Mississippi Supreme Court approves open carry

The highest court in Mississippi delivered a stinging 9-0 rebuke of a lower court judge’s decision, clearing the way for open carry over the objections of anti-gun Democrats in the state.

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The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state’s open carry-gun law Thursday, allowing it to take effect after a circuit judge’s order had kept it on hold about two months.

“This court now finds that the circuit judge erred as a matter of law when he found House Bill 2 to be vague and, therefore, unconstitutional. He also erred when he stated that a ‘reasonable person reading the bill could not discern what the law allows and what it prohibits,'” according to the ruling signed by Justice Randy Pierce.

Earlier this year, legislators passed and Gov. Phil Bryant signed the bill that says adults don’t need a permit to carry a gun that’s not concealed.

Several officials, including the Hinds County district attorney, sued to block the law, saying there could be chaos if people were openly carrying guns in public places. Circuit Judge Winston Kidd put the measure on hold just before it was to become law July 1.

Anti-gun Democrats had argued it would be too confusing for cops to tell law-abiding citizens from criminals. That sounds like an insult directed at the intelligence of Mississippi’s law enforcement officers to me, not to mention blatantly ignoring known criminal practices.

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Lawful open carriers, like lawful concealed carriers, tend to carry their handguns in holsters. Criminals tend to drop guns in a pocket or thrust a gun in their waistband so they can easily discard a gun if they fear law enforcement’s arrival.

If a cop sees a gun in a holster, he knows that the odds are he’s looking at a good guy.

The anti-gun district Attorney’s that challenged the open carry law know this, of course, and were simply doing all they could to block the law from taking effect, hoping to legislate from the bench what they lost in state legislature.

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