Are those that participate in "open carry" demonstrating their insecurities and an embarrassing lack of "testicular fortitude"? Yeah I think that is fair to say.

From MSNBC:

Daniel Almond, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, is ready to "muster outside D.C." on Monday with several dozen other self-proclaimed patriots, all of them armed. They intend to make history as the first people to take their guns to a demonstration in a national park, and the Virginia rally is deliberately being held just a few miles from the Capitol and the White House.

Almond plans to have his pistol loaded and openly carried, his rifle unloaded and slung to the rear, a bandoleer of magazines containing ammunition draped over his polo-shirted shoulder. The Atlanta area real estate agent organized the rally because he is upset about health-care reform, climate control, bank bailouts, drug laws and what he sees as President Obama's insistence on and the Democratic Congress's capitulation to a "totalitarian socialism" that tramples individual rights.

Isn't it cute when little boys play dress up?

What signal do these morons really believe they are sending to those that see them standing around with their penis extenders strapped to their waist?  Do they really think that people see them as powerful?  Manly?  Capable?

If you were looking around a group of men and trying to determine which ones most likely had the smallest penises, do you know what you would look for?

Yep, you got it.  Unless you are a cop nothing says "I am an insecure male" more than having a pistol strapped to your waist.

Furthermore you are essentially allowing everybody who sees you to know, without a doubt, that you are terrified of the world and fearful that somebody will injure you if you are not armed. It makes you look more like Barnie Fife than John Wayne.

I have heard the argument that when these guys are standing around with pistols strapped to their stylish leather belts that they are actually ensuring the safety of all of those around them.  Apparently they believe that advocating for MORE people to bring instruments of death into public places is safer than allowing NO instrument of death into public places.

Using that line of logic I guess if MORE people walked around infected with Tuberculosis, and mingled with large groups of people, that it would make it LESS likely that others would be infected.  Yeah that's brilliant.

I think it is clear that the only reason one would display a weapon openly on their person is to convey a sense of menace.  In other words they want those that see them, whether they are a potential mugger or a hot chick, to believe that they are dangerous and must be respected. But that only works if the people who see them also believe that the individual packing the weapon is willing to use it.

So what they really want the world to think is that they are a potential killer.  (Guns are not designed to wound, they are designed to kill. All of that garbage you see in cowboy movie about "winging them" is a bunch of shit.  Handguns are designed to take a life, nothing more, nothing less.)

So these insecure little boys are desperate to convey the message that, despite their pudgy waist, scrawny arms, and man boobs, they are a potential instrument of destruction, and, by virtue of their Wal-Mart purchased hand gun, should be both respected and feared.

Personally I don't respect or fear them.  I don't respect anybody who feels the need to carry a gun in order to feel manly or tough. (I have no problem with the idea of carrying a weapon as protection against bears in the wilds of Alaska, but in the wilds of Anchorage, or any other city or town, they need to man up.) And I don't fear them because if they DID pull that weapon on an unarmed person the police would remove both the gun and the right to carry one, which would leave these poor pathetic excuses for men completely impotent and probably hiding under their beds.

In Alaska anybody over the age of 21 can openly display a handgun in almost every place except on school grounds and in banks. But most Alaskans do not take advantage of that law because they realize that, unless they are in bear country, it just makes them look pathetic.

There are some notable exceptions however.

Yeah THAT guy is our most visible advocate for open carry and 2nd amendment rights in this state, which just about sums up the problems with the movement in a nutshell.  Don't you think?