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Open carry vs Concealed Carry

Should people Open Carry, Conceal Carry, or no carry


  • Total voters
    31
I haven't carried unless it's open and on duty. that being said, i will get a CCW license upon return to the land of the big wal-mart,and likely a nice little glock to carry that way.
 
I agree with what Goshin said. If I am involved in some kind of altercation where someone else has a gun as well, I don't want to be targeted first because my gun is visible. And a lot of people aren't aware that open carry is legal and don't approve, and will freak out if you are walking around open carrying.
 
Different strokes. That's what makes it a great country.

concealed

open

no gun

Each classification has a certain type of individual that best fits the scenario. I like open carry myself, but you have to be alert at all times that someone else might just go for your gun.
 
I open carry in my state of Washington. I do have my CPL ( Concealed Pistol License) but I just to open carry 95% of the time. I view open carry as another layer of deterrent against criminals. At the very least they would think twice about attacking an openly armed person. I know this isn't perfect and won't stop all and it takes from the element of surprise if I CCW, but I believe at least for me the pros out way the cons.

Open and concealed carry are both fine and should be considered nominal usage of 2nd amendment rights.
 
If you live in Chicago.... well, if you live in certain parts of the city and you're careful where you go, I suppose... but you HAVE noticed that Chicago has a murder rate around 3x higher than the national average, right?

The top 20 large cities by murder rate are.... N'OrleansLA, St LouisMO, BaltimoreMD, DetroitMI, NewarkNJ, OaklandCA, WashingtonDC, Kansas CityMO, BuffaloNY, CincinnatiOH, PhillyPA, ClevelandOH, PittsburgPA, AtlantaGA, StocktonCA, MilwaukeeWI, MiamiFL, and ChicagoIL.

Atlanta and Miami are the only ones on that list with particularly easygoing gun laws.

Large cities with lower homicide rates include SanAntonio, Corpus Cristi, Austin, Arlington, Fort Worth, Houston, Plano, and El Paso, all in Texas.... Memphis Tennessee; Charlotte NC; Tucson Arizona; Mobile Alabama; Jacksonville FL; Nashville TN; Greensboro NC; Las Vegas Nevada; Anchorage Alaska; Lincoln Nebraska.... nearly all of which have less restrictive gun laws than Chicago, and "shall issue" carry permits.

United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Depending on exacty how you define it, 38 to 41 state have "shall issue" concealed carry permits.... so you're limited to 9 or so states where you'll live I guess. Most of them have fairly bad crime rates.
Chicago's murder rate has little to nothing to do with gun laws. It has to do with poverty, urban structure and most of all, a perpetually stupid city government that has no idea what it's doing. Regardless, as I said before, I grew up in a "gun free" zone with low crime and might as well be nonexistent murder rate. As a result, I'm not really moved by claims that guns are necessary for safety. Perhaps there are multiple ways to reduce crime - carry laws being one of them - but it's clear that those aren't not the only way and I'd prefer the ways that don't have them.

As far as being limited to where I can live - that doesn't really matter to me.
 
Yeah, that makes sense

she was a PROHIBITIONIST

You have no sense of humor - at least not on the topic that your are an extremist fanatic about. :roll:
 
I think open carry is a good compromise between safety and personal gun rights, so long as there's a provision for allowing concealment at one's home (though I'm sure that's already in there). If I see someone with a gun, then I'd give them a wider berth if I were up to no good, but so long as I'm not doing anything bad, my chances of that gun causing a problem remain low. Keep in mind that the 2nd Amendment gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms, but not necessarily to hide them. After all, when minutemen had to grab their guns, they didn't reach for handguns.

That being said, I'm open to reasoning why we need the right of concealed carry as well.

There are actually two parts of the 2nd that get in the way of anti gun people. The right to keep and bear is one, but equally important is the "shall not be infringed". That is where anti sell, anti ammunition, anti hide, and the like fall.
 
Goshin said:
If you live in Chicago.... well, if you live in certain parts of the city and you're careful where you go, I suppose... but you HAVE noticed that Chicago has a murder rate around 3x higher than the national average, right?

The top 20 large cities by murder rate are.... N'OrleansLA, St LouisMO, BaltimoreMD, DetroitMI, NewarkNJ, OaklandCA, WashingtonDC, Kansas CityMO, BuffaloNY, CincinnatiOH, PhillyPA, ClevelandOH, PittsburgPA, AtlantaGA, StocktonCA, MilwaukeeWI, MiamiFL, and ChicagoIL.

Atlanta and Miami are the only ones on that list with particularly easygoing gun laws.


