Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for June 12, 2011

You can lead a horse to water, Leo, but you can’t teach him how to drink.

Bless you, Leo.

Them boys can’t handle the big guns.

@margueritemWow, that’s a surprise to be coming from you!

It’s both, actually. And if you lead a gun nut to Leo, our favorite vet might just smack some sense into him …

Open carry is a bit gauche don’t you think? Can’t these guys get a permit for concealed carry where they live?

Her open indignation and his name calling are just as theatrical.

@gmartin997: the only thing a violent person thinks when he sees you carrying a gun is “I’ve got company!”

The reason I never see one of these guys in central Arizona where it’s perfectly legal is that guns are too heavy for a fashion accessory and are otherwise useless in the city.

..I have never -ever heard of anyone getting shot in a Star-Bucks…step up people…

I wouldn’t carry but if it gives the mugger pause before he tries to rob me, I got to support responsible citizens rights. Wonder if the mugger got a background check before his permit? Was Granny wrong to hang her pistol prizes next to her weaving awards?

@gmartin. Killing before guns. Killing with guns. And when we have the grand finale.The cockroaches will have won.

ATTABOY!

Toggle 10 Chickenhawks 0

I strongly support gun rights, and I have a Texas carry permit. That said, it seems to me that many of the private citizens that carry guns seem to be more interested in projecting a “look how dangerous I am” attitude than they are in true self defense.It’s germane to note that the confrontation in today’s strip was instigated by Alex, the liberal airhead.

Or it allows violent people to not think at all, just lift and shoot. I know how easy it is to get a gun, a license and a concealed weapons permit. Nothing stopped that nut in Arizona, a state full of guns.

This strip is from last year! WTF?!

I think it is time to be less concerned – and less insulting – towards those who choose to legally and openly carry arms and be more concerned those who illegally carry concealed arms. No law has ever stopped a desperate citizen from committing a crime with a gun.

This rerun is generating the same comments that it did when it first appeared fifteen months ago. GT must take a cynical view of his readers’ ability to express original opinions on guns and violence—even after the incidents of Tucson and Abbottobad.

Woo! You tell ’em, Leo!

Leo/Toggle, of course, is incorrect. The Constitution does not specifically sanction a right to open carry. It does, however, sanction the right to carry in general, and it also gives power to the states to specify the conditions that citizens may do so.

Alex is also incorrect when she questions having firearms as a “freedom”. I’m glad that Leo corrected her. Not untypically, Garry has posed a question which does not actually exist, and then graciously has supplied his own answer to it

Even the comments are re-runs.

Yes it’s a rerun and the comments from both sides are valid. My own opinion is that firearms are the only tool we have that was designed for no other purpose but killing. Even swords and spears are derived from tools that did not kill, just adapted for killing use. There is a quote though that is very appropriate. “When guns are illegal, only criminals will carry guns.” My biggest problem with firearms is when idiots get them and treat irresponsibly. There are more deaths and injuries from accidental shootings, which makes the open carry argument very weak for me.

Packing a gun may make you feel safe – it just makes it more dangerous for the rest of us. The statistics are irrefutable. And anecdotally – how often do you hear of some John Wayne want-to-be really saving the day? The logic used to justify carrying a gun in public requires Olympics class gymnastics.

@tudzax2—I don’t know about whatever state this is, but in LA there are far more restrictions and qualifications to get a concealed carry permit than there are to simply buy and own a gun. But we have open carry laws, so the people who qualify for ownership but not for concealed carry can just carry them around in the open. Personally, I don’t get it. I’m all for having a handgun or a hunting rifle in your house, but I rather feel that having random, untrained individuals lugging around firepower will just increase the cross-fire and lead to more innocent deaths in the event that something does happen. I could be wrong, but that’s my concern.

Lurking mode off GT, special thanks for this one! Lurking mode on

Wait. Back in the GWB administration, Trudeau implied that concealed carry was bad. Now he’s against open carry. Why not just come clean with it and say all gun toting is bad?Oh, right: because it would be more obviously wrong.

