Why hide our weapons?

[Thernlund]

That's funny...just today I reiterated to my boss "We can't rely on ignorance for security; when we do, is when we will get burnt."

An effective tool. Not the only tool. Ignorance can weed out the folks who were unlikely or only a little willing to try. It raises the cost of success. Those of greater determination will not be dissuaded.

Applying this to open/concealed carry, concealed carry can weed out those criminals of lesser skill and/or nerve from attacking just anyone. As I said, concealed carry can make everyone appear equally dangerous, thereby raising the overall cost of success and shrinking the pool of would-be attackers for everyone and not just carriers.

However, criminals of great skill and/or nerve are unlikely to be dissuaded by the potential presense of a gun as they will likely be prepared for such a contingency. Such criminals probably won't even be dissuaded by the certain presence of a gun.


-T.

 

[JesseL]

Applying this to open/concealed carry, concealed carry can weed out those criminals of lesser skill and/or nerve from attacking just anyone. As I said, concealed carry can make everyone appear equally dangerous, thereby raising the overall cost of success.

However, criminals of great skill and/or nerve are unlikely to be dissuaded by the potential presense of a gun as they will likely be prepared for such a contingency. Such criminals probably won't even be dissuaded by the certain presence of a gun.

Since the criminals of lesser skill and/or nerve do still attack people and aren't completely dissuaded from criminal acts by concealed carry, it sounds to me like open carry is the way to go.

If noticed, open carry almost certainly will dissuade the criminals of lesser skill and/or nerve. For the criminals of great skill and/or nerve, like you said, it probably won't matter.

 

[Thernlund]

Hmph. I guess it's all acedemic anyway. I was just thinking of the economics of it. Seems like the larger good comes from concealed as it injects more guess work into a would-be criminals career. People will do what they do though.

Heh. I don't even carry very often.


-T.

 

[OOOXOOO]

I conceal my weapon as much as possible 100% of the time, even when camping or hiking. The less anybody knows about your personal defensive set up the more likley it will be efective. I have open carried and yes you do get the guy that wants to start a conversation. I relate it to wearing a karate gi 24/7.

 

[WayneConrad]

Nature's arguments for open carry:

 

[Thernlund]

Natures arguments for concealed carry...

-T.

 

[elsullo]

In the Back

I carry concealed and would never carry openly. The biggest reason is that I have encountered many very bad drugged-up gangsters and wannabees. When flying on their coke or crank they can be fearless, cunning and totally vicious. If they see your openly carried weapon, they will just sneak up behind you and shoot you in the back with their cheap, one-shot jamomatic just to steal your much better weapon. Oh, yes, they will just kill you to grab your in-plain-sight gun.

Does anyone in an open-carry state have any documentation or statistics about this kind of crime? Perhaps it has never happened, but I fear that it surely will...................elsullo

 

[Thernlund]

I carry concealed and would never carry openly. The biggest reason is that I have encountered many very bad drugged-up gangsters and wannabees. When flying on their coke or crank they can be fearless, cunning and totally vicious. If they see your openly carried weapon, they will just sneak up behind you and shoot you in the back with their cheap, one-shot jamomatic just to steal your much better weapon. Oh, yes, they will just kill you to grab your in-plain-sight gun.

Does anyone in an open-carry state have any documentation or statistics about this kind of crime? Perhaps it has never happened, but I fear that it surely will...................elsullo

Now that's funny.


-T.

 

[JesseL]

Natures arguments for concealed carry...

Ah, but those are either creatures that must hide due to their lack of other defenses, or because they are predators who don't want to alert their prey.

Creatures that are defensively armed tend to be very open about it.

 

[Thernlund]

Ah, but those are either creatures that must hide due to their lack of other defenses, or because they are predators who don't want to alert their prey.

Creatures that are defensively armed tend to be very open about it.

I was being facetious. Examples of all sorts can be found in nature...

* Camo'd and defensively armed (ex: many reptiles)
* Camo'd and offensively armed (ex: many mammals)
* Camo'd and defenseless (ex: many mammals)
* High viz and defensively armed (ex: reptiles, many insects and arachnids)
* High viz and offensively armed (ex: some sea life)
* High viz and defenseless (ex: some sea life, many birds and water fowl)

So it's moot for our discussion.


