Hi, I'm Jack Russell Weinstein, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life at the University of North Dakota. I'm here today because I posted something on our blog, pqed.org, that went viral, much to my surprise, 113,000 people shared it, and there were thousands of comments in response. I really wanted to talk as a philosopher about the gun rights debate, but most specifically I wanted to talk about open-carry activists, because for me, it's problematic, but I didn't just want to be a voice in the gun debate. I wanted to be a philosopher asking how to solve an intractable problem. What's the problem? They're gun-carry activists, particularly in Texas, who want to go places like Target and Restaurant, and carry loaded guns, often high-powered automatic weapons. And then there are people who are scared of it, and don't want to eat in a restaurant with people who are fully armed. Both of those positions may be understandable, so how as a philosopher do I deal with that? The answer I came up with respected both people's rights. The people in the restaurant who are uncomfortable just leave. But they're supposed to leave because they're afraid, and that leads to another philosophical problem. If you're afraid for your life, do you pay the tab? And my answer was no. My answer was, if you're afraid for your life, you just get up and leave. Maybe the restaurant pays the bill themselves, maybe the activists pay the bill. But in reality, if you're genuinely concerned that someone is going to shoot you, your spouse and your kids, it makes no sense to pay the bill. I don't want to say that people freaked out because most of the people who commented on the blog supported it. And in fact, lots of people felt that this idea was a rational, safe, calm idea that respected everyone's right. But there were a group of gun activists who felt that this was theft, that this was taking advantage of situation, and then ultimately that this was some form of discrimination and intolerance, that people didn't like gun owners, and so they wanted to leave. How would it be if I didn't like an African American, or I didn't like a tall person, or I didn't like an immigrant? Would it be okay to leave them? And the answer I came up with in a different post was that it is completely different. First of all, it's not thevery. If you are leaving the restaurant because you don't want to pay the bill, then you're a thief. I'm a philosopher. I'm not talking about you. I'm on the theoretical level. I'm concerned about your intentions. I'm concerned about what's going on in your head. If you leave because you're afraid, that's moral. If you leave because you don't want to pay the bill, that's not moral. If however, you want to compare it to the history of discrimination, then that's not quite right. First of all, under the Constitution, we have protected groups and traditionally marginalized people, women in this country, African American in this country, gay and lesbians in this country. If you leave because they're there and there are no threat to you, then that's a problem. Gun owners are not protected group. The right to carry weapons may be, depending on where you are. The right to bear arms certainly is, but of course, the right to bear arms doesn't mean the right to bear every arm. It doesn't mean the right to bear all the arms. It only means the rights to bear arms. So, is it discrimination? I don't think so because gun rights activists do not have a history of institutional discrimination. They do not have a history of being denied the right to marry, being denied the right to go to school, being denied the right to vote. They haven't been slaves. They weren't subject to the Holocaust. They haven't been beaten in the streets. In fact, if you look at the history of guns in America, certainly in the last 15, 20 years, let's have expanded, not contracted. And so in the end, leaving because they make you uncomfortable and leaving because they're dangerous, or I should say they may be dangerous, is a rational response. And as a philosopher, that is what I am the most concerned with. How can we create a rational response to an intractable problem? I would love to know your answer. I'd love to have your feedback. So come visit PQEDorg and look at the several different posts on guns. But in particular, look at how should we react to open-carry activists? I think you'll find the responses really interesting and I would love to hear what you have to say.