Even the National Rifle Association thinks some Texas residents are taking public gun toting too far.
The notorious gun lobby has slapped members of Open Carry Texas as “downright weird” for their insistence on bringing loaded semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s and AK-47s, into family-friendly establishments like Chipotle and Starbucks.
The statement, released Friday, came one day before a throng of some 150 people, some armed with semi-automatic rifles and copies of the U.S. Constitution, assembled peacefully outside a Home Depot in North Richland Hills, a Dallas/Fort Worth suburb.
“We’re fundamentally changing America and changing Texas,” Mark Thompson, armed with a Beretta semi-automatic rifle during the rally Saturday, told the Dallas Morning News. “We’re letting people know they’re free.”
But the NRA, whose vice president Wayne LaPierre endorsed “a good guy with a gun” in schools and other public places shortly after the massacre at Newtown, said in a blog posting that “a small number (of Texans) have recently crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness.”
The state allows unlicensed people to openly carry rifles in public places, a law OCT has used “merely to draw attention” to themselves, the NRA said.
“Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself,” the statement says. “To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.”
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America circulated a petition asking Chipotle to ban guns in restaurants after a rally last month at a Dallas-area restaurant spooked other customers. And Open Carry Texas demonstrations at Jack in the Box and Starbucks caused the companies to prohibit firearms from their respective establishments nationwide.
“I think they’re just a bunch of boobs,” Jon Felt, 49, told the Morning News as he watched Saturday’s demonstration. “They say they checked all these weapons. How do we know they’re empty? I don’t know who these people are.”
On Sunday, Open Carry Texas tweeted a response to the NRA statement: “The NRA has lost its relevance and side with #guncontrolextremists and their lapdog media,” the group wrote.
