My First Time Open Carrying - Downtown Colorado Springs and Starbucks
7 Mar 2010

Today, finally equipped with a holster, magazine pouch, and weather nice enough to skip wearing a jacket, I headed out into civilization to Open Carry my firearm for the first time.

Inspired by the fight going on between Starbucks and the Brady Campaign Pukes in Washington, I thought I'd visit the Starbucks in downtown Colorado Springs to support their policy to support state carry laws and give them my business.

Of course, I didn't just go straight to Starbucks. I parked several blocks away in front of the YMCA / 'First Prez' parking garage on Bijou and Weber. My first concern, walking across downtown to the Starbucks on Tejon, was my uncertainty as to the legalities of carrying in (or on the sidewalk of) Acacia Park. Carrying like I was forced me to consider my route more carefully to avoid certain places where OC'ing was sketchy or illegal. (More on that later.)

Needless to say, I was in 'Condition Yellow' for the entire hour or so I was out.

The first reaction I noticed was a trio of twenty-somethings sitting on the corner of Bijou and Tejon across from Starbucks. The guy was yapping to his female compatriots about something or other, and when I passed, he shut up immediately. Since I didn't know what he was talking about, I didn't know if he was shocked to silence by the presence of a pistol, or if he just paused to take a breather, but the next reaction I experienced was definite.

Starbucks was busy. Sunday afternoon. As I waited in line, a young woman and her little girl got in line behind me. The little girl half-whined, "Mom." When she had her mom's attention, she whispered something (I couldn't hear, although I was acutely aware) along the lines of "he's got a gun."

The mother responded, "Yes he does."

I encountered no other directed behavior at Starbucks. Bought my Venti dark coffee. For a moment, I wanted to find a place to sit inside, but there weren't really any seats available, so I decided to walk around downtown for a while instead.

Left Starbucks. Walked south on Tejon. Turned West on Kiowa. North on Cascade. East back on Bijou. Past Starbucks again, but turned North on Tejon. No looks or oddness that I could tell, but I was always nervous about a police car just 'driving by', seeing me, and deciding to determine whether or not I could legally carry.

I briefly considered going into Poor Richard's Bookstore, but decided that the place was so liberal (as far as I remember) that I didn't want to start any trouble. Went into Compleat Games and Hobbies instead.

Inside the gamer store, I was greeted immediately, browsed the 'models' section, then was engaged by who I assume was the manager when I crossed the store to the roleplaying section.

"Are you on duty or something?" he said.

"Oh, no," I replied. "Just killing some time drinking my coffee." I raised my drink.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" he said. Funny, but he was actually pretty serious.

I laughed. "No. No pun intended."

"I ask just because of the firearm, I mean," he said.

I grunted an 'acknowledgment' noise, and turned my attention back to the roleplaying section. The manager left me alone after that. I browsed for perhaps two minutes more, then left.

Remember me mentioning being more careful about my route earlier? Well, here it was again, because for a time, I was planning on walking back to the car via Platte, then turning back toward Bijou on Nevada. Until I realized that would put me catacorner to the Highschool. (No Open Carrying within 1000' feet of a school.)

Walked back along Tejon. East on Bijou (still across from the park).

Went into Independent Records to see if they had any Conservative or Pro-Freedom bumper stickers. No reaction, which was a surprise surrounded by Indie-rockers and pro-Obama stuff. Finished the coffee, then back to the car.

All in all, I was out and about for something like an hour. Visited Starbucks, Compleat Games and Hobbies, and Independent Records. I was worried about a random encounter with police most of the time, but my nervousness definitely subsided by the time I was en route back to the car. One day I'll encounter a cop, which may be no big deal, or might be pretty scary, but not today. Until I get over that particular landmark, OC'ing will be a little nervous.

Carry on.


http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=212878675303

(On the "Open Carry Colorado" Forum)
http://opencarry.mywowbb.com/view_topic ... orum_id=13

Exactly.

Once and a while I come across 'truthers' or people who believe 9/11 was an inside job, or caused behind the scenes by the Bush administration to make an excuse to go to war with Islam, etc.

There is nothing about what happened on 9/11 that doesn't seem like a genuine terrorist attack to me. The first plane weakened the tower, the second one finished it off. I haven't researched the melting point of steel structures, or the limitations of jet fuel, or anything else that Truthers use as 'evidence'. I don't care.

I think those planes were taken over by goat-lovers with box cutters because Americans have been trained over the last many years to be afraid to take responsibility. To be afraid to stand up and fight, like the WWII generation would have. All the soft men on the plane with neck pillows and highlights in their hair had the hardness and testosterone stripped out of them by a culture that taught them to be compliant little sheep. Or ostriches. The one plane where the passengers fought back, the one that crashed shy of the terrorists' aim, may have been started by one last real man who was able to awaken enough of the inner beast in others to make a difference.

I have no trouble believing that the whatever-hundred miles-per-hour collissions of two airliners were sufficient to weaken and break down the structure of the first tower enough to collapse, and that the vibrations and other weaknesses set off by the first fallen giant was enough to drop the other.

I don't think Bush was behind it. That doesn't mean I like Bush--I hate fascists and enemies of freedom, especially when they masquerade as Republicans.

There was no conspiracy. That's ridiculous. Unless I'm shown something that's not silly nut-job reaching that shows otherwise, I'm content thinking that 9/11 was a real terrorist attack that took the U.S.--and our dictators in charge--by surprise. And I'm not going to go looking for proof to support the inverse. Don't care. From what I've seen in the news, and the details I've accumulated over the years about what happens, the 9/11 attack looks like a reasonably supported organized (although not TOO organized) attack with several suicide attackers guided by a single leader.

Of course, the ONLY thing I've seen that points the other way, is Osama Bin Laden's recent rant about the dangers of Global Warming. Which tells me he might be a creation of the globalists trying to disolve the United Stated and bring about the New World Order. A backwoods crazy Muslim geurilla leader talking about Global Warming ... ha. But that's another story.

(Excerpt from "The Watchmen" ... as in the novel, not the movie.)

--------------------

"Stood in firelight, sweltering bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent.

"Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in the night.

"Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone.

"Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later.

"Born from oblivion, bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion.

"There is nothing else.

"Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long.

"No meaning save what we choose to impose.

"This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs.

"It's us.

"Only us.

"Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them.

"Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

"Was Rorschach."

A quote from Robert Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers' that left a mark on me:

---

"Ah, yes, the `unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What `right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What `right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of `right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is `unalienable'? And is it `right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed that great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called `natural human rights' that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

"The third `right'? -- the `pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can `pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

---

I am an atheist. I don't believe in God, and that means that means that I don't believe we are born with 'unalienable rights'. Ayn Rand was an atheist, too, but she still believed that we, as individuals, were endowed with the same rights from birth.

We have no authority to claim these rights as unalienable without defending them by force. I LOVE the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but I recognize that if I am lazy and take the right for granted (which was bought for me by the blood of patriots in the past), I will lose that right. They're great IDEALS, but they're not rights, unless we have the strength to defend them. To hold onto them.

My wife was just watching Sesame Street, and they had a 'news bit' with Dan Cooper talking about the letter 'G'. He was also talking with puppet commentators, 'Dan Rather-not', and 'Walther Cranky'.

"Tell me what you think, 'Dan Rather-not'."
"I'd rather not."
"What about you, Walther Cranky?"
"Grrrrrr..."
"Boy, Oscar, these guys won't answer my questions..."
Oscar: "Well, that's what made them great."

Propaganda for your children. :)