Originally posted by: -=TIO=- Fluffytuff
Let me ask you guys this...
If I have a concealed weapons permit, can I wear a pistol as a sidearm in plain view? Or, how do you carry it around while in Wal-Mart for instance?
It depends Fluffy. What is more important to you, local law, or Constitutional law ?
Because the 2nd amendment acknowledges that every American has the individual, inherent right to bear arms. There is 1 person here who will disagree that bear means carry in that context, and will proceed to copy/paste all of the other definitions of bear from dictionary.com, because this provides their argument with greater cogency.
But if you are a common, practical man, you probably understand that bear does mean carry, and yes that arms means guns.
So anywhere in public, in the United States of America, you can bear your arms. Our Constitution acknowledges this right.
A side argument the anti-gun nuts like to support, is that bearing your arms means bearing it only on the outside of your clothing, or carrying it in your hand. They assert that you cannot where it in any holster, but only a belt holster.
I find that argument to be absurd, especially when you consider the outdoors. A shoulder holster is a great, efficient way to bear your arms, without it getting caught on anything, which could lead to an accidental discharge, and men really hate that.
Another great holster imo is an ankle holster. I've never tried one on before, but they seem fairly efficient if you stay out of water.
Those seem like practical methods of bearing your arms.
Now, here is the crazy part. There are actually states in this country that make it illegal to bear your arms even on the outside of your body. These folks also like to suggest you are required to pay a fee to even just carry it on the outside of your body. To those people, I suggest for consistency that it is entirely Constitutional to charge a fee to exercise *any* right, and would sincerely love to eventually here a really, cogent argument in opposition to that.
So it depends on your view of whether unconstitutional state laws trump the Constitution.
It makes it hard to answer your question because not all states honor the Constitution. When you are in that state, you aren't really an American any longer, similar to going to an airport.
Wal-Mart is owned privately. So to answer that question really depends on if you have any principle concerning private property. Do they really own it ? If they do, then you go under their contract to go onto their property, but you still own your own body while you are on their property. I'm not really sold entirely on how many rights you can give up just by going into contract to go onto someone else's private property. They certainly don't get to anally rape you just because you are on their property. But can they say you can't come onto their property if you are armed ? Probably so if you think it out with a strong desire to avoid any hypocrisy when you are at your final conclusion.
An educated, thinking jury would be able to deduce the best answer, if they were allowed to be able to be told of the existence of our Constitution in statutory jurisdictions that aren't mentioned in the Constitution. And I'd put more faith in their conclusion than any SCOTUS that believes regulating interstate commerce and taxation means the government can do anything it would like, negating any limitations set on it in the Constitution they ignore.