Novus Collectus
Member
Millions worldwide carry openly everyday.BTW, according to FBI stats, there are approximately 800,000 cops in the USA.
I missed that. Is it possible that included snatch attempts during arrests and were not the initial attack?Ayoob has documented over a thousand attempted snatches of cops' guns that were thwarted by retention training and equipment. (Cops have to write reports when they experience a snatch or snatch attempt.)
Yes it happens, but it is rare.But I have also shown where cops do get their guns snatched. If you read through this thread you will find references and links. It doesn't happen too often, but it happens.
Concealed carry may be more ideal way to carry, but to say it is a bad idea to OC because of rare events that can mostly be thwarted with some practice and awareness is wrong IMO.
Just like the antis tried to claim for years shall issue laws will lead to anger shootings and the wild west type of enviroment, that did not happen. How many open carry states have a plague of gun snatches? I wonder how many there are in Virginia or Vermont where open carry is regularly done. Funny how I don't read about it in the papers.
Yes, yes, yes, that was my point too you see.They are correctly percieved as hard tarets. Most have retention holsters. They have backup available on short notice. And BG's know that if you whack a cop, hundreds of other cops will make it their top priority to bring you to justice. And they won't be "gentle" about it either.
In the urban areas in this country where open and concealed carry are both observed and it is not uncommon, a criminal will have to worry about more than just the victim shooting him in such an event because the person behind him could be carrying too.
Also if you think someone carrying a gun is not a hard target, then your perception is skewed. While some criminals will still be bold enough to try to do a snatch, the vast majority know if they screw it up they are getting shot. Criminals fear an armed victim more than they fear the cops and tough sentences.
See, this is where things start to get interesting and in the realm of lives saved. While there possibly may be more people OC with snatch attempts than CC, there are also many more people CC that are shot during a robbery attempt because the criminal was not aware they had a gun and were not warded off because of it. So it would be an interesting study to discover the difference in the number of shot CCers compared to the number of OCers shot with their own gun. In 2006 in MD something like four cops were shot. Two were off duty and concealed carrying (one died).As for CC'ers getting "made" and hence being potential "snatchees", I'm sure that some are made. But however many are, it is certainly less than 100%, and in all likelyhood much less. With OC, one should assume that one is "made" since no effort is made to hide the gun at all. So the exposure is certainly greater with OC, much greater.
Two more officers in Baltimore were robbed while concealed carrying (one got off shots and neither officer was injured). No officer in Baltimore was robbed while open carrying as far as I know.
I bet there is a nice trade off, but I would not be surprised if the crime prevention of OC has actually saved more lives.
For this reason I am all for OC in urban areas. An armed society is a polite society, but an openly armed society is a safe society.
Yeah, but you missed the point entirely. You see, the average criminal does not think know this or think this. All they are thinking is that they don't know who to worry about that is armed. Think about it, if there are two people OCing in a store and there is a criminal, would they take the chance of getting shot by the one that is still armed, or would they think the person doesn't have the balls? I will bet they are afraid of getting shot and don't know most people would not shoot them in the back while running away.1) Cops are trained to back each other up. Armed citizens are not. And you can't assume that an armed citizen would make a quick judgement to shoot or try to stop/detain a BG who snatched another armed citizen's gun and was running away.
YOur personal observation does not say much. This country is big with many different urban areas where OC is allowe.2) Show me an urban area where more than one person is likely to be present that is OC'ing. I've been around the block a few times and I've only seen 2 people OC'ing in my life (except for cops). One was in Phoenix and one was in Brattleboro, VT.
But once again you missed the point. In those areas that has OC, they also have CC. In those areas with shall issue, the criminals will not know who behind them is CCing. In the areas where they know people regularly carry they are less likely to try crimes because they do not know who is armed, but when people carry openly they know a good portion of people are.
Here in MD we have more people (non-LEO) with carry licenses that the entire state of California, yet we have high violent crime. Most criminals aren't aware there are armed citizens. I wish more of those people OCed so that criminals will know some citizens can carry and think twice about robbing, carjacking or raping someone.
And on that note, it is also probably people who CC are more likely to get robbed because there was no visible deterrent.You can assume that 100% of OC'ers are "made", since the gun is not concealed. Likewise, we can assume that less than 100% of CC'ers are made, since they have at least made an attempt to conceal their guns. Some of these attempts will be successful, right? So all OC'ers are potential targets for a snatch or snatch attempt while only some CC'ers are.
Obviously it follows that more OC'ers will be at risk of a snatch.
So one can say almost 100% of all CCers are potential robbery victims.