-T.

 

[Louisiana Carry]

Why I open carry (by me on another thread)

I am not debating the tactics of open carry. That is not why I do it.

I carry concealed and openly at alternating times every day. I am not biased towards one or the other.

When I open carry it is frequently simply because I prefer 3 o'clock carry, and it is too hot for a shirt.

One of the great side effects of this is that I get into lots of conversations with people about guns and shooting. I have long since lost track of how many people I have been able to tell about LouisianaCarry.org and Long Range Alley gun club (my gun club), that I would never had spoken with, had I not had a gun on my hip as an ice breaker.

I have never had the slightest problem open carrying. Usually the conversation goes like this:

Them: "Are you a cop or something?"

Me: "No, I carry because I feel it is every adult's civic duty to be adequately prepared to defend himself and/or those around him."

Them: "That makes sense. I have been wanting to buy a gun."

Me: "It makes good sense to have one, just like it is a good idea to wear a seat belt and have insurance. I would recommend you get connected with someone who can help you learn how to use one correctly and safely, if you get one though. If you visit www.lacarry.org, you can get alot of good info about safety, training, maps to practice ranges and other useful resources to get you started. I will even bring you to the range as my guest, if you like. Here is my business card."

The more people armed and proficient with weapons, the better off we all are. That outweighs the perceived negative tactical considerations that are potentially associated with open carry, to me.

Also, the more regular people going about their day that people see with weapons, the more chances there are that people will shed the Hollywood perception that only bad guys and cops have guns. Guns are a large part of why we have a country in the first place, and we should do all we can not to let the mainstream media stigmatize them.

I would always advise anyone considering open carry to be advised that many (NOT ALL!) LEOs are less concerned with respecting your decisions and adhering to the law as they are in preventing the possible mass panic associated with "ZOMG A MAN WITH A GUN!" More than one person has had trumped up charges brought against them for simply carrying a gun, which is a legal act in many States. You should be able to defeat these charges, and hopefully sue the heck out of the department that did it to you, but it may cost you alot of time, money and lost work. That is worth it for some of us, for others it is not. Consider how you will handle various encounters before they occur.

I OC every day in Shreveport, and have never had a problem. You may very easily run into trouble. It is not a decision to enter into lightly.

For me, though, I am an RKBA evangelist. Turning people on to guns and carrying them is worth the hassle. To me, the 2A is black and white. I devote myself to it in every way I see available. Most people are not like that, I know. I am not faulting them for it, but to those that see it mainly as means to hunt or provide for their own personal safety, they will not understand why I take the positions I take. To me, abridging the RKBA is a blow to the very heart of what form of republican government this Nation and my State have remaining. I battle those abridgments at every turn, as best as I am able, out of my own sense of patriotism and civic duty. I will continue to open carry, I am sure, even if I were to ever run into trouble.

 

[JesseL]

I was being facetious. Examples of all sorts can be found in nature...

I got that, but I still feel like pointing out the fallacies and flaws in your post.

* Camo'd and defensively armed (ex: many reptiles)

Ah, but most of these are also predators. Their arms are primarily offensive. The rattlesnake is an interesting case, being armed for dual purposes and camouflaged, but also having a defensive alert.

* High viz and offensively armed (ex: some sea life)

I'd appreciate an example here.

* High viz and defenseless (ex: some sea life, many birds and water fowl)

Here the ability to fly is generally their defense and the visibility is an unrelated sexual display.

I think the valid point still stands; that creatures that are not predators but are equipped with defensive arms (which is most analogous to most of us that carry firearms), tend to make overt displays to warn predators.

 

[macadore]

Why hide our weapons?

For the same reason we wear pants. We don’t want to scare the women and children.

 

[Thernlund]

Jesse, we could argue this all day and it would all come down to semantics in the end. Offensive vs. defensive, actively armed (a snake) vs. a passive defense (ability to run), and so on. Bleh. It has no real comparison to the animal kingdom. Animals are naturally armed (usually). Guns, for lack of a better term, are artificial armament. I can't think of another animal besides humans that uses weapons to augment their natural defenses, or enhance their natural offenses.

