It’s likely no minds were changed Sunday when proponents of openly carrying guns peaceably met with the owner of an Akron barber shop who last week confronted a man carrying a long gun near his business and the University of Akron.
The barber shop owner, Deone Slater, and others with him passionately made their criticisms regarding open carry.
The open-carry proponents, including the 25-year-old man whose rifle strapped to his back started the controversy last week, just as passionately made their points to support normalizing open carry.
And as it went on in the late afternoon, with smartphones and camcorders shooting video, there were disagreements, agreements, laughter and handshakes. Akron police looked on from a nearby parking lot.
“I don’t have a problem with anybody open-carrying a gun,” said Slater as he shook the hand of Daniel Kovacevic. Kovacevic is the man who openly carried a rifle in the East Exchange Street neighborhood and whom Slater confronted Thursday outside his barber shop, Kangaroo Kutz. Kovacevic called the police.
Following that incident, the two men — Slater is black, while Kovacevic is white — said they subsequently met to talk over their differences.
Slater, speaking to the group outside his shop, said he did not see the need for anyone to openly carry what he called “a big gun” unless they also had a police badge. He placed a no-guns allowed sign in his shop window for the day; some of the open-carry group were allowed inside.
Ohio law allows adults to openly carry guns without a license.
“Don’t alarm everybody in the community or at the university, when you’ve got these shootings going on everywhere. That’s my only issue,” Slater said, standing next to Kovacevic. “What’s the purpose of alarming everybody? … It looks suspicious to me, so I’m going to come outside, whether he was black or white, it doesn’t make a difference. You walking with a big gun, it’s a problem. A little gun, I wouldn’t even notice this man walking down the street.”
Slater said, “Don’t make it worse. There’s enough panic going on already. We got enough problems already.”
Slater said Kovacevic caught him off guard last week.
“I’m looking out for my building, my customers, my whole block,” he said. He noted there is also a nearby elementary school.
Slater said he does not want his business or his community disrupted by people carrying long guns.
“I’m for the guns, not just for the guns from the movie Expendables,” he joked.
Some people in Slater’s group said there were racist slurs directed at the barber shop since the open-carry confrontation.
Brett Pucillo, a Kent resident, insurance adjuster and president of Ohio Carry, organized Sunday’s walk. Pucillo said he and others are working to make open carry a normal occurrence so the public does not get upset seeing people legally carrying weapons. Ohio Carry, an advocacy and education group, was created in 2012.
“The only way you get there is by doing it, by getting out there and taking that step,” Pucillo said.
Afterwards, Pucillo praised Sunday’s discussions.
“Everybody got to say their piece. Everybody was respectful,” he said. “We got to see where [Slater] was coming from. I definitely get the why of it.”
But he said he and others in his group want the public to know there are “good guys with guns, too.”
The open-carry group, carrying long guns and pistols and holding signs and American flags, walked from the public parking garage on South High Street, across from the Akron Art Museum, to Slater’s shop on East Exchange Street. About 30 people signed up.
The intent was to help inform the public about the legal right to open carry guns in Ohio, Pucillo said.
Group members said they do not normally walk in public with long guns strapped to their backs. But some said they are also licensed conceal-carry holders who regularly have small guns on them.
Among the people at the barber shop was the Rev. Roderick Pounds of Akron’s Second Baptist Church, who noted that Kovacevic, a white man, had been openly carrying in a primarily black neighborhood.
While some outside the barber shop said openly carrying a gun is not a racial issue, Pounds had a different viewpoint.
Pounds said he will conduct “our own little social experiment” later this month and have four black males open carry in the Highland Square neighborhood. The event will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Dec. 18, he said.
“We were just interested if the atmosphere was reversed,” Pounds said. “I just want to know how this will all work out.”
Pounds, who also said he has a concealed-carry license, said he is in favor of open carry. “We can’t deal with open carry unless we deal with racism,” he said.
As the meeting outside the barber shop wound down, Kovacevic said he learned there are many gun owners who have the same views as he does.
“I learned that peaceful communication goes a long way,” he said.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ. His stories can be found at www.ohio.com/writers/jim-mackinnon.