Originally Posted by NavyLCDR
Ummmm..... 42 states currently allow open carry. Not exactly a few.
The only states that don't are:
DC
NY
IL
SC
TX
OK
AR
FL
California banned open carry in 1967 with the Mulford Act in all incorporated areas of California, and most others places.
Ronald Reagan signed it into law.
In more recent times some have applied the name "open carry" to a more modern phenomenon. However this is not open carry, which has been understood as the carrying of a loaded firearm in the country wherever practiced. Rather it is because the law to allow for transportation of firearms never outlawed possession of an unloaded gun in public, otherwise even taking it from the trunk of your car in to your home unloaded would be a crime as it is in public (as defined by law). But rather the law outlawed possession of a loaded gun so that members of the public could not walk around with guns for self-defense and similar purposes.
1967 was also one year before the GCA, the start of federal prohibited persons, so in 1967 felons who had spent time in prison could also walk around armed, protest while armed, and otherwise rejoin armed society.
Which would have included a number of the activist members of the Black Panthers, the primary group that allowed support of an unConstitutional ban of the open carrying of firearms to build.
Police found it annoying when these activists would often listen on police scanners and show up armed anytime the police stopped a black man. The panthers had a policy where they would then explain to the black man being questioned or arrested by police their rights from at least 10 feet away, while visibly armed (and so intentionally deterring the police from any action that might incite a response) which was a cause of great intimidation to officers. The panthers were generally quite professional during this role, knowing how to stay within the law and not interfering unlawfully, which of course infuriated the officers and public even more that they could get away with legally being so intimidating.
Some officers disliked this so much that they responded in a manner that would incite a response such as trying to disarm them, attacking them, drawing on them, shooting them, etc, and some shootouts and armed standoffs and resulting ambushes of responding officers occurred on a few occasions.
Governments already like a monopoly on force, but this was just too much, and resulted in a bill to ban open carry.
To protest the bill the Black Panthers then showed up well armed to the Capitol, a bunch of black men (when the country was still more racist) in militant uniforms, carrying rifles, who espoused a socialist doctrine. The intimidation felt by the legislatures insured they passed a law making the action that intimidated them illegal. That being the carry of loaded firearms in public.
They also made it a crime to protest with firearms (even police must remove their firearms before protesting.)
Reagan after running away when he spotted the militant group of armed black men at the capitol promptly signed the legislation into law when it came across his desk.
So open carry is not really legal in California either.