I don't feel like we're compare to other animals in nature. Our closest relative cannot make tools like we do at all, and can only barely use them if available. Our intelligence, for good or bad, sets us so far apart from all of nature that we just aren't even in the same league. A leopard wouldn't even understand the concept of hidden vs. visible, much less be able to make a rational decision regarding to two. He just does only what he knows to do and doesn't wonder why, and that's it.

We, on the other hand, have guns and intelligence and Internet forums. And where decisions must be made, we do wonder why.


-T.

 

[brighamr]

I hardly ever carry concealed. In fact the only time I've carried concealed this year was when I was driving through a different state (We have reciprocity, but I wasn't sure of their OC laws).

IMO hiding a weapon has no positive advantages, that is unless you're hiding a backup for TEOTWAWKI

Does anyone in an open-carry state have any documentation or statistics about this kind of crime?

No, I don't have any stats. However, I've searched the police reports for several years and have never seen one report of "a man was apprehended for have a firearms in plain view" OR "the man's gun was stolen from a meth addict in plain site simply because the addict saw the gun in plain view"....

 

[tntwatt]

Got dragged furniture shopping yesterday by the wife.
Just to see the reactions, I openly carried my Glock 21 in a Galco fed paddle holster with 2 spare mags on my non-dominant side. I wore blue jeans and a tucked in Glock T-shirt. Clean cut but casual. Got my wife to help me watch reactions as a condition of going with her.

Went to 7 freaking stores. No reaction at 6(other than a casual glance). At one, the 2 females in the office got that worried look and pointed at me. Wife said the looked freaked out. Now these 2 women have been exposed to an armed individual with no violence or robbery or bad outcome. Maybe this exposure will make them less worried next time.

 

[JesseL]

We, on the other hand, have guns and intelligence and Internet forums. And where decisions must be made, we do wonder why.

Absolutely. So I wonder why would some people think that open carry is such a bad idea when it logically should provide a deterrent effect against low to medium grade criminal attacks, and shouldn't make much difference in dealing with high grade criminal attacks. This benefit should be substantial to anyone who agrees that it's best to avoid attack altogether.

Conversely the costs of open carry seem highly overblown. Few members of the general public ever notice open carry. The majority of the remainder react supportively or neutrally. There are very few documented cases of anyone actually being targeted by criminals because of open carry. I can understand people shying away from OC if they live in a jurisdiction where it's likely to earn you harassment from the police, but people argue against OC even when this isn't an issue.

I'm forced to conclude that most people who argue strongly against open carry do not do so because of logic, but because of some less rational concerns. I suspect it's generally because of a fear of violating some social taboo.

Either way as far as I'm concerned, it's far more important that you carry than how you carry.

 

[1911Tuner]

I'm forced to conclude that most people who argue strongly against open carry do not do so because of logic, but because of some less rational concerns. I suspect it's generally because of a fear of violating some social taboo.

Maybe. Also possible that some of us just don't like to call attention to ourselves...whether carrying or not. We tend to shy away from bright colors and we speak softly. The old "Disappear in a crowd of three" mentality.

Put me in that category...and also on the side of just covering the gun and going about my business.

 

[Mainsail]

Maybe. Also possible that some of us just don't like to call attention to ourselves...whether carrying or not. We tend to shy away from bright colors and we speak softly. The old "Disappear in a crowd of three" mentality.

You've just described me, and yet I prefer carrying openly.

 

[JesseL]

Maybe. Also possible that some of us just don't like to call attention to ourselves...whether carrying or not. We tend to shy away from bright colors and we speak softly. The old "Disappear in a crowd of three" mentality.

Put me in that category...and also on the side of just covering the gun and going about my business.

I can appreciate and understand that. I'm a pretty private person myself and if I felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb when open carrying, I wouldn't do it. My wife was at one time severely social-phobic (though she is recovering now) and you can bet that if she felt like open carry was making me an object of undue attention I wouldn't even think of doing it.

