Scaring the Straights?

From Sipsey street Irregulars

Received this comment that seemed worthy of further discussion.

Ed Rasimus has left a new comment on your post "What passes for critical thinking at the Wall Street Journal":

At issue isn't the protesting against the administration, but the prudence and wisdom of flaunting the firearms at Starbuck's and park gatherings. We shouldn't question the right to do it and we should always be aggressive in defense of the Second Amendment, but we have to recognize that there is the aspect noted in the WSJ which is that it gives the hoplophobes something to illustrate their meme about redneck, dangerous, militia types who are a social hazard.

We act against our interest when we do that.

Do we really? Is it really in our interest to worry about whether we scare the straights or not?

Your thoughts, Irregulars.

The GLBT's, I've been told, debated the wisdom of scaring the straights with open displays. They knew that their behavior might upset the hetero majority and harm the "movement". Maybe it did but the harm was small while the benefits were large. If nothing else, it made it plain that many of the GLBT's were tired of living on the fringes of society.

Now the gunnies are having a parallel argument and in the long run I think it will have a similar outcome. As a group, gun owners are tired of being pushed around and marginalized. They are not going to back up any more -- not one goddamn inch! -- and the best way to defend a right is to push back against the infringements. Open Carry rallies where the gunnies demonstrate that willingness to push back have been shining examples of decorum and civility: No one has been shot. No negligent discharges. Hell! They even clean up after themselves.

While I generally suspect any appeals to "historical inevitability", I think gun owners "coming out of the closet" is an idea whose time has come and critics of Open Carry like Ed Rasimus and Nancy DeWolf Smith are going to have to get used to it.