. Own it. Looks like a threat to me.
You don’t treat people fairly because you care only about the gun owner and no one else. The fact that a gun was used to kill someone doesn’t bother you, only the in convenience of defending your actions in court. When I take your attitude and assign it to a car driver against a gun owner you immediately are outraged by someone exaggerating the risk of harm to themselves to justify violence attack on others. The satire escapes you because you are blind to the parallel … your advocacy that gun owners can defend themselves with violence against others who pose only minimal threat and then demand not to be held accountable for the result in court.
If you aren’t willing to go to jail on murder charges you shouldn’t carry a gun because all death by gun is a killing. Only a tiny percentage of deaths by guns is morally justified. A slightly higher percentage is legally justified.
@Ed Myers
No…I care about the lives of those threatened. I care about those going about their lawful business.
You are merely spouting off fool statements trying to be clever, advocating the killing of innocents…and now your spinning your statements, trying to walk it back.
I don’t care if its satire. This isn’t a case for satire. This is not a joking matter.
You keep stating “minimal threat” without evidence of that fact. You can’t justify it. You cannot guarantee that a person breaking into your home is a minimal threat or a person robbing you is a minimal threat, and by the time that you can, that person may have harmed or killed you or a family member.
Look, if you are willing to trust to the good graces of an intruder, be my guest. In the meantime, I’ll plan to defend my family. All shooting must meet self defense requirements. If it doesn’t, then you get charged. So, your statement about not being held accountable is another falsehood.
Yes…only a tiny percentage of deaths by guns is morally justified….because there are fewer justified homicides. And every single one of them is justified. Otherwise those people would be in jail.
Your hoplophobia and paranoia make you say stupid things. You are the one saying that carry is a threat all by itself. Be careful. You might be the one facing a judge if you take that too far. Words mean things. And the internet is forever.
If a man pulls a gun on you during a carjacking or some other reason…go ahead, run him over.
Or give hm the car…. Or attempt to retreat. I don’t care what you do. Because I won’t be there. You have to use YOUR judgement and no DA should second guess you past determining if it was self defense.
Let’s not get into threats over who said what to whom. That is kicking an exchange up to a level I don’t want to deal with. I also don’t want to have to be a blog babysitter. Cargo, you are simply going to have to accept that some of us really don’t like the threat of open carry and why. We perceive it as a threat. I have already stated, if I do not know the person, I will leave and very well might call the police. I don’t know if that person means harm.
You perhaps don’t feel threatened because you are probably armed. That doubles my sense of risk because now I also get to worry about getting caught in the cross fire. No, I don’t want to carry a weapon to Target or Best Buy. I already hate to go in my bank because it has been robbed so many times.
You are welcome to feel that I am stupid for my beliefs and fears about strangers with guns. Just don’t say so here. I will admit to being a sissy over strangers brandishing weapons in retail stores.
Carry is a threat in itself. The presence of a gun allows for accidental discharges that would not otherwise occur. Carry allows for making errors in judgement and killing someone who was not a threat. The law doesn’t hold people responsible for good faith self defense mistakes and the gun carrier likely won’t end up in jail, but the innocent victim is still dead.
Carry terrorizes the public because it requires a lot of work to decide if someone is a threat. Most people want to live life without constantly checking if a stranger carrying a gun has imminent violent intent. What we do know is that the gun carrier has already decided that they are comfortable killing another and that is why they carry. Gun carriers also have a more pessimistic view of the intent of others which increases the risk that an innocent action or comment (see satire of car threats woven through this thread for an example of cargo’s pessimism) will get wrongly translated into a threat by a person with a gun. The gun provides them with the opportunity to act violently on that improperly perceived threat.
The decision to carry a gun in public in an urban neighborhood is itself a Roarsch test on the mental state of a person. I see crazy. I don’t mind being around crazy as long as crazies don’t have the means to quickly escalate to violence. That means disarming people in public places.
