You might have a Second Amendment right to carry a gun into a restaurant, but others also have the right to call the police on you. I certainly have the right to state my opinion that you are a jackass. The following happened in Fort Worth

Let’s all take a moment to pity Open Carry Texas. The armed freaks who enjoy parading around terrorizing the public because they can are once again playing up their victim status after frightening the staff of a restaurant so badly that employees locked themselves in a freezer to protect themselves.

Thursday night, the “peaceful” and “non-threatening” group barged into a Jack in the Box with their usual heavy armaments, striking fear into the staff.

On multiple occasions in the past couple of years, I have heard people explain the difference between carrying a rifle in a manner in which it cannot be easily fired, as though this somehow makes it better that someone decided to stroll down the street with his definitely-not-for-hunting rifle (and I say “he” because it seems like it’s always a “he.”)

What is never explained is why I should trust the guy standing there with an arm cannon that is not in a firing position, simply because at that precise moment he isn’t holding it in a way that it could be fired. I know it doesn’t take long to move it into such a position—it wouldn’t be very useful otherwise—and that makes it impossible to tell the difference between a “good guy with a gun” and a “bad guy.”

I suspect that the guys who think all of this is a good idea have honestly not considered the possibility that anyone might think that they pose a threat. They’re the good guys, so why is everyone panicking???

It’s actually kind of similar to the reactions some guys have to discussions of rape culture, when they seem genuinely shocked that women can’t tell that they, personally, are not rapists. They’re nice guys! And they just said they’re not rapists, so what’s the problem?

(Yes, I just brought rape culture into a critical commentary on guns. I must enjoy the crazy that these topics inspire.)

As long as I’m at it, let’s talk about white privilege. See, a group of heavily-armed men walked into a Fort Worth restaurant, and employees called the police because they thought it might be a robbery. The police showed up in force:

Of course, the members of Open Carry Texas feel that they are the victims in all of this. “I’m upset that that many officers had to arrive on the scene,” said demonstrator Edwin Haros. “I would estimate around 10 squad cars showed up, some with two per squad car. I believe we counted more than 15 officers showed up on scene.”

Number of fatalities: zero. I don’t know that all (or even most) of the gun nuts gun-wielding freedom fighters advocates were white, but try to imagine how it might have gone down had a different group of armed individuals walked into a Jack in the Box.

One other thing: these folks are big on asserting their perceived Second Amendment rights, but they are not at all interested in a real discussion of the issue. I say this based on the fact that an open-carry supporter posted the identity of a 911 caller online after she reported a large number of armed individuals in her neighborhood. They should be thankful she didn’t mistake them for “bad guys with guns,” and herself for a “good guy with a gun.”

Whatever legal rights they may have, they are not entitled to social acceptance, especially when their actions make reasonable people uncomfortable with the fact that they’re seemingly always armed.

Photo credit: By Lucio Eastman (Free State Project – PorcFest 2009 – Open Carry) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.