For years, being able to carry a concealed handgun has been a sacred right for many gun enthusiasts. In defending it, Charlton Heston, the actor and former president of the National Rifle Association, used to say that the flock is safer when the wolves cannot tell the difference between the lions and the lambs.
But a grass-roots effort among some gun rights advocates is shifting attention to a different goal: exercising the right to carry unconcealed weapons in the 38 or more states that have so-called open-carry laws allowing guns to be carried in public view with little or no restrictions. The movement is not only raising alarm among gun control proponents but also exposing rifts among gun rights advocates.
The call for gun owners to carry their guns openly in the normal course of business first drew broad attention last summer, when opponents of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul began appearing at town-hall-style meetings wearing sidearms. But in recent weeks, the practice has expanded as gun owners in California and other states that allow guns to be openly carried have tested the law by showing up at so-called meet-ups, in which gun owners appear at Starbucks, pizza parlors and other businesses openly bearing their weapons.
“Our point is to do the same thing that concealed carriers do,” said Mike Stollenwerk, a co-founder of OpenCarry.org, which serves as a national forum. “We’re just taking off our jackets.”
The goal, at least in part, is to make the case for liberalized concealed weapon laws by demonstrating how uncomfortable many people are with publicly displayed guns. The tactic has startled many business owners like Peet’s Coffee and Tea and California Pizza Kitchen, which forbid guns at their establishments. So far, Starbucks has resisted doing the same.
The open-carry movement is a wild card in gun rights advocacy and in some ways is to the N.R.A. and other mainstream gun rights advocacy groups what the Tea Party movement is to the Republican Party.
Newer, more driven by grass-roots and the Internet than the N.R.A., open-carry groups are also less centralized, less predictable and often more confrontational in their push for gun rights. In the last year, there have been at least 140 formal and informal meet-ups at coffee shops and restaurants in California alone, organizers say.
Some gun rights advocates see risks in the approach.
“I’m all for open-carry laws,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights advocacy organization in Washington State. “But I don’t think flaunting it is very productive for our cause. It just scares people.”
Robert Weisberg, a gun law expert and a criminal justice professor at Stanford University, described the open-carry activists as “a liability” for the N.R.A., in particular.
While the N.R.A. is almost always going to support the increased deregulation of guns, Professor Weisberg said, the organization keeps its distance from open-carry advocacy because it does not want to distract attention from its higher priority of promoting the right to carry concealed weapons.
“Add to this that the N.R.A. is a very disciplined, on-message organization,” he said, contrasting the N.R.A.’s approach with the free-wheeling nature of some open-carry advocates.
Asked to comment on the open-carry movement, Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the N.R.A., said the organization “supports the right of law abiding people to exercise their self-defense rights in accordance with state local and federal law.” He declined to comment further.
Gun control advocates have raised particular concerns about open-carry laws because under these laws in many states, gun owners are not required to have a permit or any sort of training or testing.
The first meet-ups by open-carry advocates started nearly a decade ago in Virginia, but they became popular more recently in California because the law there makes it difficult for people to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
“It is a discriminatory issue in California,” said Paul Higgins, 43, a software engineer who runs a Web forum called CaliforniaOpenCarry.org. “If you are politically connected, if you’re rich, if you’re a politician, if you’re a celebrity, you get a permit. Otherwise, you don’t.”
Mr. Higgins said the meet-ups were not meant to be confrontational. The hope, he said, is that if other restaurant or cafe patrons are uncomfortable with guns being displayed so conspicuously, pressure will increase on lawmakers to consider changing the law so that weapons can be carried more discreetly.
Mr. Stollenwerk, the co-founder of OpenCarry.org., who is a retired Army officer from Fairfax County, Va., said the meet-ups were also meant as chances for gun owners to exercise and advertise their rights in states that allow people to openly carry firearms. More than 27,000 members are registered for his group’s online discussion forum, he said.
Gun control advocates say the open-carry movement’s real aim is to push the envelope and to force companies to take a public stand on the issue.
”You have to wonder where their next frontier will be,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “Will gun owners start trying to carry firearms openly into banks, on subways and buses, in schools?”
For Starbucks, the debate has become a headache.
After California gun owners began holding meet-ups in January at Starbucks, the Brady Campaign began sending out petitions to pressure the company to forbid weapons. Starbucks released a statement saying it would not turn gun carriers away from its cafes, and would instead continue to comply with local laws and statutes.
“The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores,” Starbuck officials said. They said the company did not want to be in the middle of the controversy.
Other businesses have taken a different tack — and are embracing the movement.
The East Coast Pizza Bar and Grill in Walnut Creek, Calif., about 25 miles east of San Francisco, invited gun owners to host open carry meet-ups. At least 70 people attended one last Sunday, many carrying firearms, said the owner, Jessie Grunner, 30. And over a dozen returned on Thursday night for more.
“Frankly, I wasn’t sure how I would feel in that type of situation, and it really turned out to be a total nonissue,” Ms. Grunner said.
“The families were great,” she said. “These were very gracious people.” The fact that customers wore sidearms, she said, “just faded into the background