The strange fact is though, I've always felt very much at ease when open carrying. I do my best to maintain good situational awareness; which includes observing the reactions of the people around me, and most of them don't react at all. It's easy to just go about my business, gun covered or not.

I've said before that it may just be the social/political climate around here, but open carry seems to stand out a lot less than a lot of the other personal oddities you're likely to see in public these days.

 

[1911Tuner]

You've just described me, and yet I prefer carrying openly.

Et, suum cuique sir. Cheers!

 

[Thernlund]

Absolutely. So I wonder why would some people think that open carry is such a bad idea when it logically should provide a deterrent effect against low to medium grade criminal attacks, and shouldn't make much difference in dealing with high grade criminal attacks. This benefit should be substantial to anyone who agrees that it's best to avoid attack altogether.

Conversely the costs of open carry seem highly overblown. Few members of the general public ever notice open carry. The majority of the remainder react supportively or neutrally. There are very few documented cases of anyone actually being targeted by criminals because of open carry. I can understand people shying away from OC if they live in a jurisdiction where it's likely to earn you harassment from the police, but people argue against OC even when this isn't an issue.

I'm forced to conclude that most people who argue strongly against open carry do not do so because of logic, but because of some less rational concerns. I suspect it's generally because of a fear of violating some social taboo.

Either way as far as I'm concerned, it's far more important that you carry than how you carry.

Mm. I don't think we're talking about the same thing. You're speaking of yourself only. You carry open, you advertise "don't f*** with me". I agree. But that wasn't my original point. You also speak of drawing unwanted attention. As well, this has no bearing on my point.

Take two hypothetical communities both with exactly 50% of the people carrying a gun. In the first community open carry is the only method of carry. In the second, concealed carry is the only method of carry.

Now, what I'm saying is that, as a whole, the second community will be safer over all for everyone. The first community will be very safe for those carrying, but less so for those not. This is because in the second community, a criminal has to wonder who will shoot him. The entire environment is potentially deadly for him. But in the first community, he knows where the danger is and where it is not and can act with more clarity.

You place yourself in the first community and you are very safe because a would-be attacker knows a) that you'll fight back; and b) easier targets are easy to spot. But if you were in the second community you would be only a little bit less safe than the first, but still safe. And those not carrying may be just as safe because to a criminal, they might be carrying too.

I'm not for or against either method. I was just looking at the economics of the topic.


-T.

 

[1911Tuner]

The best argument to being unnoticed when armed is the uniformed police officer. Most cops who are shot, are shot with their own guns after having had them taken from them. No?

While open carry may well deter the low-level types...it won't deter the real badasses...and may even provoke a few. There aren't many who will fight with an aggressive, lethal resolve with an openly armed cop...but there are a few who will.

There are people out there who will absolutely call you on what they perceive to be a bluff...whether you're actually bluffing or not. It could turn into a "See who blinks first" sort of standoff. Some of'em won't blink.

 

[JesseL]

Thernlund:

From your analysis, it sounds like the ideal is to have a mix of some people carrying openly and some carrying concealed.

I suspect that open carry has a complementary effect on concealed carry. The sight of open carriers reminds criminals that there are armed people, and though they can see some of them they can't see them all.

 

[PennsyPlinker]

If you plan to open carry, it is imperative that you present professionally. Keep your hair groomed, face shaved, nice clothes. Use a professional holster, not a piece of junk. Basically, go out dressed like a detective would dress. But, if you go out dressed in dirty, greasy, torn jeans and a filthy shirt, unshaven, sure people will call the police.

Well most of the time my T shirt is reasonably clean. Jeans are usually faded, stained, and well worn. I haven't shaved in over 20 years, and at times can be pretty bushy looking. But I do present a reasonably neat appearance within those parameters - i.e. I am very blue collar looking when I am out and about. And I open carry just about all of the time anymore. Banks, stores, restaurants, some church functions, and no one has really paid any attention to it.

There are a few of us over on the PAFOA forum documenting our OC experiences. Most of them are pretty boring, which is a good thing. A number of us OC'd to our polling places for the primary yesterday. No gunfights, no arrests, no really nervous citizens.