Ok, well considering for the longest time, in my state of MO, the only legal way to carry, without having to ask for a government permission slip and jumping through the hoops to obtain it was Open Carry. In fact, you couldn’t even get one of those permits until 2003, a mere 20 years ago. Now, that Constitutional Carry has been passed OC has been protected in local jurisdictions that once had the ability to forbid it (though with the requirement of CCW). To this end I spent a lot of time on a forum called OpenCarry.Org working with others to try and explain why OC was not all the things the author of this article said it was. Before I address some of the points, in the article, let me first say that they are not new. These have been hashed and rehashed repeatedly and while the author seems to think that throwing the idea of “context” is a new spin on the argument, it’s really just the old “just because you CAN doesn’t mean you Should” argument that has been presented time and time again. So, with that said let’s get to the points.
First, let’s talk about comfort. I would say that the shoe analogy is bit flawed, since while we all do wear shoes, we tend to choose comfort there as well. How many concealed carriers prefer to wear crocs or flip flops as their daily footwear? We all know that if a defensive situation arises that having good footing and being able to move effectively is very important, but I don’t see anyone condemning their choice of footwear as a problem. A person’s comfort is a perfectly legitimate reason for their choices in life, both in clothing and form of carry.
Next the author brings up speed of draw, OC vs. CC, and states that while it might be a little faster, surely, it’s not that much faster. Here I agree with him, though he does seem to overlook the possibility that your clothes may snag on your firearm is greatly increased in CC over OC. He, blithely, states that anyone with a “minimum level of competency” should be able to draw within tens of a second from beneath concealment, but that totally ignores the truth that a mis-draw is a possibility in a high stress situation. He also states here that the additional time it takes to draw may give the assailant time to reconsider, I will address that in a bit.
Up next is the normalizing point. For many years OC proponents, in various states, would hold Open Carry events. These were often BBQ’s or dinners were people open carrying go out and have a little fellowship and show that an openly displayed firearm is not a thing to be frightened of. In many cases these events only served to enlighten the general public to the form of carry and help remove some of the stigma associated with it. In other cases, overzealous law enforcement officers would show up, demanding ID and in some cases making arrests; arrests that cost their cities, in the form of bad press and damages from lawsuits. I would at this point like to add that much of the nationwide growth of CC and Constitutional Carry came from the OC community. It was OC activist that were out on the front lines talking to the public and politicians that drove a change in laws. It was not those who relied on some occasional donation to a national firearm association, which more times than not were only interested in its own enrichment, but let’s move on.
Here we discuss the “deterrent” aspect of OC. The author states that criminals don’t think like us and he’s right, but they also don’t always think like the author. OK, here’s a big point that many CCers don’t want to admit; you are not going to be going up criminal masterminds and combat hardened operatives. There are plenty of videos on the Interwebs showing criminals rushing into a continence store, right past fully uniformed and kitted police officers (who by the way wear their firearms out in the open). Criminals are impulsive and often have a bit of tunnel vision. They also hold their lives very dearly and don’t want to risk getting into a gun fight. Don’t believe me? Google Kennasaw GA Waffle House Open Carry. Here let me save you some time.
Open carry deters armed robbery in Kennesaw (nyccriminallawyer.com)
Long story short, a group of masked and armed men wanted to rob a Waffle House in Kennasaw GA. They sent in a scout to check the location out. He sees two gentlemen eating with openly holstered 1911s and the group decides to wait until they leave to rob the place. During this time local police roll up and spot the car they are sitting in. The police take them into custody and trouble is averted. This is a unicorn case because it shows something which can’t normally be shown. It’s near impossible to show how something didn’t happen and why, therefore the number of times any firearm, openly carried or concealed, stopped a crime is uncountable. Let us move on to the another point the author brought up, the stolen gun.
This is the one that those who dislike OC bring up over and over. I’ll just get this out of the way now and say that there have been OCers who have been robbed of their firearms. It’s true, but the extent it has happened is generally overhyped. To begin with the number of cases is not that high, they exist but they are really just a handful. It’s not something that is seen 1 out of 10 or even 100, or even 1000, or even more. The simple truth is that there are people who have chosen to carry a firearm that were not as situationally aware as they should have been and as a result they had their firearms taken from them, and in one or two cases actually turned on them, it’s true. It’s also true that there have been an equal number of cases (in other words only a handful) where a criminal got the drop on a CCer and proceeded to steal their firearm, as well. I used to have a file saved on my old computer that contained stories from across the nation of such instances, but sadly that computer is no more. So, in this case I am unable to link to a few cases presented by a guy who teaches OC over CC as a technique to bolster my case. Sorry.
There is also one final point to the deterrence argument I would like to make. CC only allows you to react. If a situation arises and you are CCing, you can only react (whether by engaging or not engaging) to it, the other guy has already made the first move. OC can “deter” the other guy from choosing to make that move, thus keeping you from having to react. As the author stated, it’s better to stop the assailant without firing a shot and convincing them that it’s not in their best interest to initiate a situation does that nicely.
Let me just say that I don’t think I will change anyone’s mind on the topic of OC vs CC and that isn’t my goal. I am only hoping that my arguments will, possibly, show that there are valid reasons for OC, just as there are for CC and that both forms of carry have their place, not just in the woods, but in a daily self-defense scenario.
