Insensitive Douchebag Practices Open Carry In Colorado To Prove A Point”
The people of Aurora, Colorado, are understandably still a little shaken up by the events of a 2012 movie theater shooting that occurred there, killing 12 people and injuring over 70 more, but one hero teen is doing all that he can to make them more comfortable around guns. Luckily for the citizens of Aurora, Steve Lohner, 18, is willing to take one for the team by toting a loaded shotgun through the streets.
Imagine his surprise when the ingrates of Aurora called the cops instead of rushing out of their homes to thank him for his public service. How rude!
Lohner was on his way home from buying cigarettes when some uppity cop stopped him and wanted to see his identification, which Lohner refused to give him. Thank goodness our misunderstood protagonist was a white dude, or else such a transgression might have led to a chokehold, as it did with Eric Garner and Rosan Miller. But let’s be fair here; Garner had untaxed cigarettes on his person, and Miller had illegal grilling paraphernalia, neither of which is protected by the second amendment.
Lohner is no dummy, of course. He understands that people see creepy guys out on the street with guns and immediately go to a bad place in their minds:
”I feel like a lot of people now they see a weapon like that and they think, you know, James Holmes or Sandy Hook.”
But if everybody would stop grasping their pearls for a moment, they would be able to see that while Lohner is just trying to do them a solid:
”If enough people were to lawfully open carry in those areas and do it in a safe and lawful manner then these people would end up feeling comfortable around it.”
Thanks, Steve!
In all seriousness, though, this guy can kick rocks. Open carry is perfectly legal in Colorado, and I won’t go into my own opinions in this particular post as to whether or not it should be. The question here isn’t about legality, it’s about being a big, bushy, set of dickwhiskers.
Lohner, who was initially asked for an I.D. to determine whether or not he was legally of age to carry a gun, recorded the entire interaction on his cell phone, which you can watch over at The Raw Story. In it he insists that his intent in carrying a shotgun isn’t to make people nervous. It’s to make a point. He’s protesting. More than that, though, he’s helping out the fine folk of Aurora by alleviating their suspicion of loners carrying guns.
Everyone knows that the best way to overcome an aversion to creepy, bombastic white guys carrying guns is more exposure to creepy, bombastic white guys carrying guns.
I don’t have any patience for people like Lohner, who appear to have zero empathy for the people around themselves. He wants to make a point, and he will make that point by exploiting a past tragedy, and yes, that makes him a douchebag. Maybe not a criminal douchebag, but definitely a douchebag.
I don’t believe for one second that he cares about acclimating people to firearms. This wasn’t an attempt to do that, nor was it an attempt to educate people about their rights. All this was was a creepy dude skulking back from the corner store with a loaded rifle, just waiting for someone to say something so that he could get a recording of his own voice “sticking it to the man” for posterity. He claims that his intent wasn’t to cause unrest, but I call shenanigans on that noise.
No matter where you stand on second amendment issues, I hope that we can all agree that this has to be one of the least effective ways there is to get your point across.
Unless the point was to terrify an already traumatized town, alienate the people who live there, and look like a fucking nutjob, in which case, well done, Steve!
(Image: Fox31 Denver)