Hope Leo doesn’t have Ted Nugent in the studio when Alex is there.

Around here the gun nuts start young.

At least those dudes were respectful.

LIke Toggle, spent time behind a selection of weapons, including a 60 to “defend their right”. My son has also used a wide selection for same.

The REAL IDIOCY is the TOTAL MYTH behind “open carry” derived from John Wayne MOVIES, and others, that in the “old west” everyone carried a sidearm or rifle everywhere, every day. In real fact, outside the military, or law enforcement, guns were relatively expensive, and few people carried them daily.

“Gunfights” were also very rare, and backshooting, like in “Wild Bill’s” demise, were the more common means of settling “personal disputes”. The old west was just as courageous as today’s journalistic and political backshooters.

Trudeau recognizes that that is one of the rights that we signed on to defend. Along with the right to say stupid things. Whether or not that’s how the politicians used us.

Why was he behind an M60? Shouldnt it be the M249 SAW?

If the Founding Fathers could have seen into the future, they probably WOULD have written the Second Amendment as “The Right to Be Morons About Guns.”

Go Leo and GT! All that Gary is coming down on here is a moron talking down to another human being. Impossible to defend.

@John: After Alex talked down to them, calling them “morons” for daring to exercise their rights.

Way to go Leo! Thanks Trudeau.

B.D. would have been sooo proud of Leo…more so.

Sometimes GT & the publishers re-run a controversial bit, just to see if by any remote chance anybody anywhere out there has learned anything. Once again there is diappointment fraying the edges of realityl

“… I thought Toggle had more sense than to imagine he was defending freedom and liberty behind his hardware.” At least some soldiers, if not most — without being the least bit naive about the foolishness of our politicians or our reasons for being there at all — do believe exactly that, to the marrow of their bones. Please restrain yourself from insulting their intelligence or their patriotism with smug condescension.

A “nice peaceful culture” that needs “guns everywhere” — ? Am I missing something here?

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people with guns, duh…

Getting rid of weapons (of any kind, personal firearms or nukes) is kinda counter-intuitive.Remember the civilization that outlawed the bow and arrow? Never heard of them? Guess why not!

having the right to bear arms comes from long time ago in England when the lower class were subject to guilty before innocent and were hanged before they could defend themselves. needless to say when they revolted and made a country for themselves in America… they didn’t want to go through THAT again… thus… the right to protect themselves at all times was born… but more to the current point… sure we have the right to bear arms… but just because you CAN do something… does not mean you SHOULD

and it seems to me that the guys in this comic seem to only wear the guns as a macho effect which only makes them look weak to me… a definite Napoleon Complex

I find it extremely hilarious that open carry (or concealed carry) knuckle draggers actually think they can protect themselves with their firearms.

Lew wrote: " I wouldn’t carry but if it gives the mugger pause before he tries to rob me "

Indisputable fact, carrying a firearm does not give pause anymore that the “club” gave car thieves pause.

An unarmed buddy of mine was beaten near to death by a robber. The robber was caught, he explained to the cops that he assumed my friend was armed hence the rough treatment.

If I was a robber, I would assume EVERYone was packing. I would cripple them before they could respond so they could not pull their firearm. They wouldn’t know what hit them. It would not give me the slightest hesitation. In fact, I might search their corpse to see if they had a gun that I could sell on the black market.

“No law has ever prevented a desperate citizen form committing a crime with a gun.” No law has ever prevented anyone from doing anything. At best laws make certain actions more expensive to the actor, and express society’s disapproval of such actions. -—— But look at our society today. From offensive bumper stickers, to over-sized and over-tired vehicles, to in-your-face t-shirts, to people carrying guns on their hips, we are becoming a society that thinks being intimidating and threatening is cool or admirable in some way. You live in a dangerous neighborhood, you have and know how to use a gun, and want to wear it in self-defense, sure, I have no problem with that. I just don’t want you in my neighborhood, and I don’t want to visit yours. I’ll come by when you have succeeded in making the wearing of that that weapon unnecessary.