To carry or not to carry

Photo by formatted_dad

It’s a gray Saturday morning at an outdoor mall in Walnut Creek. Elevator music quietly plays from speakers hovering above the manicured walkway. This is Locust Street: clean, safe, lined with upscale retail clothing stores and chain restaurants; a place where you’d be comfortable taking your family.

While a few people casually make their way to brunch dates or weekend sales at the many adjacent department stores, a noticeable crowd of men, women and children is building around the Buckhorn Grill. On the margins of the crowd stands Jerry Jeung: a kind-looking, middle-aged loss-prevention officer from Antioch. Jeung’s eight-year-old son Jarrett hangs off his left side, peering at the group pouring out of the Buckhorn Grill. And hanging off Jeung’s right side is a Glock Model 20 10 mm Auto Pistol.

Many people in the crowd of 75 are looking at Jeung’s weapon. Actually, they’re not so much looking at the firearm; they’re looking for it. Here, a gun is a sign of camaraderie, a symbol of mutual understanding and simpatico politics. As I approach the group, several eyes glance toward my hips. Gun-less, I feel somewhat underdressed and exposed.

It’s easy to understand why the members of this gathering are eager to visually pat me down and identify whether I stand with them or not. This is an unofficial demonstration of Bay Area Open Carry, a loosely affiliated group of locals exercising their second amendment rights to carry an unloaded firearm in public. They’ve been making national news lately with these demonstrations, forcing restaurants and cafes to pick sides on whether they’ll welcome or ban open-carriers in their storefronts. Peet’s and California Pizza Kitchen have taken a stand against the open-carriers, while Starbucks maintains that it’s open for business to both the armed and unarmed. 

The political drama surrounding the situation seems a little bit overblown given my experience this morning. While these guys (literally—only men are carrying today) are technically packing heat, “gun-toting” is hyperbolic. This demonstration is about as action-packed as a book reading. Instead of reaching for their guns, these open carriers are reaching for pamphlets; instead of distributing lead, they’re delivering political viewpoints.

No guns are loaded or drawn today. The first and obvious reason is that, frankly, it’s the law. (A gun can’t be drawn unless a life is at stake.) Some open-carriers might also argue that no evil-minded criminal would dare to pull a weapon on a group so readily and rationally armed.

And yet, I can’t remove a third reason from my mind: we’re at a family-friendly restaurant in a suburban shopping mall.

And that seems to be the strange tension about the Open Carry movement: the demonstrations themselves don’t seem to necessarily demonstrate anything. One female supporter who isn’t carrying a gun tells me that the main argument behind the right to carry a firearm is safety: by having a gun on your person, you can defend yourself in a sticky situation. In addition, by having the gun visible, you reduce the potential for crime in your proximity. It would seem that demonstrating the value of carrying a firearm might be better achieved in a more active way: say, walking the streets of a crime-ridden neighborhood rather than lunching at Walnut Creek’s Buckhorn Grill.

Still, it makes sense that pulling a gun should always be a last resort, and that its usefulness hopefully won’t need to be proved.

About a week after the Bay Area Open Carry gathering, Buckhorn Grill management banned guns in their chain of restaurants. Still, the demonstrations—or moral-support gatherings—continue to make noise. Hopefully, that noise won’t include a bang.