Here’s a pretty clear illustration of it from Josh Marshall:

About a week ago there was a story out of Oregon of a couple young men who went into a generally liberal non-gun owning type neighborhood with semi-automatic weapons legally on their persons — clearly for the purpose of making a point that they can carry anywhere. We wrote it up and we got this email from TPM Reader AA …

AA: The recent Good Times piece had far more slanted commentary than I’m used to from you. I understand that it may be bad taste to open carry rifles right now but there is no need to demonize people for it. You must understand the folks who are open carrying are not the ones causing the trouble. If they are about to do something bad, they will be hiding anything and everything. I don’t carry but see it all the time in my area and never think twice about it. You must acknowledge that they have some level of a point to what you consider madness.

I wrote back the following …

Marshall: I really don’t. It was clear from the piece that they were in a neighborhood that is not used to seeing people carrying guns, let alone assault rifles. And they were indifferent to the fact that they were scaring people. Indeed, they said that their whole point was to demonstrate their right to do it. A school went into lockdown. I think it’s far more than in bad taste. What possible justification is their for that? Why do you think they did this?

And he replied …

AA: My point is that regardless of how we feel about the law, that it was legal for them to do what they did but the tone I read was illustrating criminal behavior. I liken it to people obnoxiously purposely coughing and giving the stink eye to others who are smoking outside, well away from a door, in an allowed smoking area. Obviously less severe but an example of frankly, being pissy about others’ non criminal choices.

I can only infer on their motives in this case, and yes there are some idiots who just want attention; but from knowing others who open carry they believe that they must show that there is nothing to fear, to show the community the difference between psychopaths, real or imagined, and normal people who choose to carry. The first time you see something scary, that you may not understand completely, are you less afraid when nothing bad happens? The second time, third time? I believe that is what is meant by ‘educate the public’ and is not meant to be derogatory.

I wrote back at more length. But at this point I was already starting to see red. I don’t pretend that AA is representative. But it captured a mentality that does seem pervasive among many more determined gun rights advocates — basically that us non-gun people need to be held down as it were and made to learn that it’s okay being around people carrying loaded weapons.

Well, I don’t want to learn. That doesn’t work where I live — geographically or metaphorically.

The casual gun-toting, and the enforcement of religious-like conformity all have their roots in a semifeudal rural society simmering with the potential for social upheaval. This is what you get when you blend fundamentalist religion with gun ownership in a political party that is essentially a religious organization. These people call themselves “conservatives” but we conservatives prize order above having guns rubbed in our noses. Just as a no one would a hooker plying her trade on their street, non-gun owners don’t want gun-slingers invading the peaceful setting of coffee shops and businesses, churches and public facilities. We will always complain about it and we will not submit to “re-education” by someone with a gun in their possession.

Gun-toters think they are right and they believe the half of the nation who does not care to be part of gun-culture just needs to be desensitized to guns by more public gun displays. That may be great if you want to live in that world, but don’t come importing your gun-toting culture to a place where it doesn’t belong. I won’t ever be desensitized by the casual display of guns. I’m just like those shop owners and shoppers in Oregon. I’ll call the cops and I’ll call the local school to alert them to your presence and complain about you until you leave my neighborhood. Yes, I know you just won’t understand why I don’t see how meaningful it is to you to trot out your artillery. That’s what I’m saying. I never will.

“This is what you get when you blend fundamentalist religion with gun ownership in a political party that is essentially a religious organization. ”

Talk about off topic. Where in this story did the author tie gun-toting in with religion or politics?

On another note, I almost had to laugh as I read this article. It made me think of the civil rights movement in the 1960′s South. Imagine reading these two paragraphs in a Birmingham newspaper as such:

“About a week ago there was a story out of Oregon Georgia of a couple young men who went into a generally liberal non-gun owning type white neighborhood with semi-automatic weapons their dark skin legally on their persons — clearly for the purpose of making a point that they can carry walk anywhere. We wrote it up and we got this email from TPM Reader AA …

“Marshall: I really don’t. It was clear from the piece that they were in a neighborhood that is not used to seeing people carrying guns of color, let alone assault rifles in their neighborhood. And they were indifferent to the fact that they were scaring people. Indeed, they said that their whole point was to demonstrate their right to do it. A school went into lockdown. I think it’s far more than in bad taste. What possible justification is their for that? Why do you think they did this?”

Yeah, let’s keep that Woolworths’ lunch counter neighborhood pure gun free or it won’t be a fit place to eat live.

Will you call the cops when I take my “artillery” from my safe to my truck as I head out to the shooting range?

If you simply must have such an absurd question answered, obviously not. Else I would have objected to that in my comments. But I wouldn’t let my kid come over and play with yours.

Talk about off topic. Where in this story did the author tie gun-toting in with religion or politics?

Next to the last paragraph, Last sentence.

But it captured a mentality that does seem pervasive among many more determined gun rights advocates — basically that us non-gun people need to be held down as it were and made to learn that it’s okay being around people carrying loaded weapons.

Fundamentalism’s core value is this mentality of being *right*, meaning everyone else is *wrong* just because they *think* others are wrong. That’s where the overlap between fundamentalism and epistemic-closure takes place. And if wrong, you need to be re-educated, assimilated to be in the right.

That’s exactly what the author is describing and it’ perfectly centered in the topic.

And your parody skills need a little work. So far you’ve managed a bad distortion and somehow I don’t see an equivalence between merely walking through a shopping center versus walking through one with an assault weapon in the wake of mass murders. Do you?

OK, MM, if make a really looong stretch I can see where you can take his opinion of gun rights advocates, morph that into your definition of fundamentalist, apply it to religious thinking and assign them all to a particular political view. Got it.

While I don’t believe my analogy, or parody if you prefer is perfect, I guess you are too young to remember what it was like during the 60′s civil rights movement. African Americans were tired of being relegated to their own parts of town and their own separate businesses and facilities and, like the “gun-toters” in the story they began to go into areas and businesses that were at the time reserved for those who were different from themselves, like Mr. Marshall’s neighborhood where they were not used to seeing people carrying guns. Neither the civil rights activists nor the gun-toters broke any laws and they had a right to go where they did. If anyone is suffering from “epistemic closure” I’d say it’s Mr. Marshall and the other Bull Conners of the world.

Like this. These are the guys.

These days anything out of character or the ordinary is cause for suspicion. If I saw a couple of yokels wandering around my residential street with machine guns, I’d call the cops.

” If I saw a couple of yokels wandering around my residential street with machine guns, I’d call the cops”

Rather than panic, hide in the closet and pee my pants like a little girl, I’d go out and talk to them and find out what was going on. But of course you have to have the ability to interact with real live people in order to pull that off.