It was a beautiful spring day. My wife Maureen and I went up to the borough of Doylestown, Pennsylvania for an outdoor lunch and some shopping. Doylestown is a typical suburban small town with many restaurants, bars, shops and a long history. Before heading home, we stopped at our favorite coffee shop. As we settled down at one of the sidewalk tables, I noticed a guy coming out of the shop and sitting on a bench just a few feet away. He had a gun on each hip. I could only see the handles sticking up from the holsters tucked inside his belt. One had a white handle, one a darker handle. He looked to be in his mid-30s, glasses, hair parted down the middle. He started talking with an older guy wearing an Eagles sweatshirt at another table. I could hear some of the conversation about the lockdowns over Covid. They were calm and seemed to be enjoying the day as we were. I asked Maureen to turn around slowly and see what I saw. She said she was uncomfortable. I agreed. We left. Welcome to America.
I thought this is the kind of thing you see in Wyoming or North Dakota or Montana. Not in the idyllic, charming borough of Doylestown. Philadelphia is being traumatized by a spree of gun violence. Every day there are stories of daylight shootings killing or wounding children, teenagers, adults and the elderly. Everyone seems to have a gun and no regard for the consequences for using it. Many of those guns are obtained illegally or have been stolen. But law abiding citizens, of course, have a Second Amendment right to buy a gun. But, just how easy it to carry one around on your hip in public?
Pennsylvania is an “open carry” state. That means it’s legal for a law abiding citizen over eighteen years old to openly carry a gun around in full view. There are exceptions. You can’t bring one into a school. You can’t have a loaded gun in your car, unless you have a license to carry. Otherwise, you have to unload the gun and store it in the trunk. So if you’re driving along and you see something that you think requires you to use your gun, you’ll have to pull over, open the trunk, load your gun and then decide if you’re going to shoot. Don’t worry if you want a conceal carry permit, no training is required. Now, remember the rules in Philadelphia are different. You have to have that conceal carry permit to openly carry you gun around on your hip in the city. But you shouldn’t have much trouble getting a gun on the street if you know where to look.
I’m not going to argue about Second Amendment rights here. I think it’s one of the great mistakes of our Founding Fathers. We live in a country that’s under a shadow of fear. We don’t feel safe. Some people say they have the right to protect themselves and aren’t concerned about how the sight of their gun makes some people more afraid, not less. We didn’t feel safer at that coffee shop sitting next to a man with two guns. Instead of enjoying the sunshine and the gentle breeze at the intersection of State and Main, we left under that shadow of fear.
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