If brass knuckles are outlawed...

I'm very happy to live in a non-gun culture.

Never say never, but the only state where I'd be less likely to be killed in a shootout is Hawaii. 

I don't hate, hate, hate all guns. Not for me, but I can see the attraction. But I don't get the love affair with weapons of mass destruction. And open carry makes me nervous.

I see these pictures floating by on Twitter of bozos walking in to a McDonald's to order a Happy Meal, armed to the teeth: Handguns on both hips. A semi-automatic cradled in their arms. Bandoliers strapped across their chests. Something that looks like an RPG hanging across their backs. 

Chicken McNuggets please. Apple slices? You gotta be kidding me. Make it fries!

Pure, unadulterated psycho performance art on the part of the nasty one-man arsenal.

But if I ever saw someone like that in real life, I'd be out of that McD's faster than if I'd been shot from a cannon.

Not that I've seen all that much open carry. This is, after all, Massachusetts. 

But I've been in restaurants in Texas and seen yahoos sitting at the bar wearing guns as casually as I wear a scarf. In Arizona, I was once on van to the airport rent-a-car place with a fellow who was carrying. Less creepily, while hiking in a state park in AZ, I saw a guy on a horse packing. I've seen enough Westerns to know that you may have to shoot a rattlesnake or other varmint. Still, it's unsettling.

The one time I saw non-cop open carry in Boston, I was at an ATM, and there was a fellow - military hair cut, a bit steroid-buffed - with a gun on his hip. When I left the ATM, I saw a policeman on the corner and mentioned it to him. He just laughed and told me it was probably a newbie cop just showing off his newly acquired iron. 

Massachusetts is, in fact, an open carry (licensed) state. It's just that most people just don't open carry. 

We're just not a particular gun culture. Thankfully.

But even in gun culture states like Oklahoma, normal people can be alarmed when they see someone strutting around, living his best life, channeling his inner Kyle Rittenhouse. 

On June 13, a man in a tactical vest was openly carrying a semi-automatic rifle and holstered pistol in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Not surprisingly, people were pretty freaked out.

Employees at the Broken Arrow Justice Center ― a government building that houses the local court and police offices ― locked their doors, and someone called 911. More people called 911 when he approached a Target. (Source: Huffington Post)

There wasn't much the police officers could do about this walking armory. After all, open carry in OK is OK, even if the open carrier doesn't have a permit or any training. 

So the cops - and the good (alarmed!) citizens of Oklahoma - were at a loss about what to do with this idiot, who kept his little walkaround going to walk into an AT&T outlet, "prompting employees to run out the back door."

As all this was ensuing, the police figured out the the guy had a warrant out on him. 

Officers then found out that he was carrying brass knuckles ― which actually are illegal under state and city law ― and a .50 caliber semi-automatic pistol concealed in a pouch, rather than a holster, which is also illegal.

So, busted for brass kncuks.

I never want to find out, but I'm pretty sure that brass knuckles can do quite a bit of damage. I'm thinking smashed in nose, pulverized teeth, etc. But one would think that a semi-automatic rifle is more dangerous in that it can do more damage than a set of brass knucks, wouldn't one? (Side note: in my wanderings, I found that, in French, brass knuckles are called "poing américaine", or "American fist." Once again, American exceptionalism in action!)

Now that the Supremes have slapped down a NY State law "requiring people to get licenses in order to take guns outside of their homes," we're likely to see more of this nonsense. 

I'm sure that at this very moment, some folks are cooking up challenges to Massachusetts' common sense gun laws. (When their not cooking up challenges to Massachusetts' women's reproductive health laws.)

Anyway, if this stuff bothers the normal, sensible folks in a gun state like Oklahoma, you have to think that there's no getting around that it's just plain awful, and not the type of behavior that decent folks, of whatever political stripe, want to be around. 

We are just so not in a good place. Poing américaine, indeed.