Editor’s Note: Today’s guest feature is our contributor Greg Moats.

To say that we’re living in interesting times would be to gag on unswallowable understatement.

Rich Grassi photo.

The Walmart initiative to stop selling selective calibers and request no indiscreet carry has sparked a reaction that is certainly predictable and probably justified, at least on some level. I have to admit that any feeling of ill-will against Walmart that I indulge is less the result of the content of their policy (I don’t buy ammo nor do I open-carry there) but is based on the motivation of their policy (appeasement of our constitutional enemies).

The gestation of our conflict is advanced enough that the handbook of our doctrine in dealing with our opponents needs to be more Sun Tzu than Dale Carnegie. “Winning Friends and Influencing People” makes for good diplomacy until the cutting begins, and we’re beyond that point. However, that doesn’t mean that we need to aid and abet our enemies by choosing the wrong battles to fight or adding fuel to their fire simply for the sake of flaunting our rights.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I decided to get away for the weekend and made a quick trip up to Jackson, Wyoming. Being Western and Wildlife art buffs, we run up there at least a couple of times a year. It’s posh, fashionable and pretentious (sort of the Paris Hilton of municipalities), and one of only three liberal counties in the Cowboy state (due mainly to the unfortunate diaspora of supercilious Kalifornians). In Wyoming, wolf restoration, water rights and wildfires are all sensitive issues and “the three W’s” often dominate local news and coffee shop disputation. As I glanced at Jackson’s regional newspaper my attention was drawn to an article about a local wildfire that had consumed over 1300 acres, was only 20% contained and was called the “Tannerite fire.” It seems that some non-Mensa-candidates had detonated a Tannerite target ignoring the fact that their entire setting was one huge kindling pile. I prefer to assume that “lower-than-room-temperature-IQ’s” gravitate toward the anti-2nd-Amendment clique, but in this case I was wrong. It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway), those trigger-pullers aided and abetted those seeking to disarm us by giving them an emotional, if not a justifiable argument.

Still indiscreet carry -- though legally "concealed." The sidearm print through the jacket indicates an OWB rig. Not showy and most would fail to see it. Photo: Rich Grassi

Later that day my wife and I were in one of Jackson’s more up-scale shops when two men probably in their late 20’s came in the shop to browse. They were well groomed and well dressed. Both were openly carrying Glocks in Kydex holsters. What caught my attention with these two “young-guns” was their comportment. They appeared to be working at not obstructing anyone’s view of their sidearms. They reminded me of 13 year old girls continually flicking their hair aside (e.g. Charlie’s Angels), so that their friends could see that they just got their ears pierced. Like the 300 pound people wearing spandex to Walmart, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Carrying a weapon should be palliative, not provocative. If you drive a pickup truck, wear Wranglers and boots made in El Paso, open-carry is likely a modus vivendi; if you drive a BMW, wear Ralph Lauren and boots made in Italy, open-carry is probably just a conspicuous affectation. Even though these two gents were in the art-and-croissant crowd rather than the hoof-and-horn fraternity, it was their bearing that made them the 2nd Amendment equivalent of Lady Gaga wearing a meat dress to the MTV music awards.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a laissez-faire attitude regarding carry-laws, so why be concerned about a couple of kids being ostentatious in their display of their 2nd Amendment rights? Well, for one thing it gives ammo to the supporters of “red-flag” laws. The inherent “Catch 22” to all red flag laws is that they open the door to “circulus in probando” (circular reasoning). For example, according to red flag promoters “no insane person should be allowed to carry a gun, and since no sane person will willingly kill another person, the desire to carry a gun disqualifies one from being allowed to carry a gun.” It’s sort of like Groucho Marx’s quip, “I’d never join a club that would have someone like me for a member.” Observing the open-carriers mentioned above, the anti-2nd-Amendment crowd would see mental impairment where I see only tactical impairment. To me, they’re not crazy, just ignorant of basic self-defense doctrine, tactics and best practices. Red flag laws unfortunately allow others to write the lexicon and words like “dangerous,” “sane” and “threat” are hyperbolized while words like “reasonable,” “logical,” and “realistic” are disregarded with little or no recourse by those against whom the laws are used. The ostentatious display and the manner of behavior of the 2 young-guns was picking the wrong battle at the wrong time.

I may sound like I’m against Open-Carry laws—-that’s not the case. I’m delighted that I live in a state where Constitutional-Carry and Open-Carry are legal. I’m told that there are places in what remains of our Republic where a breach of concealment (i.e. your shirt tail or vest inadvertently rises so that your pistol is visible to the public) constitutes brandishing your firearm. Open-Carry laws prevent that miscarriage of justice. However, with the recent flurry of mass-shootings, the apparent implosion of the NRA’s leadership and the posturing of demagogues for the 2020 elections, this is a time when we need to pick our battles carefully and avoid fueling the fires of our adversaries. When, where and how you open-carry are more significant than that you open-carry. Strategy is not appeasement.

I’m not sure whether believing little that I read and almost nothing that I hear makes me an optimist, a pessimist, a realist or a garden-variety Baptist, but that’s my modus operandi in the cesspool of current events especially those relating to the NRA. I’ve been a Life Member since 1974 and worked my way up to Benefactor Member in 2011. I take the current turmoil personally. One thing that I know for sure is that I don’t know anything for sure——and neither do you. What’s been passing for “news” about the recent activities at the NRA is as subjective as a Rachael Maddow commentary on the recent activities at the White House. Any semblance between it and reality is purely accidental. Malfeasance seems unquestionable. When it occurred, by whom and to what extent is murky. This isn’t exactly unprecedented chaos for the NRA. For those of us a little long in the tooth, this seems like one of the too many sequels to “Police Academy”— similar plot but with more amateurish over-dramatization. While we’ve never been over this exact ground before, neither is it “terra incognito.” Harlon Carter and Neal Knox were antecedents of Wayne LaPierre and Oliver North right down to an attempted disruptive succession of the NRA Presidency, financial waste and outright fraud all occurring during the implementation of the Clinton Assault Rifle ban. We survived it once and my guess is that we’ll survive it again.

While we may be weakened by the controversy, we’re aiding and abetting our adversaries by the polemics coming from our own “family.” The “by-God-I’ve-had-enough” approach to what settles for dialogue is the disputative equivalent of shooting Tannerite targets in the middle of a fire prone wilderness area. It’s the Tannerite fire of those who think too highly of their own opinions. Someone once said, “When you’re in it up to your ears, it pays to keep your mouth shut.” This too shall pass and simply keeping our mouths shut for the sake of not aiding and abetting our enemies is a good strategy and strategy is not appeasement.

- - Greg Moats

Greg Moats was one of the original IPSC Section Coordinators appointed by Jeff Cooper shortly after its inception at the Columbia Conference. In the early 1980’s, he worked briefly for Bianchi Gunleather and wrote for American Handgunner and Guns. He served as a reserve police officer in a firearms training role and was a Marine Corps Infantry Officer in the mid-1970’s. He claims neither snake-eater nor Serpico status but is a self-proclaimed “training junkie.”