There is a big difference in being situationally aware and judging people based on superficial things.
What you call
judging is a simple fact that the content of most books can in fact be determined by the cover. you can go through your life deciding not to think about whether the mouthy kid with a chip on his shoulder might pose a danger, that's your prerogative. Fine, believe that the old man with the cane can take out the mouthy kid who likes the look of his gun. You can just ignore all of this and decide that nobody should be judged just because he is carrying a gun out in the open and fits general criteria of a person who probably shouldn't be carrying one. Openly Carrying a gun and fitting a general profile of someone who shouldn't be is
exactlywhen you should be giving the person a closer look. For the love of god, do most of the killers and criminals out there look like they just left church?
Should you look at the guy who leaves the bar and walks unsteadily to his car? Ohh, yep, he maybe shouldn't be driving.
For some reason unknown to me, you believe that I should not look at a person and examine their appearance and activities, and the fact that they are carrying a gun, then decide whether their behavior is unusual, and whether they may in fact present some sort of danger to myself and others. I don't understand that, every cop or soldier does that all day long. Why am I expected to walk around with my head in the clouds, and not think about whether the old guy may have his gun taken away?
Let me remind you, that post had very little to do with my personal thoughts, you put that in all by yourself. My post was about whether a homeless guy who looks nuts is going to upset the crowd of soccer moms and maybe cause a few traffic accidents, and whether it's a good idea to allow that homeless guy who would scare the water out of enough people to cause a problem to carry the gun.
Carrying a gun and making a scene with it would be chargeable as a public nuisance.
I'm going to relate two more points here. many years ago, a man who was mentally slow and possibly autistic was going through my neighborhood with a pistol that I recognized as just a black replica. he went through people's yards playing cops and robbers with imaginary bad guys. I stopped this same guy from beating up a couple of kids later on.
A few years ago a guy was walking down main street in fatigues, carrying a rifle in the late of night. Turned out to be an air rifle, guy turned out to be another "disadvantaged" type. As god is in his heaven, I want people to look at these folks and "judge" whether the mentally handicapped kid with the green mohawk has stolen his fathers gun and is going around the neighborhood with a live handgun. I want them to wonder if the guy with the rifle is on his way to the church's midnight service. The fact is, sometime in that same five year period, a senior at the high school walked into the school with an AK and wearing fatigues, and fired a shot into the ceiling. he then pulled the trigger on a vice principle, but the gun had jammed.
Disagree with me if you want, but don't ridicule the possibility that a guy carrying a gun may be intending to use it illegally, and don't even consider the possibility that this same guy will go unnoticed by people who will be terrified at the sight and cause trouble.
Several years ago, in late september, we had a halloween pop up store here. they set a guy up out at the street, waving a machete at people. Someone called the police, and since he over a block away from the actual store, they didn't know that he was just playing. They held him at gun point until they found that it was plastic, then, judging that it wasn't smart to upset the people driving by at 45 mph, they told the manager "NO MORE CRAZY LOOKING EMPLOYEES WAVING WEAPONS AT THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET!"
I've got nothing more to say. Maybe some people will read this and understand.
The guy who wrote the article layed out dozens of events that supported these same concerns. If you don't like my conclusions I can't change you or help you.