.....This dates back to just over a year ago when all those misguided idiots started doing open carry of AR-15s and similar military styled semi-auto rifles in various restaurants and businesses. Thank God those idiots stopped doing that - they were doing an incredible amount of damage to the image of gun owners in America and forcing pro gun businesses to turn against us.
In most cases the result of those open carry demonstrations was the same. The open carry folks pushed things to an extreme, made customers nervous, and then good Republican business owners exercised their right to follow the profits and preserve their businesses, and had to ask customers not to open carry in their restaurants....
In the bigger picture do I have a bone to pick with the various businesses who in one form or another said "please, stop this open carry BS"? Absolutely not. Exercising our second amendment rights should not threaten their businesses or livelihoods as we have the means to bear arms without making their customers uncomfortable or anxious. If we as a gun carrying community lack the common sense and courtesy to respect their right to earn a living and their customers rights not to feel uncomfortable then we've earned the responses we've gotten. Don't like it? It'll sound harsh, but it needs to be said to some of the denser folks out there - smarten up and start thinking about the other 330 million people who have to share this country with you.
Now before you start flaming me and branding me as some sort of liberal, understand that I'm both a political conservative and a rabid gun fan, and I have been since practically birth. But I've also been carefully schooled in safe gun handling since that same early age, and I've been raised in a western ranch based tradition of personal responsibility and respect for others.
Consequently, from a gun safety perspective, I get anxious and uncomfortable when unknown individuals are walking around a public place with unholstered weapons. I have to assume they are loaded and invariably when uncased long arms are involved, sooner or later they unintentionally start sweeping people with them.
I'm also a large fan of the second amendment, but I'm also old enough, wise enough and worldly enough to realize that each and every right we have comes with an equal amount of responsibility to exercise that right prudently and appropriately. When that fails to happen, we get abuses of that right that will ultimately result in the elimination of that right.
I also recognize that ALL people have rights and that my rights end at the point they begin to infringe on the rights of others. In other words, if I am able to exercise my right to bear arms in a manner that minimizes or eliminates the discomfort of people who don't share the desire to bear arms, then it is prudent, proper and respectful of my fellow Americans to do so. Just because I have a right to carry an AR-15 around town just to make a statement or get a response, doesn't make it smart, prudent, or in our best interests do actually do so, and more often than not, I'm not going to like the response I get.
I conceal carry every day from the time I get up to the time I go to bed as matter of personal choice and personal protection, but my respect for the rights of others is one of the major reasons why I conceal carry rather than open carry.
No thanks. 
They would actually put real meat in their burritos! 