You know, if I see someone with a discrete side arm holstered, I can ignore that person. I do a quick risk assessment of their behavior and move on down the line. Those people don’t terrorize me. I have certainly been around people carrying long guns, both shotguns and rifles. Anyone who has a background that involves hunting and field trials has had exposure. I won’t go around hunters that are “liquored up.” Those folks are known to shoot themselves in a drunken stupor and hopefully not others.
I have also been around reenactment weapons. They don’t scare me. I know why they are there. Its the show offs and those who want to prove to themselves, I guess, that they have rights. I think they are bullies. The behavior is inappropriate. I don’t want them around me. It’s the strutting around …anyone who wants to prove that much of a point, has, at least to me, questionable stability.
@Moon-howler
Cargo, you are simply going to have to accept that some of us really don’t like the threat of open carry and why. We perceive it as a threat. I have already stated, if I do not know the person, I will leave and very well might call the police. I don’t know if that person means harm.
I don’t have a problem with that.
YOU however, did not advocate running over people because they were carrying.
You have not said anything stupid, nor have I said that your feelings are stupid.
What I said was that Ed Myers said stupid things when he advocated violence against innocent people. You are civilized. Ed is a bigot. One that hides behind “concern.”
I don’t feel threatened even when I’m NOT armed because CCW and others have a lower crime rate than even cops. All this crossfire stuff keeps not happening.
@Ed Myers
IF carry terrorizes the public then the public sure is pretty brave seeing that all this terror stuff keeps not happening. Carry keeps being ignored or even welcomed.
Its not pessimism that makes me comment about your “satire.” Its the fact that I see death threats daily from so called “peaceful” gun control people. They advocate that gun owners meet violence.
Yes…. carrying a gun does give them an OPPORTUNITY to act on an improperly perceived threat. Based upon the evidence….THAT KEEPS NOT HAPPENING.
And now you are practicing psychiatry. How nice. Good thing that you aren’t in charge of anyone. Your qualification for “crazy” is “thing that you do that I don’t like.” The Soviets used to do that to infringe upon rights too. You think that you can say that millions of people are “comfortable with killing.” You sound a little delusional. You have NO idea how a single person feels about killing or shooting someone just because they own a gun or carry.
So…let’s see.
You advocate for violence against gun owners.
You create false stereotypes.
You lie about them.
You want them to be declared insane for exercising a right.
You insult millions of people because they exercise a right.
You are the perfect example of a bigot.
Well done.
I read what Ed said about the running over and I felt it was hyperbole. I never felt for a minute that he was really advocating running someone over just for driving practice.
Thank you for thinking I am civilized and not stupid. Not sure everyone would agree with you.
Cute ad hominem. That plus Goodwin’s law means this discussion has run its course.
I do have to vigorously disagree with your continued assertion, even after correction, that I advocate violence against anyone, let alone a subclass such as gun owners. That is a testament to your character.
Crazy is not a technical term, but you are welcome to continue making my point about the unhinged anti-social nature of gun advocates who carry guns in public urban places. Your lack of empathy for the safety if others is also noted. Your fear of people who reject guns as personal defense is irrational. Another element of your character, no doubt.
And yes, I do know that someone who carries a gun in an urban setting is only going to use it to kill a person. There just isn’t any other reason to have one since you dismiss other possibilities such as making a Fashion statement, to intimidate others, or to compensate for feelings of inadequacy.
@Moon-howler
You and I have already come to the agreement that those long gun activists made dumb decisions.
It was hyperbole. But if I had said something like that, in casually gunning down anyone that I felt was threatening, when they obviously weren’t….what would your reaction be?
One has the natural right to keep and bear arm. He stated that one should be run over for doing so.
@Ed Myers
Not ad hominem. Every thing I said can be documented in your statements. As for Godwin, that only applies when someone brings it up irrelevantly. Your advocacy for calling people that you disagree with politically falls into the relevant situation.
Please, quote anything that I’ve said that demonstrates anti-social behavior or a lack of care about safety compared to your statement. Moon can referee.
I don’t have a fear of those that reject guns as personal defense. What you do is your business. When you say bigoted things about people like me and advocate for infringing rights, then it becomes my business and I argue against it.