Large cities with lower homicide rates include SanAntonio, Corpus Cristi, Austin, Arlington, Fort Worth, Houston, Plano, and El Paso, all in Texas.... Memphis Tennessee; Charlotte NC; Tucson Arizona; Mobile Alabama; Jacksonville FL; Nashville TN; Greensboro NC; Las Vegas Nevada; Anchorage Alaska; Lincoln Nebraska.... nearly all of which have less restrictive gun laws than Chicago, and "shall issue" carry permits.

I wish more people would realize this.

Anyway, I support conceal. I'm not necessarily against open carry, but you may spook some people by having a .44 in clear view.
 
I prefer Arizona style of law were no permit is required. In Washington you need a permit to CCW but no permit to OCW.

I forgot to add "without". The right to bear arms is a constitutional right that the government has no business infringing on.
 
I voted "Rutabaga" due to the wording of the question.

People "should" do whatever they're comfortable with. Carry, don't carry, open, concealed, whatever.

I would be worried, with open carry, about a particularly nimble criminal getting it off me. Maybe I've had too much exposure to pick pockets, but I know that people that quick do exist. You'd be amazed what they can take off you without you noticing. That would worry me, personally. I would feel more comfortable having it hidden, if I was going to carry.
 
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There are actually two parts of the 2nd that get in the way of anti gun people. The right to keep and bear is one, but equally important is the "shall not be infringed". That is where anti sell, anti ammunition, anti hide, and the like fall.

Don't forget about the first part of the sentence, however.
 
Chicago's murder rate has little to nothing to do with gun laws. It has to do with poverty, urban structure and most of all, a perpetually stupid city government that has no idea what it's doing. Regardless, as I said before, I grew up in a "gun free" zone with low crime and might as well be nonexistent murder rate. As a result, I'm not really moved by claims that guns are necessary for safety. Perhaps there are multiple ways to reduce crime - carry laws being one of them - but it's clear that those aren't not the only way and I'd prefer the ways that don't have them.

As far as being limited to where I can live - that doesn't really matter to me.


As we say out here in Hicksville, "mo' power to ya" then. :)

I prefer to rely on me for my safety.
 
I voted "Rutabaga" due to the wording of the question.

People "should" do whatever they're comfortable with. Carry, don't carry, open, concealed, whatever.

I would be worried, with open carry, about a particularly nimble criminal getting it off me. Maybe I've had too much exposure to pick pockets, but I know that people that quick do exist. You'd be amazed what they can take off you without you noticing. That would worry me, personally. I would feel more comfortable having it hidden, if I was going to carry.


That is a good and valid point. Back when I was a cop, we went through classes on "weapon retention" and watched training films showing how easily an experienced criminal can rip the sidearm off your belt holster. As a result of bad experiences in this regard, most departments required Level II or Level III "Retention holsters" for on duty carry, which were designed to make it difficult for anyone to remove your weapon from the holster without knowing exactly how it worked.

The flip side of this of course is that you have to hit the two snap-releases correctly or YOU won't be able to draw the gun either. :(

As a matter of personal preference I will stick with concealed.
 
I personally prefer CCW for the purposes of myself being the only person who knows what and where it is. Not only could a sneaky POS grab your weapon if they could see it on your person but they know what to look for to stop you from engaging it if you need it, say if you were to go to towards a wall and two perps were about to rob the same store you are at, perp one grabs your shooting arm and pins you to the wall, you are now ineffective and so is your gun. If they assumed you to just be another potential victim perp one may take for granted that you are there and "unarmed" and wouldn't necessarily blindside you.
 
Don't forget about the first part of the sentence, however.

"A well regulated militia?" I'm not sure I follow you. If you are implying that regulated means that the government reserved the right to restrict the 2nd through regulation, the rulings have said otherwise. Basically, the term means the government's obligation to train and discipline, nothing more.
 
As we say out here in Hicksville, "mo' power to ya" then. :)

I prefer to rely on me for my safety.
Eh, there are plenty of measures one can take to increase their chances of being safe - a gun is only one of them and it doesn't necessarily ensure that you end up relying solely on yourself for safety. It just gives you one more potential level of protection that may or not work to your benefit.
 
Eh, there are plenty of measures one can take to increase their chances of being safe - a gun is only one of them and it doesn't necessarily ensure that you end up relying solely on yourself for safety. It just gives you one more potential level of protection that may or not work to your benefit.

Correct, general preparedness is tatamount. However, if you find yourself in a situation where a firearm is warranted and you have one, you have increased your odds. However, if you find yourself in a situation where a firearm is not needed and you have one, no harm, no foul.
 
