My take on this whole mess is just that it does more harm than good.
Same with the 'Open Carry' clowns that you see now and then walking around with AR's.
Whist I can be called conservative on a lot (even most) of issues, I fall in the more liberal camp on enough that the local GOP back in Defiance when I lived there had hated me (To be fair to the GOP on the whole, part of the problem the locals had was that I was Jewish, and not a 'Good Christian' - and yes, they said that was the problem where as the local GOP in the DC area had no major issues at all). So I am neither hard core righty, or hard core lefty: something the reasonable conservative middle as I call it.
The whole Sovereign Citizen nonsense - and I don't say that to be offensive, it is just how I see it myself, is that it paints everyone that shares even a smidge of agreement with any particular with the same brush. And because of that, they are oft times lumped into the same group of people that have legitimate and rational issues with government as it is constituted today - making it easy for other groups, be it the press, political parties, or activists of what ever stripe, to ridicule them in toto, and make what efforts that they are trying to make be pointless.
The same goes for the Open Carry nabobs. By walking around with AR's or the like they can honestly be painted as a major problem just waiting to happen. The frighten people that do not know the basic issues they are supposedly supporting into becoming hard core anti-gunners. They cause Police Officers, who have better things to be doing, to respond to spurious issues, at times at great risk of harm to either themselves, or the ones that are causing the trouble in the first place. I have nothing against concealed, or even open carry: I've done both. But there is a difference with walking around in everyones faces with an rifle and a discretely carried pistol at ones hip. With the latter, it isn't as obvious, and those that see it can easily choose to not see it if it offends them. Granted, I only carried openly a few times when I felt the need of deterrence was worth it: taking the days deposit to be dropped off in the after-hours drop box at the bank, or when I had to do a stop in a particularly bad neighbourhood where having an obvious pistol on my hip drove the risk-reward math into my favour, and not the local bangers - believe it or not, most of them are smart enough to figure out that going after a guy with a obvious gun isn't smart.
Both these groups give the more conservative side so many PR fits there are days I swear the left is actually behind it... but then I remember to take off my tinfoil hat.
