Giffords partly against permitless carry because of movies :: 03/06/2023

I get that not everyone agrees with permitless carry. It’s a contentious topic and you know every gun control group on the planet will weigh in on any effort to repeal carry permits.

Which they also oppose, mind you. They just don’t want anyone to carry a gun anywhere.

Giffords, though, took their opposition to quite a different place in a recent piece.

It starts off typically enough.

I’m a Marine veteran. I support the Second Amendment. I believe in responsible gun ownership.

When I joined the Marines, we had a full month of firearms training before we fired even a single bullet on the range. There are extremely strict standards for handling a loaded weapon. It’s a long process, and with good reason. Those standards prevent accidents and misuse. I was even selected to train others at boot camp and made sure everyone was qualified at all times.

It’s just common sense to require training, licensing, and a background check before someone can carry a loaded gun in public. That’s why I oppose Governor DeSantis’s efforts to allow nearly anyone to carry a gun in public, no questions asked.

Of course, to this poor soul, I’d point out that just a smidge to the north lies the great state of Georgia that may have only recently passed permitless carry, but has never had a training requirement or asked any “questions” about much of anything in issuing permits.

But this is typical fare for Giffords. We know they oppose pretty much any carry scheme, but the kind they favored were recently killed by the Bruen decision.

No, what got me was this bit:

I don’t want to live in the Wild West.

My grandpa loved John Wayne movies and I’d watch them growing up. Everyone was armed—and it was a disaster. People would draw their weapons and shoot for no good reason, like over a card game. That might sound like hyperbole, but imagine some guys at a bar watching the game and they get in an argument. If this bill passes, fistfights will turn into gunfights.

Wait…what?

Seriously? That’s the argument. There were lots of gun fights in westerns and that’s exactly how it would work out in real life?

God only knows people shouldn’t let this guy watch a John Wick movie.

First, the Wild West wasn’t like we see it in the movies. Gunfights didn’t happen quite that often or quite like depicted. Yes, lots of people had guns, which is why it didn’t work the way you see in the movies.

Further, even if the point about the movie was intended to be a throw-away, a transition to an underlying point, it’s still a ridiculous point. Permitless carry is the law in roughly half the nation. We don’t see these fistfights turning into gunfights with any regularity.

I get the fear of this. I really and truly do. I might be willing to listen to that fear as well were there not years of evidence that the fear is unfounded.

What’s more, Giffords knows this.

Then again, they know that movies aren’t real life, and Giffords saw no problem running with that nonsense.

https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2023/03/06/giffords-movies-n68065