Bearing arms exposes gap in pro-gun logic

Don Ortega says he is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. Sometimes he walks the streets of Colorado Springs carrying a shotgun. Sometimes he takes the gun to the public library. He took it to three recent City Council meetings.

That's what Ortega did when he started carrying his shotgun to Colorado Springs City Council meetings. He showed just how exposed Americans are because of our lack of sane gun laws.

Let's take a moment to step aside from the nervousness this particular character generated, and ask ourselves an important question. How many people did this person hurt or kill with his openly-carried firearm in city council meetings? How many people did he threaten with it?

The answer may surprise you: none at all. While Ortega's choice of method is a little extreme, he's not hurting anyone. He's not even being threatening -- he usually unloads and disassembles the shotgun while in the meeting, and certainly isn't waving it around.

So why the fuss? Simple enough: the anti-gun lunatics saw the chance to score points through the general public's nervousness about firearms, and the politicians were too nervous to stand up for their supposedly principles. While this can certainly be counted a victory of sorts for the anti-gun lobby, and exposes the yellow underbelly of certain politicians, it doesn't affect the overall picture much at all.

Mainly, that's because the new law says nothing about concealed firearms. In an urban environment, concealed carry is the polite thing to do. Carrying openly makes people nervous, and that can have unintended and unfortunate consequences. But if you are carrying concealed, there's no issue.