I took a picture of a young white male in a Magat hat wielding an automatic rifle with mag (maybe 18, but looks even younger than that) who stood in the outdoor plaza area of the capitol building in downtown Phoenix as an ANTI-Trump rally was in full swing. Three police officers are in the foreground of the shot. In the hour that I stayed at my observation post across the street, not a single one of the officers approached the kid to find out if he was even of age to meet the open carry law, although they did make eye contact with the boy and nodded greetings to him. One officer even gave him a thumbs-up.
On the other hand, at the 24/7 Walmart down the road from where I live in the suburbs, Rethuglican Congressman Andy Biggs' son, a police officer at the time, shot a drunken Latino man in an empty parking lot during the wee hours of the night because Biggs "thought" the man "might" have a handgun, which he didn't. But, even if he'd had a gun, it's open carry, right? Uh, no...not if you're brown-skinned.
The off-duty Biggs supposedly had seen the man's girlfriend shoplift something in the store, although he said nothing to store personnel and didn't call in any such incident. Instead, he stalked the obviously intoxicated couple around the store and finally out into the parking lot where the pair staggered around the lot laughing hysterically.
At some point, Biggs grabbed the woman after the man had gone ahead of her for some distance, and she instinctively began fighting back. In Arizona, when you are a Latina grabbed by a white man at night, no matter how drunk you might be, you automatically know that you're about to be raped, kidnapped, or murdered and it's either fight or flight.
So, she's punching, kicking, and screaming out to her boyfriend for help. Next thing you know, Biggs shoots the man. Of course, Biggs later claimed he felt his life was in danger, not from the woman, but from the drunken man across the lot who could barely stand up straight who Biggs ASSUMED had a handgun. Never mind that Biggs shot the guy in the butt from several yards away...
See how that open carry works?
WHITE = Open carry of fully automatic weapons w/unlimited rounds (underage even!), especially in a target-rich environment of 5,000 people you wish to intimidate and dissuade from exercising Constitutional rights of protest.
BROWN & BLACK = Absolutely NO open carry in any environment whatsoever (exception: Tucson area generally tolerant of brown-skinned open carry).
ADDITIONAL AZ BONUS FOR ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR: Even if you AREN'T carrying, police can & will shoot you anyway on the premise that you MIGHT be carrying, because, hey, it's an open carry state. This axiom is especially true if the police officer happens to be the privileged white son of a congressman or senator. Double jeopardy for persons of color if the officer belongs to a certain predominant "faith" known here for its rampant bigotry amongst parishioners.
Does that answer your question, at least for Arizona?
*NOTE: I personally abhor the above-noted gun status of my state, completely brought on & upheld by a corrupt Rethuglican state legislature. Please do not misconstrue my portrayal of our on-the-ground reality as an endorsement of any kind. It's sickening.
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