Today’s fun facts about the use of guns in America.

Never open carried before? Well here is your chance! Just curious? Here’s a great opportunity to come get some questions answered and see other OC’ers “in action” Michigan Open Carry is inviting you to come have lunch with us at IHOP in Woodhaven. December 15th is Bill of Rights Day, and is set as “Guns Save Lives Day” by other pro gun groups. So come on out with us and celebrate both with MOC!

The Michigan Open Carry forum has announced that their next open carry event in Michigan will be held on December 15th in Woodhaven, MI. at 1:00PM. More about them and this Open Carry event can be found here.

Update: If you know of any other “Open Carry” events coming up, in Michigan, please post them in the comments.

The Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners, Michigan Gun Owners and Michigan Open Carry, Inc. are inviting the public to a “Second Amendment BBQ” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28.

The organizations will provide free hot dogs and pop. Visitors are asked to bring a dish to pass and a gun.

At some point I am going to include an events page for this type of post but until then this will have to do. You can find out more about the event from this article at MLive titled, “Guns encouraged at Riverside Park picnic; Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell invited”

For those of you interested in the organizations putting on the event you can find out more about them at these links:

1. Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners
2. Michigan Gun Owners
3. Michigan Open Carry Forum 

Juxtaposed with the last post, Jackson County, MI allows employees to carry guns to work, a Grand Rapids Commissioner (on his way out) wants to exempt theirs and apparently other Michigan Cities from the Michigan Constitution.

James White took time at the end of a Tuesday, Aug. 27, City Commission meeting to read a prepared statement that “cities are different” from most of Michigan, and he urged lawmakers to “change any laws that might restrict the authority of cities to regulate violence and the potential for violence.”

So he wants to exempt cities from the law to protect cities from law abiding citizens? Smart. Very smart.

“The city has to have different rules because of the role it has to play,” White said after the meeting. “The state should value the cities and not say ‘Oh, you can’t’” regulate guns.

Umm no. The city has to follow the laws that everyone else in the state has to follow.

“Cities are not forests, farms, wildernesses, deserts or rain forests. Cities are markets for the exchange of goods, services and ideas. For the sake of the free flow of goods, services and ideas, cities must be regulated so that there is even and safe playing field.

I for one, feel a heck of a lot safer in a forest, farm, wilderness then I do of any city so this argument makes no sense.

“I believe that most gun owners are responsible people. But open carry implies the willingness to use the gun under certain circumstances. Other people are left to guess what those circumstances might be. Having to wonder is intimidation.

Of course carrying a gun in the open or concealed implies a willingness to use it. Why else would you carry one? It is not my concern what other people are left to guess about. Free speech is intimidation to some people. And some people just need to get over it.

“I recommend that the state of Michigan change any laws that might restrict the authority of cities to regulate violence and the potential for violence.”

If it is that easy why not just ban violence from your city? That should work, right?

If you can stand it read the rest of the article: Ban open carry of guns in Grand Rapids? City commissioner wants to regulate ‘potential for violence’

The Jackson County Board of Commissioners is expected to approve a new workplace policy allowing county employees who have a concealed pistol license to carry their weapon while they work.

The board voted on the same policy last year, but it didn’t pass. The chariman of the board, Steve Shotwell, says last year’s policy didn’t pass because of how it was written. This year’s policy is in-line with state law.

The law in Michigan allows people who are have a CPL or concealed pistol license to bring their gun into the county building. Officials say employees should have the same privilege. 

"We’re following the state law on weapons, whether that’s a pistol, a shotgun or knife or otherwise," said Mike Overton, the administrator for Jackson County.

The rest of the article can be read Jackson County MI allows employees to carry guns to work. There is also a video from WLNS News 6 (which seemed to have some audio problems when I watched the video) included at the link.

While this is somewhat surprising, to me, based on the political climate we live in today it really make sense (to me anyway) because those who follow the laws are not the people with weapons we need to worry about and the people we do need to worry about are not going to follow the rules anyway.

"We’re following the state law on weapons, whether that’s a pistol, a shotgun or knife or otherwise," said Mike Overton, the administrator for Jackson County.

It is important to point out that at the end of the day Jackson County is really just getting itself inline with the Michigan State Constitution.

A growing number of Americans are getting permission to carry firearms in public—and under their clothes—a development that has sparked concern among some law-enforcement authorities.

Applications for “concealed-carry” permits are soaring in many states, some of which recently eased permit requirements. The numbers are driven in part by concern that renewed gun-control efforts soon could constrain access to weapons, along with heightened interest in self-defense in the wake of mass killings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo.

Read the entire article here Permits Soar to Allow More Concealed Guns. I love the fact that the National Research Council, which advocates gun control points out that concealed-carry permit holders have fatally shot 500 people and that 128 of those people have been convicted of manslaughter or homicide. 128? Are you kidding me? When you consider the number of people who are carrying that is a minuscule number and I would suspect that if you looked at any group of people, like for instance, doctors you may find a similar pattern. I have nothing to base that on (other than a hunch) and putting the number into perspective is complicated by the fact that I am not sure what time frame they were using or if they were including every state that allows concealed carry or just a selected few.

For the sake of argument lets say that they are talking about one state for one year. According to the CONCEALED PISTOL LICENSING ANNUAL REPORT put out by the Michigan State Police there were 87,637 permits issued between July 2010 and June 2011.  If you took those 128 people and assumed that everyone was from one state and received their permit in the time frame mentioned it would total less then one half a percent. And then when you realize Michigan alone has an estimated 400,000 + concealed carriers and it is one of many states that allow concealed carry that number is astonishing low.