Open Carry Texas gun groups are pushing Texas lawmakers for more “open carry” rights, even as a member of their community faces charges in a grisly double-homicide.
“We have so many gun bills that have been filed that we can’t have anything but an open carry law pass next year,” C.J. Grisham, founder of Open Carry Texas, told MSN.com. The push comes on the heels of an active murder case involving a prominent member of the controversial Open Carry Tarrant County group, who made headlines last year for terrorizing local businesses by openly brandishing firearms, sparking a frantic 911 call by employees at Jack in the Box.
Open Carry Tarrant County is definitely a part of the push toward legislation, despite prior claims that the group had been “disowned” for its radical behavior.
The push toward an open carry law comes on the heels of a brutal double-homicide involving two of the group’s members. One is accused of murdering her husband and his daughter. The other is the first and only person she chose to call after the act.
On December 10th, open carry activist Veronica Dunnachie sent her two children to school and a third to a baby sitter before returning home to her estranged husband and stepdaughter, where she allegedly used one of her assault rifles to shoot them both to death.
After the shooting, she turned to her friend and fellow Open Carry activist, Guy Potter, according to multiple news reports. Potter, also a prominent member of Open Carry Tarrant County, told her to go to a mental hospital. Potter then apparently called another friend, Steven Marshall, who made the decision to call the police.
He told her to drive to nearby Millwood Hospital, where police later arrested her for the double murder.
Veronica Dunnachie was in the middle of a messy divorce, and had recently been ordered to vacate the couple’s home before the end of the month. She and her husband had temporary restraining orders against each other that were issued last month, according to Tarrant County court documents obtained by the Star-Telegram. In many cases, in Texas, a restraining order in domestic court forbids possession of firearms, even if obtained legally.
Kimberly “KJ” Dunnachie died from gunshot wounds her head and chest. The 20-year-old had moved to Arlington, Texas two years prior to live with her father after she graduated from high school.
Her father, Russ Dunnachie, died from gunshots just before. Funeral arrangement have not yet been made.
Police have not yet recovered the weapon that was used to kill them.
Veronica Dunnachie’s presence has been scrubbed from the main Open Carry Tarrant County page, but fragments left behind by Dunnachie on Facebook as well as other activsts pages paint a picture of how dedicated she was to Open Carry activities.
Shawna Forde!
Open carry is legal in Washington. I don’t do it unless I am out in the woods or shooting. I don’t see a reason. I don’t see women murdering their ex’s and their children because of it though.
That seems like only women do stupid things with guns, what about good old boy Cheney? I don’t see a need to open carry unless I am working the night shift (which happens rare but it does happen). To each their own I guess.
Cheney is a good old boy? Nice to know.
They aren’t murdering because of open carry, that does not cause it. Most of these open carry radicals are typical anti-government extremists who are hopped up on a heavy dose of paranoid kook nonsense and hate. This would not be so bad if they were not engaging in epistemic closure, i.e. choosing only to listen to, associate with and be around people who are just like them.
As they continue to one up each other, egg each other on, the more unstable members eventually lose it.
If you want to live a long and happy life, don’t hang around with these losers.
Let’s hear what LaPierre has to say about this piece of crap.
What a tragic series of events. I don’t see any reason that people need to open carry rifles and assault type weapons. Isn’t a handgun enough anymore or do people really need to walk around like they are preparing for war. It makes me nervous, and I think that is a big part of it for most of these “activists”. They want the attention, the fear, the feeling of superiority it gives them. They aren’t in control, they just think they are.
Good analysis and I concur. They feed themselves a constant does of anti-government hatred and paranoid crap which makes them feel helpless. They compensate by arming themselves and when people are frightened of them they feel powerful.
To assuage what little conscience they have on the matter they write off the people whom they alienate, anger or frighten as “bed wetting libtards” and etc.
In other words they are essentially mentally ill sociopaths.
Just because one woman snapped doesn’t invalidate the entire movement. I don’t see the need for open carry laws, myself, at least not in town. Even in the old West days, most towns didn’t allow people to just run around town carrying a gun because it led to trouble.
I have a concealed carry license. The reason open carry is bad is because 90% of the people doing so have NO CLUE what the laws of their state say regarding the use of deadly force. Just ask them some time and you will get a mix of pseudo-legal word salad and made up nonsense.
More importantly they don’t understand that the potential for shooting and missing in one of their “gunfights” they fantasize about is high. When you miss with a high powered rifle in a shopping mall, the bullet will hit a hard surface like a floor and ricochet but the ricochet is not like a pool ball, it will skim the surface it ricocheted off of and probably kill an innocent bystander.
Of course they all fantasize that because they can calmly stand and shoot a non moving paper target on a range, they can do the same on a moving target that is shooting at them. They think life is some cowboy movie and they are the steely eyed dealers of death.