Open Carry was intentionally banned in incorporated California in the 1960's and signed into law by Ronald Reagan.
Making people think something similar still exists is a good way to get it banned. The legislature is not swayed positively by possible self-defense applications, they intended to get rid of those in the original ban and sentiment is not that much different now.
They don't want people to be able to use a gun, only to transport it.
The current allowance of carrying an unloaded handgun is important for many reasons, including transport in all manner of places where one might actually be using it.
The definition and prohibitions set forth on loaded firearms per PC12031 describes a place as an illegal place to even possess a loaded gun if it would be a crime to discharge the firearm there (outside of self defense.)
What this means is if you are in for example the wilderness, legally there is many times when the only legal method of complying is to unload your firearm to pass through an area, cross a road, etc before loading it again.
For example it is typically illegal to discharge a firearm within 100-300 yards of a road in most of California. This means it is also illegal to possess a loaded firearm in the same place.
It is illegal to discharge a firearm within so many yards of various types of buildings, dwellings etc, making it illegal to even possess a loaded firearm.
It is illegal to discharge a firearm in the parking lot near the forest you walked from, making it a crime to have a loaded gun in that parking lot.
In some counties it is illegal to have within so many yards of a trail head, tent, etc etc (With exemption for when you at your own temporary residence.)
There is many other examples. The bottom line is even people that have no intention of strapping an unloaded handgun on still benefit from and potentially need the ability to have an unloaded uncased handgun for those places where one must unload a gun temporarily but still legally possess it.
Can you imagine trying to lug a large case around for a Thompson into the woods with you so that you had someplace to lock up the gun each time because unloading it is no long sufficient?
Hunting and fishing exemptions do not cover many scenarios either. For example taking said firearm from a vehicle in order to hike to your campsite where it would be legal to have a loaded gun will often require you carry it unloaded past places you could not have a loaded gun.
Backpackers could have even more trouble without that ability.
FIVETWOSEVEN said:
Actually you can't have it loaded at all, no magazine in the gun or rounds in the cylinder.
This is correct, current law already prohibits the majority of potential self defense uses. Which of course was the original legal intent, to prohibit people from having loaded firearms at their disposal.
Additionally current law prohibits taking an unloaded handgun within 1,000 feet of a school zone.
Anyone that draws up a map of the school zones in a city will quickly realize that travel through a city without violating the law is nearly impossible. This is not 1,000 feet from the center of the school, this is 1,000 feet from all school property.
What this means is no regular person can put a gun on their hip and proceed to have a normal day, because that gun needs to be locked up in a container or the trunk to go within 1,000 feet of school property. You could not use normal road routes, because roads are not 1,000 feet across, and you cannot even drive past schools. Many cities are impossible to cross, destinations impossible to reach, and a complicated zig-zag pattern would be required to attempt to go places without violating the law.
Even small tons with few roads generally have their elementary, middle, and high schools located on the only main roads, so rural areas are just as bad.
This means the only people that typically can actually strap a gun to themselves in public are the demonstrators that put one on at location, and then take it back off before they leave. That is the only realistic way to not criminally take a handgun into a school zone.
So
in reality even unloaded open carry in developed areas is already banned as a result of the school zone restrictions, but as I explained earlier there is an endless number of reasons it is still important as a temporary option.
