stingeragent wrote:I know everyone is always quick to blame OCT for everything but as of yet I haven't seen conclusive proof that their actions had any statistical impact on where we are now. (if I'm wrong please post a link) From what I have seen it has all been taken as speculation that OCT makes the news so that has to be the reason when in fact that may not be the case. In any case, everything they did is and was legal (to my knowledge) so they were just doing what they legally could. You may think it was in bad taste, or I may think it was in bad taste, but none the less, that is not for us to decide as it is and was a freedom they could use. We can not be hypocritical of someone using their freedoms (in our opinion in bad taste or not), and then expect us to get our freedoms without prejudice. Just as we can preach about our gun right's, the crazy anti's can do the same even though we know for sure 99% of what they say is garbage.
I don't know what rock you've been living under, but I'll just post a few links proving that the statements made in this forum about OCT are factual.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... s-at-home/
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/05/31/open ... rotestors/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/201 ... s/9789685/
http://www.alan.com/2014/07/02/video-op ... ause-derp/#
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texa ... 015078.php
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... squad.html
Just Google Open Carry Texas and protest and activist and you'll find tons of articles about their actions and the consequences of those actions.
And for a good taste of their willingness to work together, read this thread
http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showt ... -CHL-forum
If you had advocated open carry on there you would have been chastised and then banned if you did not fall in line like a good little sheeple.
I'll show in a minute how ironic that statement is.
As for your claim that it is "not for us to decide", all I can say is rights are not a one way street. As you state, they had the legal right to do what they did. But just because what they did was legal does not mean that no one has the right to criticize them for their behavior or for the damage they have done to the 2A movement. I, for one, will not be silent about their behavior or the damage they have done. With rights come responsibilities. The second part seems to be lost on a lot of younger people.
It seems a lot of new people on the forum are ignorant of the work that's been done by Charles Cotton and Alice Tripp and members of this forum for decades and the positions that have been taken. The first open carry bill was introduced in 2011. Here's a discussion we had about it.
viewtopic.php?t=44594 By that time we had been working on campus carry for several years.
http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/the-mak ... -movement/ (The first discussions regarding campus carry took place on this board in 2005) In 2013 another open carry bill was introduced. The NRA-ILA supported that bill.
http://www.texasgopvote.com/texas/texas ... rry-005062 It was about that time (March 2013) that CJ Grisham was arrested for openly carrying an AR-15 near Temple, Texas. It was AFTER that that OC Texas and OC Tarrant County were established and began running through the state like a wrecking ball raising the awareness of the average citizen to gun issues, and not in a positive way.
Yeah, we "sheeple" have been working on 2A rights
including OC before some of these mockers were a gleam in their father's eyes.
Many of us would have preferred to quietly work our way through the legislature, as we always had in the past, and get campus carry across the finish line and work on OC but be prepared to fight again in 2017. OCT made that impossible. Either we got OC passed this session or God knows if we ever would have after OCT got through doing their damage. And we barely did, because OCT worked overtime trying to kill the bill through the Dutton Amendment.
stingeragent wrote:I have seen this quite a bit on this forum. A lot of folks on here are completely against OC
That is flatly false. I won't take the time to prove it to you. There are hundreds and hundreds of posts on this forum discussing OC YEARS before it passed, and I defy you to find ONE post where people said that were opposed to OC. There have been plenty of discussions regarding it not being as high a priority as some other cherished goals, but NO ONE has said OC should not be allowed or even said it should not be a goal.
My suggestion to a lot of the new people jumping on to this forum is to spend some time reading through the forum and learn who you are dealing with before forming any opinions about us. No one has been a greater supporter of 2A rights in Texas than the members of this forum. No one has worked harder or longer on 2A rights in Texas than Charles Cotton and Alice Tripp and members of this forum. We were working on OC TWO YEARS before OCT and OCTC came on the scene and blew everything up. So if you're going to accuse ANYONE who is a long time member of this forum of being anti-OC, you'd better prepare to get blasted, because I will not put up with it. And I have thousands of posts to back me up and prove you are wrong.