They wore guns at their sides, and they came to clean up this town. Of litter, that is.
About a dozen gun-rights advocates with holstered side arms – and two with long arms strapped across their backs – held a brief rally and then picked up litter along The Strand on Saturday, stopping to talk and hand out fliers to anyone who asked about the weapons.
The mid-day “open carry” event was designed to remind the public that it has long been legal to carry unloaded weapons in plain sight in most public areas of California.
As the open carriers, all but two of them men, walked the busy Strand, most passersby seemed not to notice the guns at their sides. Some people asked about the weapons and eagerly accepted informational fliers, and some others quietly moved a step or two to distance themselves from the carriers.
Three young men in front of a Strand house stopped Jeff Cude of San Pedro, who was picking up cigarette butts and the like with a 45-caliber Glock on his hip.
“I was like, is that a real gun?” said one of the young men, smiling broadly.
“Is that a Glock?” he asked. “I love Glocks.”
The young men listened eagerly as Cude and another armed man cited a state law allowing people to carry unloaded guns, along with ammunition, in plain sight.
“You can walk into the store like that?” the young man asked.
Cude said yes, but quickly added that school zones, government buildings and parks are out of bounds.
“Can you shoot?” the young man asked.
“In self defense, in self defense,” Cude answered, stressing that strict legal parameters apply to the firing of a weapon.
“I don’t want to shoot anybody anyway,” he said.
During the conversation a young woman who was with the young men looked on, her eyebrows drawn together and her mouth agape.
The trash pickup ended at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Hermosa Avenue, where nobody seemed to bat an eye at the armed customers.
Some of the advocates said they carry openly only in groups, and others said they carry unconcealed weapons often.
“I open carry constantly – Home Depot, Starbuck’s, wherever I go,” said Eric Barton of Compton, who was wearing jean shorts, a T-shirt and a Taurus 9 millimeter under his arm, in perhaps the only shoulder holster worn to the event.
“I didn’t want to tuck my shirt in,” he explained.
Most wore belt holsters, many of them with a gun on one hip and ammo clips on the other.
Richard Jack of Torrance needed no holster, wearing a Colt M4 semiautomatic long arm strapped across his back.
Barton said when he is asked about the gun, “I just tell them it is my right,” and a typical response is “Oh, right on.”
He said the gun is for self defense, to be drawn only if needed.
“I would feel better that I tried to protect my stuff rather than be victimized,” he said. “But I don’t wish for a reason or hope for a reason to take it out.”
Harley Green, 24, of Hermosa, the event’s organizer and the founder of southbayopencarry.com, said he can load his Springfield Armory 9 millimeter semiautomatic side arm in two and-a-half seconds.
“Over the last 50 years Californians have continually lost the ability to defend themselves,” Green said before the cleanup, speaking from a podium at Eighth Street and Valley Drive.
“Californians have also been bombarded by inaccurate negative imagery of firearms. South Bay Open Carry seeks to reverse these counterproductive trends by showing the public that Second Amendment supporters, like most Californians, represent safety and community values,” he said.
Green said gun control measures exacerbate crime.
“One does not have to be a, quote, gun person to see the need for actively supporting Second Amendment rights… If citizens sit idly by and allow politicians to strip away their Second Amendment rights, their other rights could soon be taken away,” he said.
Two Libertarian Party candidates offered their support as well.
“I strongly support what South Bay Open Carry is doing, I strongly support the Second Amendment, and I strongly support the entire Bill of Rights,” said Dale Ogden, the Libertarian candidate for governor.
“The Libertarian Party is the only party that came out here today to support open carry,” said Ethan Musulin, a candidate for a South Bay seat in the state Assembly.
Hermosa Beach Police Lt. Garth Gaines watched over the event, and police reported no incidents in connection with it. ER
An unbiased, objective news article for a change.
Well, done.
Awesome! I back this 100%. I think its great men with small penises have a way to express themselves freely.
I live in Hermosa Beach to be in a place that values the environment and the sense of a safe community for my family. I brought my kids up here and I try to promote values to them that I want to instill in them including solving their problems with words and not weapons. Gun toting folks in my neighbor is the anthesis of this and I don’t appreciate it even if it is their legal right. The more folks like this that want to promote their weapons and wear them as a badge of courage, the more I feel obliged to help change the laws giving them the right to put them in our face. I don’t believe that anyone in my city feels their lives are threatened. Our community is safe and our police officers are just a few seconds from a call away. This is a promotion of “cool weapons” to impress our young and promote violence and I don’t approve or want it in my streets.
Liz misses the point. The US Supreme Court restored the right to carry weapons, guns included, for the purpose of self defense.
There are no laws “to change.” The cities and counties can continue to enforce the old laws but that just means they’ll get sued in Federal Court for civil rights violations costing the local governments and schools millions, and making the lawyers rich.
Openly carrying firearms is here to stay until Obama, or his successors, manage to put five justices on the Supreme Court willing to reverse the Heller/McDonald decisions.
That will be years from now. Justice Kennedy, the fifth vote, has already said he will not retire while Obama is President.
Change can be difficult to accept, but we have to remember that this is now a certified Civil Rights movement. We’re seeing the rebirth of a portion of Civil Rights that was almost lost. This is really a time to rethink our positions on civil rights in general and whether we truly support them or not.
Charles, we need to be careful now that ad hominem attacks can be construed as hate speech. I think it’s important to accept what we’ve been given and learn to use these Supreme Court decisions for our own purposes.
I have no problem with people owning hand guns for self defense in their homes, or rifles for hunting. I do, however, feel that a ridiculous display of fire power in a non-threatening situation looks paranoid and pathetic. It appears that this little publicity stunt was really for this small group of people to feel momentarily powerful and knowledgeable about guns in public. It also gave a politician a moment on his soapbox. I think this whole silly display is more about ego than gun rights.
I think I understand… The point is not so much to open carry as it is to preserve the right to do so. I read that SBOC was formed in response to AB 1934, an attempt by politicians to take away lawful citizens’ right to carry like they do in nearly every other state in the US. (It’s illegal for criminals to carry any weapon in CA and the two safest states in America are VT and NH where open gun carry is a common everyday occurrence!) Most Californians have no idea this right exists. So, SBOC is educating us while they pick up trash. Community service activities are a great way to show they are ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying members of the community that care; responsible men and woman with the training, tools and knowledge to defend themselves and those around them if necessary. Because criminals illegally carry weapons wherever they go, I’m guessing the safest place in the City is probably wherever SBOC happens to be doing their trash pick up!
The picture shows a guy with a rifle strapped to his back. That can’t be comfortable. He’s obviously making a statement. In the real world, a holstered side-arm is much more reasonable.
I have to agree with Kris W. who said, “[I] feel that a ridiculous display of fire power in a non-threatening situation looks paranoid and pathetic”.
The rest of the nation (with the exception of Wisconsin and Illinois) have gone to concealed carry as a preferred solution to open carry. I think it’s time for California to abandon its puritanical prohibition and embrace “shall issue” instead.
Open carry has its place, and I think it’s important that California have compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling in McDonald. That will require either shall issue concealed carry or open carry as the two choices. I echo Kris W.’s preference for concealed carry.
Just as we are encouraged to prepare in the event of a major disaster to rely on ourselves and our neighbors because firefighters will be spread too thin, likewise, we must prepare in the event of a major disaster or unrest to rely on ourselves and neighbors because police officers will be spread too thin to respond.
The police are already spread too thin. The average time for a 911 emergency police response in L.A. is around seven minutes. (If that’s the average, some people are waiting a lot longer!) Seven minutes is considered good by nationwide standards. Some cities have averages above 10 minutes!