I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: idiocy by open carriers who seem to delight in terrifying the public are doing a wonderful job of turning people against us.

A man sitting on his front porch holding what appears to be a rifle, right across the street from an elementary school. It’s a sight that has parents in Wichita concerned.

The Wichita School District said it’s aware of the situation but adds, the man isn’t doing anything illegal. Now, that man is saying this is all just a misunderstanding.

Ashley Badders’ daughter attends Kelly Elementary School in Wichita. When she saw a picture on social media of a man holding a gun on his front porch right across from the school, she told her daughter not to walk by that house anymore.

“I don’t know what anyone else would get from his sitting on the porch with that gun,” Badders said. “What is the reason? I mean, these are fifth grade kids and under.”

The picture spread on social media, claiming the man had a problem with people parking by his driveway. But that man, who only wants to be identified as Kyle, said that’s not entirely true. He said parking is a problem in this neighborhood at times, but that’s not the reason he had his gun.

“Didn’t feel like I was bothering anybody,” Kyle said. “I am a hunter, I do like to hunt and I just wanted to sit on my front porch with my gun, I didn’t think that was a big deal.”

Yeah, there’s a lot to hunt on a public street in front of a elementary school with AR-15s on a single-point sling.

Parents are rightfully freaked out by Kyle… or is it Pyle?

Normal, well-adjusted people do not sit across from elementary schools terrifying parents and children with rifles. Kyle’s sole purpose is to clearly intimidate people as much as he can within the law, and he’s clearly doing a bang-up job. Kyle has apparently done this on more than one occasion, and admits he cursed at woman who committed the cardinal sin of momentarily blocking his driveway.

Kyle and idiots like him are the reason reasonable people who’ve not given the issue of firearms a lot of thought either way end up turning passionately against them because of public displays like this which are clearly meant to intimidate.

Thanks for making the struggle for gun rights tougher for the rest of us, jerk.