Aurora, and the rest of Colorado can talk all we want about the so-called supreme right to carry a gun anywhere we please.

It’s all talk, Aurora.

The reality is, that no matter how much of a gun-rights enthusiast you are, no matter how much you think about and appreciate the Second Amendment, when you see anyone other than a cop with a gun on their belt or in their hands, you pay attention. And if you’re an average resident who’s just looking to get their grocery shopping done or showing up at city hall to find out how that new 24-hour pie-and-bowling-bar is going to affect your neighborhood, people with guns in public places make you nervous.

Those who feel the need to strap one on to go to city hall, the library, Wal-Mart or the dentist, are the vast minority here in Aurora, and in most places. And while the rights of the minority in any respect need to be acknowledged, the right to scare the hell out of everyone creates a reason to find middle ground.

City lawmakers this week are looking at a measure that would allow it to enforce its legal right to prevent anyone other than police from openly carrying a gun into city hall and city council chambers. Sadly, it’s  come to this because of a national fad for eccentric gun-rights activists to carry their gats all over town, because they can.

Last year, an 18-year-old man was stopped by Aurora police after motorists called dispatchers to report that he was walking along East Iliff Avenue with a shotgun strapped to his back. In this case, like so many others, the teenager videotaped the inevitable run-in with police and then posted the encounter online. Gun-rights activists like this bait cops all over the country every day. The incidents have become so prevalent that police associations are devising protocols for approaching people who shamelessly try to get attention by carrying loaded guns for no good reason.

At a city council meeting last month, two men carrying guns on their belts came to city council, saying they wanted to approach the council and talk about the importance of honoring the right of open carry. Since the building isn’t posted with a sign, the two men weren’t in violation of any ordinance. They just scared the hell out of everyone and caused police to post a couple of cops in the room, ask them what was going on, and stay there until they left and the meeting was over.

It’s a waste of police resources. This isn’t Dodge City, and even on TV, there were saloons and places where gunslingers had to empty their holsters.

It’s all gun-activist theater. It’s dangerous and unnecessary.

A city council committee this week took the advice of Deputy Police Chief Terry Jones and agreed to recommend that the full city council post a no-open-carry sign at city hall and end the practice before someone gets hurt or killed. It’s good advice that surprisingly moved on by a 2-1 vote. Councilman Bob Roth voted against the notion, saying that he has a concealed carry permit and dislikes the idea of limiting someone’s gun rights.

That’s worrisome. No rights are absolute. All constitutional rights are limited by how they infringe on the rights of others, create danger and common sense. It’s important that Roth and any other critics of limiting theatrical gunslinging at city hall and other public buildings understand that everyone’s rights in Aurora deserve protection, not just those who find pleasure in this type of puerile behavior.

28 replies on “EDITORIAL: Unabated open-carry gun rights is the wrong way to protect anyone”

  1. Concealed carry should be illegal. Open carry should be the only allowed method and there should be no location restrictions. If we went in that direction, how long would be before the majority said: no guns, period?

    1. If someone open carries gun grabbers say it skeers peeps.

      If people conceal carry gun grabbers say it skeers peeps.

      It matters not to gun grabbers how you carry it skeers them.

      It would be unbearable to live in such feer, so I carry a gun.

      1. And once again, two years after the massacre, we are still not yet beginning a ‘trial’ for this monster, or mental misfit, whichever he happens to be, he ‘needs’ to be dead. I wish folks with your thinking would be party to an event like this, perhaps then your mind would change.

  2. ” people with guns in public places make you nervous.” No they make irrational people like you nervous. Yellow Journalism. Get a new job, you suck at this one!

    1. Richard, I’m a pretty rational person, but the sight of someone feeling they need to pack heat in a Starbucks or King Soopers kind of scares me. I’m pushing up toward 70. I’ve lived in LA and I’ve lived in Milwaukee and have NEVER felt the need to have to carry a gun to protect myself. Maybe your experience is different.

      1. How would you have felt in the theater the night that monster decided to massacre innocent people? Wish you would have had someone with a gun to protect you Retiree?

        1. The only thing worse than Holmes shooting up the room that night would have been a bunch of you cowboys joining in the gunfire. No, I don’t want or need your protection.

          1. People are no longer trained what to do in these emergencies. The draft for instance no longer exists. 85% live in urban settings which means the use of guns is not like it was 100 years ago when practice was just going outside. Universal training would be a much better idea,

        1. So you or your wife killed or wounded the assailant? Was this in the news at some point?

          99% of the news stories I hear are about unnecessary gun deaths because some gun-loving idiot leaving a gun out where kids get their hands on it and kill someone. Or someone using a gun to settle scores with someone else, or maybe to kill someone because they’re playing their music too loud. I don’t see dozens of stories every week where rapes or other crimes were averted because of someone packing heat.

          1. guns are treated like airplanes by the media. Only crashes and negativity are newsworthy. They never report on a plane that takes off and lands safely.

          2. Actually I probably read a dozen stories every week about some not-so-responsible gun owner leaving his piece around the house only to have one of his kids blow away another kid, or some playmate. At least a dozen. But Richard, you’ve won the argument. There are 300,000,000+ guns in the hands of anyone from nitwits to people who actually know how to use them. And we read these dozen or more stories every week, and instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. You have definitely won.

          3. That’s because the reports are not made. Many places do not report an almost. Security cameras capture many uses but it is questionable whether it is reported in any official way. Many places have confusing laws on self protection and the report of an almost crime may leave out any reference to defensive use of a firearm.

      3. The great thing about this country we can exercise our RIGHTS regardless of other people’s feelings or whether they want to exercise those same rights or not.

        1. And if I get caught in the crossfire of some nut job exercising his rights, I guess I should be grateful.

  3. I’m for both open and conceal carry. Law abiding citizens should not need a license to carry a gun.

  5. PERFECT EXAMPLE of a pathetic liberal using emotion to justify eroding your rights. I guess by that logic people could get nervous seeing a bunch of kids with low pants thinking they might get robbed and we should ban that..SEE your pathetic liberals are idiots. people are tired of your liberal crap.

  7. How many people would have been saved in the Aurora Theater massacre if people were allowed to carry firearms unabated? 6? 4? Even one life saved from a cold blooded murderer, and another thing, this monster wouldn’t have to be defended for his heinous acts by taxpaid attorneys either, what a shame.

  8. Like Dave Perry I’m against “unabated” gun rights … but I’m for my constitutional right to bear arms at least 99% of the time.

  9. “Since the building isn’t posted with a sign, the two men weren’t in violation of any ordinance. ”
    If the City does not want to violate state law they will need to do more than post a sign. They will need to provide metal detectors and armed guards (i.e. police officers) at all the entrances. If you will forbid me from protecting myself and my family in a government building they you will have to provide that protection.

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