Rant: Westside Armory, Open Carry, and Thank-Yous

Normally, I’m not one for rants on this blog, but several things have stuck in my craw lately so I have to get them off my chest.

Westside Armory hosted a reporter from Bloomberg Business for three days. Bloomberg Business is former New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s legitimate reporting arm. Bloomberg is a leading financial news business, but Bloomberg’s affiliated The Trace is an anti-gun rag which is used to spread agitprop under the guise of being objective. In all fairness, the article is un-sensational and rather even handed, yet it clearly tows the company line of gun control and pro-universal background checks. Why did they pick a gun shop in Nevada? Oh, that’s right, the anti-gun groups Bloomberg is funding are pushing the UBC initiative here.

Westside Armory’s owner Cameron Hopkins, told Bloomberg he had no objection to universal background checks, which would ban private gun sales by requiring owners to obtain a background check with licensed dealers like Hopkins. If the initiative passes, that means that dealers like Hopkins gets to charge people for the privilege of selling their guns. Dealers will make money if the initiative passes. Numerous other statements in the article imply that Hopkins is okay with compromising when it comes to the Second Amendment. I’ll let you judge his words on your own, but I’m not okay with that.

To be fair, dealers do have to make judgment calls on their customers the same way a liquor store or bar should be denying liquor to people who are already obviously well-beyond drunk. It’s called self-policing and part of responsible citizenship. Self-policing of an industry is a lot more preferable to government regulations, which most gun dealers and Californians will tell you has become excessive. Facebook took away a huge option to self-police when it came to private gun sales and indeed made private gun sales less safe.

Gun owners did some stupid things, like the guy who gave his full name and where he works, while admitting that he intends to carry a concealed firearm at work. We can only hope that if his boss sees the article, that the distributor he works for supports its employees’ right to self-defense.

Several people have asked me about giving Hopkins a chance to clarify his statement, since the Bloomberg article didn’t give exact, detailed quotations in context. We’ve seen this before with local TV news channels. However, Bloomberg’s reporter spent three days in the store. Three days is long enough to gather and reflect the true opinion of the business owner. Three days is long enough to clarify:

“Well actually, only about 15% of guns bought privately would require a background check under the wording of the initiative. The 40% you quoted was a myth that included family transfers that wouldn’t regulated. Plus, the majority of illegal gun transactions come from corrupt dealers, street dealers who sell guns like drugs, straw purchases, and theft.”

But Hopkins didn’t do that, apparently. It appears that he jumped at the chance to get publicity for his business, either unaware or not caring that Bloomberg Business has an agenda to help destroy gun ownership. Not cool. This is the same business that continued to hold guns for 72 hours even after SB 175/240 did away with the local laws requiring the same. It was only after Metro PD sent a letter out a few days later confirming that they were no longer enforcing this did Westside drop their pointless waiting period.

New Frontier Armory, in North Las Vegas, is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and private gun sales. They held the blue card burning party back in July to celebrate state preemption. Their employees know better than to end up in a compromising position with the media and their owner is a pretty cool stand-up dude. They aren’t wanting for business, either.

Now, Hopkins can certainly contact us to clarify his stance and will happily retract our statements, but only subject to our new policy below. We have seen too many businesses whose employees or owners make statements that are either outright support for banning private gun sales, or have been open enough to be taken out of context by biased news media (disclaimer, I admit my bias). Local gun owners need to either say ‘no’ to interviews or make darn sure their words are

New policy: Because it's all too easy for businesses to make damning statements and later retract them, under the claim that they were misquoted or taken out of context, Nevada Carry will assume business meant what they told journalists. Ex post facto apologies must be confirmed by prior proof that the business does not support background checks on private gun sales or the other gun control issue du jour. To businesses, if you put yourself in a position to be misquoted or misconstrued, be very careful what you say. The onus is on you to prove that those were not your words.

Open Carry

You want to open carry? Fine. I don’t care how you dress or if your holster cost $9.99. Just make sure it’s a retention holster and you carry smart. I don’t want any gun snatchings in Nevada (which are exceedingly rare period, so STFU) and I will make it a point to humiliate you if it does happen to you here.

USE A RETENTION HOLSTER, CARRY LOADED, AND PRACTICE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AT ALL TIMES  OR DON’T CARRY OPENLY

Open carry isn’t about looking cool. It’s not something you do to make you look more intimidating to bad guys or someone who might disrespect you. It’s not about getting attention. The people who carry openly for those reasons make the rest of us look bad and endanger our rights.

Also, you want to open carry and make a point, such as when it comes to government buildings? Fine, but do it right. Have the courage to go in. Be knowledgeable about the laws and how to talk to the staff. Record or video your interaction and get the names of everyone you talk to. If the police do something bad, like take your gun or tell you lies about the law, file a complaint so that they can be corrected. Don’t just whine online, leave out details, and expect us to jump up to defend you.

Also, tell people about this website. Spread the word because, and this just isn’t my opinion, it’s a really good central resource for Nevada gun and self-defense laws. We’ve literally be educating and changing thousands of minds here, but we can’t reach those outside the mainstream gun community without word of mouth. One guy, me, pays for this and I can’t afford the advertising and time chasing stories around like the biased and disinterested Review-Journal reporters.

Thank You

I would like to thank my contributors and proofreaders for your help. My friends here at Nevada Carry keep me going when I have to do the heavy lifting and your work to make us a stronger information and news outlet is appreciated.

I want to thank everybody on here who does something for the Second Amendment fight. We all know the core individuals who give them time to volunteer, speak out at public meetings, march, run the FB pages (espcially the mods/admins), websites, etc. It's a very small group, but I'd like to think that our small corps are the vanguard of the Nevada defenders of the 2nd Amendment. With all the gun stores and ranges, it's our daily efforts that are making the biggest impact in keeping the fight going.

-GC