A couple of things here and Im going to step off, as some of us seem to have differeing views that arent going to go anywhere but farther into annoyance.
First, to those who favor OC, how many of you have actually "personally" done so in places that are truly "bad". Carrying around your local little burb or local Walmart doesnt really count, I mean somewhere like North Philly, Camden, East St. Louis, etc. If not, assuming youve ever been to a place like that, why not?
Ive been carrying a gun daily (and concealed) for over 30 years now. Because of my line of work, Ive worked everywhere from deep woods to open farmland to some nasty inner city areas that even the police didnt seem to want to go, as we rarely saw one when we were there, day or night. I was happy I had my gun, and I was happy my buddy had his. No one ever targeted us personally, although some of our equipment didnt fair as well (maybe it should have been open carrying. OK, OK, sorry, I couldnt resit it, and Ill stop.
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Second, as ThomasR pointed out, how you carry yourself and how you act, actually goes a lot farther than what gear you may or may not be showing. Generally, if you act like a victim, youre likely to be one, even with a gun on your belt.
I will say this though, with dead seriousness, if youre wearing a gun, you better have some realistic skills, and be ready to use both without hesitation. If you havent worked this through in earnest beforehand, youre way behind the curve before you start.
From my experiences in some inner city neighborhoods, a gun carried openly would likely have been taken the wrong way, and have caused more problems, than not. While even the obviously criminal element was for the most part tolerating us being there, I truly believe that a blatantly exposed gun would have been the cause of trouble.
Ill admit, this is all just assumption on my part, as while we were working there, OC was not permitted at the time (some places, even carrying at all was verboten), and its still a big hassle with the cops as Im sure youve seen in that youtube video going around by the boy who was basically daring the cops to notice.
All the "studies" and statistics are great and all, but like all the paper ballistic arguments bandied around the net, to me, they lack the actual substance of actual personal experience. Now if you have carried in places like Im describing above, and have some real word experiences that show your claims that its truly a deterrent, that would tend to add some credibility to those claims.