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There are rights, and there are responsibilities that accompany each right.
The classic and well-worn illustration is that it is irresponsible - not to mention illegal - to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, though the right to free speech is one of America's most cherished. The reason for the prohibition is that people might be hurt in a stampede to escape.
So while members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League have the right to carry guns on their hips as they strut our streets, thanks to the Second Amendment to the Constitution and Virginia's legislature, their intentional provocation of Norfolk police officers does not make city streets any safer. That's irresponsible.
The VCDL, with a mailing address in Northern Virginia, lately seems to believe its mission is to transform the government and police department of the city of Norfolk, to make our community a friendlier place for its members and their campaign for displayed weapons.
Luckily for the VCDL, those same members get to go home when they're done making trouble in Norfolk. They don't have to rely on Norfolk officers who might understandably hesitate when dispatched by 911 to figure out why somebody is walking down the street with a weapon, or lingering in front of an ATM.
The VCDL wants to normalize displayed guns in a community that has paid far too high a price for gun violence.
The organization wants to make it commonplace for people - law abiding and not - to walk down the streets of Norfolk with a gun in a holster.
If the VCDL gets to raise its profile and fatten its coffers in the bargain, all the better. Most of Norfolk has no interest in what the VCDL is selling and frowns on guns in playgrounds and restaurants and City Hall and festivals, all places where VCDL advocates wearing weapons.
Members intentionally provoke a public reaction, then are outraged when law-abiding citizens call the police about an armed stranger, or when police aren't sufficiently deferential to their Second Amendment rights.
Norfolk's citizens want a strong police force to help prevent violence in the city. We want them to respect the rights of everyone, of course, but first we want them to make sure an armed man, in a public place, means us no harm.
And now, thanks to the hassling presence of VCDL members, thanks to a campaign to cow the police, thanks to pandering lawmakers in Richmond, Norfolk officers may hesitate the next time they're faced with an armed person who may or may not intend violence.
For a group that professes a proud allegiance to the principles of law and order, it is a discordant result that calls into question their tactics, their intentions, and quite possibly their motives.
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human rights
Self-defense is the most basic human right.
It's ironic
It's ironic, but in many states where we pushed to make the government issue concealed carry permits to ordinary citizens, opponents argued that concealing weapons was suspicious and that someone with nothing to hide should carry openly -- letting others stay away from them.
Here we have some individuals choosing to do just that, and they're being called irresponsible. Well, they cannot be any more irresponsible than the opponents of concealed carry who made this argument!
For your consideration Chester
With respect, this isn't about the federal Second Amendment, but Virginia state law as it is written. State law allows Virginia citizens to open carry in public and in public places. The law specifies where an individual can and cannot carry and the circumstances thereof. The only thing Mr. Moore was guilty of was doing what the law allows him to do. It's like getting a sppeding ticket for doing 35 MPH in a 40MPH zone. The only abuse that this writer sees is the Norfolk Police Department abusing its police powers over a law asserted by a citizen that it disagrees with.
For your consideration
First,of course,elementary school study of the government should have informed you that the 2nd amendment(or the 1st,or any other)grants no rights,it restricts government power over those natural rights.But if you look at rights as subject to restriction over 'maybes' and 'mights'consider this;you have a means of creating'free speech'(a word processor).You might abuse it,so we should restrict it by the application of prior restraint.Of course the courts say prior restraint is illegal.So the responsibility to do what's right based on your natural rights is the controlling legal theory.Constitutionally,you can't remove the natural rights of someone for what some idiot might do.My apologies to idiots who might think I've compared them to the Pilot's editorial writer and feel slighted.
Submitted by Mark Twine on
Submitted by Mark Twine on Tue, 10/14/2008 at 6:26 am.
"Only a coward Needs a gun - concealed no less - at a festival, a school, a library or a city council meeting.
We have no absolute rights and, like it or not, this madness will end."
Only a coward would allow government to hassle, arrest, and trample of the legal rights of its citizens.
Only a person with the IQ of a tennis ball would believe that a LEO will appear like magic to stop an innocent law abiding citizen from being maimed or killed in a public place such as going to or from a festival, library, or a city council meeting.
Only a coward
Needs a gun - concealed no less - at a festival, a school, a library or a city council meeting.
We have no absolute rights and, like it or not, this madness will end.
Prior Restraintaint
If we apply your firearms theory to free speech, one would have to restrain or disable their mouth when entering a crowded theatre. After all, anybody with a mouth could shout "FIRE!" Perhaps, only those with good reason to speak could get a license from the government to speak. With this license the government could ensure that people don't speak in sensitive places like schools, courthouses, and bars. Hey, does the pilot have a license to run a newspaper?
Selma March-Had same editorial as this one! Plagiarism
This is the same biased editorial that was written about MLK and the Selma march back in 1965.
This is just total plagiarism.
The congregating of black men and Northern Yankees in Selma was very dangerous and meant to provoke.
As this plagiarized editorial from that 1965 protest pointed out the recent open carry was the same thing.
Just as we should have called out the National Guard and rounded up and stuck all those Selma marchers in a gulag to protect the ordinary American Citizen that demands a safe white America we should have rounded up and stuck these open carry protesters and stuck them in a Gulag to protect the rich Nobles and Lords from the great unwashed masses of peasants becoming armed. Good Lord those peasants might realize the Nobles and Lords are not sharing the wealth in a fair way and realize that if they were armed and protested that they could force the nobility to compromise or
Amused
I'm always amused when the Virginian-Pilot steps up to trample on the rights that Virginians have struggled so hard to achieve and show in print that they do not understand what they are talking about. Such is the case in the Editorial "Public safety loses in gun right protests."
Somehow the Pilot seems to think that only the VCDL members have the right to carry handguns (not "firearms") in public and that we can tell these people by the fact that the "strut our streets". That must be one of those things that happens in Hampton Roads, because here in Northern Virginia, nobody is "strutting" the streets of Leesburg with a handgun. If fact, we rarely notice when someone here enters an establishment with when exercising their right to carry. I'm presuming that people in Hampton Roads have some sort of unnatural fear of citizens exercising their rights and we might hear about their fear of citizen
Shameful
This is THE most shameful editorial I have ever seen in the Virginian Pilot. As a long term member of the VCDL, I am highly offended by its stench. Never again can the Virginian Pilot deny its liberal bias. Barack Obama and the New York Times would be proud of you. Your assault on our God-given (and State and Federally protected) rights is inexcusable.
Your editorial proves that our rights are under assault, and should drive people to visit vcdl.org to see what they can do to preserve our right to defend our families. The VCDL could ask for no better recruiting tool than your editorial.