You KNOW that someone who carries a gun in an urban setting is only going to use it to kill someone….and yet that KEEPS NOT HAPPENING. You are delusional. Millions carry everyday. Hundreds of thousands have used guns in urban settings in self defense without firing a shot.
But you KNOW that they are going to kill someone.
Seek help.
Billions of people walk through urban areas daily and survive without a gun. What do they know that you fail to grasp?
Keep yelling, And twisting facts. It illustrates why I don’t trust gun advocates like yourself to make life and death decisions about my life. You aren’t trustworthy.
Millions of police officers and likewise trained people carry guns. They make mistakes. People die. We can’t expect untrained gun owners to perform better than police officers. And you keep saying that carrying a gun is absolutely safe with your “not happening” mantra.
When you start carrying a gun that can only injure (e.g. incapacitate) but not kill someone, then I will stop complaining about your lack of respect for the lives of others.
@Ed Myers
I walk through urban areas daily without a gun too.
But those that wish to have an emergency tool with them in case its needed, have the right to do so. And since hundreds of thousands of people have used said tool, please…tell me what they know that you don’t.
Yelling?? Who is yelling?
Actually statistics show that cops shoot innocent people at a greater rate than those that carry. Per 1000 people, cops are 3-5x more likely to shoot an innocent.
No you won’t stop complaining. That’s your thing. You’re a hoplophobic control bigot. Because if someone uses an incapacitating weapon like a tazer and kills someone..you’ll blame that person for defending themselves.
Cargo – going back up the thread a bit, the key to the Heller decision was the Court’s understanding that “Militia” referred to the arms-bearing citizenry generally. That issue had previously been a matter of controversy, largely because of the awkward phrasing of the amendment and the lack of contemporaneous commentary on what the Founders were driving at. But the point was settled in Heller and we know that the last word on the “militia” is that is you, me and a lot of other folks. Once past that point, however, there is no controversy that the Founders intended that that militia be well-regulated. They said as much and said so unequivocally. It is for this reason that the Court said in Heller and has said subsequently sub silentio in deciding not to take challenges to a couple of state regulations, that its decisions do not prevent the imposition of reasonable regulation on weapons (presumably guns, these days, but “arms” is a big enough term to include a lot of other things, including my cavalry sword). I think we have both stated in this thread that what is “reasonable” will eventually get tested if the Court takes up a challenge to particular regulation. But so far, a couple of years out from Heller, they are batting down those challenges. The opinion I have expressed here is simply that a state (or municipality if the governing state law permitted it) could reasonably require everyone who carries a weapon to be subjected to periodic competence testing, background checks concerning emotional and mental stability, and mandate that any weapon carried be permitted and, if taken outside a residence, carried conspicuously in a day-glo pink outer holster in order to let other citizens know where the weapons are. That’s a policy decision that I would be very comfortable with and you would not, but I don’t have any doubt that it would meet the “well-regulated” expectation of the Founders and would fit within the hints we are receiving from the Court that rational regulation is not inconsistent with Second Amendment rights.
When Congress reorganizes the active militia, then we can be “well regulated.” The phrase does not apply to the general citizenry.
You are right. States will write laws. We will test them. And from that, we will find out what is legally “reasonable.”
But your interpretation of “well regulated” is incorrect. The phrase meant that a militia would be WELL TRAINED. Not that the citizens would have to obey “regulations.” Heller made that quite clear. The only mention of current restrictions was the mention by Scalia of some current traditional restrictions…but also stated that Heller did not address those, leaving those restrictions to be decided elsewhere. McDonald incorporated the 2nd to the states, and thus, we are now in the long process of determining what laws fall or stay.
except: The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
Heller ” does not address the licensing requirement.”
Heller separated the citizenry from the militia, referring to the organized militia:
As we will describe below, the “militia” in colonial America consisted of a subset of “the people”—those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people.”
We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.
The militia is the whole of the body. The ORGANIZED militia is the entity under control of the state or Congress. The prefatory clause address that:
Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training. See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights §13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).