Exercising 2nd ammendment rights: smart move or just causing needless trouble?

There have been many cases of late where patriotic citizens have elected to walk around their neighborhoods carrying their self defense weapons in plain sight.  As most gun advocates know (and most cops should also know), it is generally not illegal to do this.

Carrying a handgun is a different deal in most states.  You cannot "open carry" a hand gun in many states at all.  Such a move is considered too rude of a visual impact on the sheeple population which is very easily made afraid of things it should have no fear of, and completely oblivious to those things that it should fear the most.  In most states, including Texas, if you want to carry a hand gun around you have to conceal it and you have to have a concealed carry permit.  Making people pay permit fees stops most people from bothering with it.

But carrying a so called "long gun" is legal in many states without a permit (local laws vary).  And where it is allowed, we see more and more people these days taking casual walks with their AR15s.  YouTube is full of such videos, usually as a result of police approaching the gun holder and so the self defense camera goes on.  Sometimes the cops are really well educated and smart about it.  In these rare cases the cops recognize that people are allowed to exercise their rights and that's the end of it. They talk with the activists for a few minutes, do not request or demand to see ID (which these cops know would be a violation of the 4th amendment) and then they go on their way.  Then the cops deal with all of the morons calling 911 just because someone has a gun and is walking around not hurting anyone.

In other equally rare cases, the cops know that the activists have rights but they try to soft-talk them down from them with mealy mouthed requests for "compromise and cooperation".  In these cases, the cops talk for a long time asking the citizen to see the cop's point of view even though it's not the citizen's job or requirement to do that.  What the cops are really trying to do is to make their own lives easier.  They know that citizen's right exist but think it would be easier if we would all just give them up willingly. 

But mostly the cops act like thugs.  They either do not like the fact that people have guns in the first place (cops of course are always of high moral character and thus no problem with them having guns...) OR they don't like to be bothered by 911 nuisance calls (and so they take it out on the gun-toter) OR they just like to push people around and put them "in their place".  This is how most YouTube videos on the subject go down.  The cop approaches, asks for ID.  The protester declines.  The situation quickly turns adversarial and the cop turns it into a physical encounter and then charges the protester with felony resisting and a bunch of other trumped up charges that will cost thousands of dollars to the protester even when he wins the case.  In other words, police abuse pure and simple.

Of course, not every citizen sees it from libertarian eyes.  Many people buy the argument that if you have nothing to hide then just consent to anything the police demand.  In my view, this attitude is an obvious caving in to intimidation by people who can't stand conflict.  The cops know that a larger percentage of the herd normally falls into this category.  So if they can just beat down the few bulls that exist in the herd, they think they can control the whole herd easily and without doing any work.  But many citizens agree with government on everything because they think that doing so will make them safe.  It's a tried and true recipe for disaster and is usually practiced by those who never learned any history.

Still, let's try to hear the sheeple side of it.  Walking down the street with a gun might be legal but it upsets people.  On that basis alone it should not be done, they say.  People who do this are just looking for trouble, they say.  Such people are just looking for confrontation.  Or are they?  Maybe instead of just looking for a way to fly their rights in the faces of a bunch of policemen who they don't even know, maybe just maybe the activists understand that a right un-exercised is a right lost.  Maybe these activists are as much students of history on this matter as is the US military.

Say what?  We were talking about exercising civilian constitutional rights and now all of a sudden it has something to do with the military?  In fact, yes.  The recent international fiasco between the US and Chinese navies almost resulted in the collision of two armed warships.  I don't know what the protocol would have been should a collision have occurred but it is not beyond possibility that it could be viewed by both sides as an act of aggression that requires a military response.  Such things can quickly spiral up into full scale wars.  Do you know why the US was over in that neighborhood strolling around with an open carry missile destroyer?

"The US navy said it was in the South China Sea conducting routine "freedom-of-navigation" operations – which are intended to assert the right of passage through a disputed area – when the incident occurred."

Yes, that's right.  The US government was asserting its belief that those waters are international territory.  The US Navy did this not in spite of China's recent declarations about ownership of these waters but in fact because of those same declarations.  Does this make the US government "a confrontational a$$hole"?  Is the US government just looking for trouble and a way to start WW3?  No I think not.  I think that much of what happens in the world is due to precedent.  I like to call it the law of saying something 3 times and if there are no complaints then it becomes de facto truth.  This is why the US government was willing to mix it up in the South China Sea with the Chinese military.

Well if it's good for the goose then its good for the gander.  If people don't practice their 2nd and 4th and 5th amendment rights then at some point the cops assume the role of rights squatters.  In other words, you weren't using them anyway so we just assumed you abandoned them.  You want them back now???  Not without a fight.  You see, that's just exactly how it works.  That's how entire civilizations have become effectively enslaved in the past.  It is a tried and true formula for screwing your fellow man over .  That's why these patriots who risk themselves with these police encounters are to be praised.  People who do it are at risk of police misbehavior and of course after you are dead you cannot defend yourself.  The cops know this which is why they always unload their clips once they start shooting.  Look what happens when a steroid pumped police thug decides that only cops should have guns.  Most people would never believe that happens without the video simply because it has not happened to them.  Yet.

Civilian criminals do not walk around showing guns. Instead, they hide their guns and sneak around.  So the next time you see a fellow citizen walking around with a weapon, honk and wave.   The rights his is saving (at the risk of his own life no less) might be yours.