We’ve previously discussed the Mississippi open carry law, and how LEOs in particular don’t approve of the new law.  And yet, it is still new law, and the LEOs must honor the rights of citizens.  When progressives said Mississippi would turn into the Wild, Wild West, I demurred and pointed out that my own home state of North Carolina was a traditional open carry state.  Everything would turn out fine, I admonished.  But rather than accept the new law, progressives found themselves an activist judge who would side with them.

A Hinds County circuit court judge, initially appointed to the bench by a Democrat governor, granted the wishes of a Democrat prosecutor on Friday in an “emergency hearing” to halt implementation of a gun bill opposed by Democrat lawmakers, the Associated Press reported . Judge Winston Kidd issued a temporary injunction after Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith requested that he block a new law from going into effect.

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“For the purposes of this section, ‘concealed’ … shall not include … a loaded or unloaded pistol carried upon the person in a sheath, belt holster or shoulder holster that is wholly or partially visible, or carried upon the person in a scabbard or case for carrying the weapon that is wholly or partially visible,” the bill states, essentially clarifying that open carrying of firearms by non-prohibited persons in non-prohibited locations is lawful activity.

In an unabashed feat of judicial and linguistic contortion, Kidd ruled that specific language is “vague,” and justified his injunction on the grounds that allowing the bill to take effect would cause “irreparable harm.”

“We’re looking at a Wild West scenario,” Jody Owens, Managing Attorney of the Southern Poverty Law Center charged … repeating the meme again.  The judge should now be seen as a lawbreaker himself, because there is nothing in the Mississippi constitution that allows a judge to override the legislature and Governor just because he doesn’t read as clearly as we do.

The judge should be impeached, and as for the claim that Mississippi would turn into the Wild, Wild West, I think that the fear is exactly the opposite.  I think that everyone knows that nothing untoward will occur, and thus Mississippi will become an example to the rest of the states (e.g., Texas, South Carolina, etc.) that have not been traditional open carry states but choose to change that.

As for the LEOs, it’s difficult to change, even when facing the inevitable.  Thus we have scenes like this.

Biloxi Police Chief John Miller holds up a sign he has made to help business owners who wish to keep people from entering their establishments while carrying guns.

But it isn’t within their charge to ensure that weapons aren’t carried in and through Mississippi, concealed or openly.  LEOs and politics don’t mix, and police chiefs can be replaced.

In the end, this stolid judge’s day in the sun will soon go away, guns will be openly carried in Mississippi, the Wild, Wild West will not obtain, and LEOs like Chief John Miller will be ridiculed for their fear mongering.

And everything will be made right.