Correct, general preparedness is tatamount. However, if you find yourself in a situation where a firearm is warranted and you have one, you have increased your odds. However, if you find yourself in a situation where a firearm is not needed and you have one, no harm, no foul.
I agree with this. However, there's also the situation where having a firearm decreases your odds. That said, since a lot of those situations may be the result of gun owners who haven't trained properly, a gun owner can decrease the chances of a gun hurting their odds of remaining safe with training. However, if they choose to just buy the gun without getting proper training, they can end up putting their life or others' lives in danger.
 
ThePlayDrive;1060725528/QUOTE said:
]I agree with this. However, there's also the situation where having a firearm decreases your odds. That said, since a lot of those situations may be the result of gun owners who haven't trained properly, a gun owner can decrease the chances of a gun hurting their odds of remaining safe with training. However, if they choose to just buy the gun without getting proper training, they can end up putting their life or others' lives in danger.QUOTE]

That also is correct. Training is a must, and continuing training is also necessary. Training includes the ability to use your weapon (or weapons) without a thought of trying to remember the steps required to fire it and the ability to hit a target in typical self defense range. That is the main reason why I like revolvers for self defense. Nothing to do but point and pull the trigger. Along with technical skills, the mental ability to actually use the weapon should be automatic. A person can travel 20 feet in close to a second. You don't have a few seconds to assess the situation.
 
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Interesting to read the fantasies spun up for open carry. I live out on a ranch and at NO time has either the wife, who is a LR competitor, or I have felt the need to strap on the ol' hoglaig. :roll:

The safest place you can be is out fixing fence on your own ranch. Tip of the hat to wannabee cowboys but I can't ever recall a rancher out here packing. Now about half the time I carry my 308 LTR in my truck when I go down to the creek bottom if I have heard/seen feral hog sign, but not because I fear anything. I say half the time because 99 times out of 100 unless I go prowling deep into the woods along the creek, there is nothing worth shouldering the rifle over.

When it comes to the looks and moving away some good citizens MIGHT do when an old coot rolls into town packing 'cowboy' style, that might be due more to knowing who the pistol is attached to than any fear and loathing of pistols themselves in a small town out in the sticks. You would think that out in small town USofA most folks know what a pistol looks like, seen more than a few attached to someone's hip When I'd come back into town from a day instructing on the range with my XD on the hip it didn't get a second look and no one cleared out of the way like some tired old Western.

Then again I think some send small children scurrying no matter what is on their hip. ;)

Personally I don't see open or concealed carry changing much in the way of crime. Some comfort to some people, but as many have mentioned the majority of Americans make it from cradle to nursing home without ever being attacked by a firearm, outside service to country.
 
Doesn't matter to me, whatever floats your boat, so long as you have the proper licenses and permits to do so. Personally, I don't even own guns anymore, I live in an area that is extremely low-crime (someone got murdered about 5 years ago and everyone freaked out because it was the first murder in about 40 years) and I would have no problem walking down Main Street at 2am with hundred dollar bills hanging out of my pockets.
 
Doesn't matter to me, whatever floats your boat, so long as you have the proper licenses and permits to do so. Personally, I don't even own guns anymore, I live in an area that is extremely low-crime (someone got murdered about 5 years ago and everyone freaked out because it was the first murder in about 40 years) and I would have no problem walking down Main Street at 2am with hundred dollar bills hanging out of my pockets.
This is pretty much where my mind goes in terms of staying safe. I would prefer to just live in area where crime is pretty much nonexistent than to live in area where it's prevalent and I'm worried about what kind of gun I have.
 
"A well regulated militia?" I'm not sure I follow you. If you are implying that regulated means that the government reserved the right to restrict the 2nd through regulation, the rulings have said otherwise. Basically, the term means the government's obligation to train and discipline, nothing more.

The problem is, you need to look at the Constitution in the context of when it was written to properly understand it. At the time it was written, we had no standing army, every white adult male was expected to come to the defense of their town/city/state/nation in the event of war or insurrection. They were expected to supply their own firearms and be well-versed in their use. That is specifically why "a well regulated militia" appears in the 2nd amendment.

Jump forward a hundred years or so and we do have a standing military and the people are not expected, nor even permitted, to engage the enemy, and the 2nd amendment no longer applies to the situation originally intended. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against gun ownership, I support it in fact, I'm just against using a document in a means it was never intended. The problem is, you have the Supreme Court continually redefining the Constitution to cover things that it was never written to cover, to apply to situations that the founding fathers could never have conceived. The Constitution just is not the end-all, be-all of everything. The farther we get from the days of the founding fathers, the more convoluted every finding the Supreme Court makes to cover ideas and concepts that would be utterly alien to the founding fathers.
 
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