My Dad sent me his thoughts on Open Carry. I concur on everything except Miss Kitty. I think she's hot.
Why I am Against the Open Carry Law
I have my license to carry a handgun. However, I object to the Open Carry Bill.
I carry a pistol almost everywhere I go but I am very much against an open carry law. I have a license to carry, but do not want everyone to know that I am armed. Why? Here are some reasons:
1. Some of my Christian friends would argue that I should not carry a gun. I am a Christian but I am not a pacifists. I will defend myself, or others, if necessary. However, I do not want to openly carry a gun and get in arguments about why I carry it. I simply do not want to have to defend my position for carrying a gun with just anyone.
2. Wearing a gun openly would certainly provoke questions and a lively discussion. I do not want to use my firearm as a topic of conversation. I do not know a lot about guns and would rather talk about other things. There are certainly other topics to talk about other than why I carry a pistol.
3. I do not want someone to ask to see or examine my pistol. It’s too dangerous and I don’t want to have to say no to a friend.
4. I do not want some half-drunk jerk to think I am a smart aleck, or trying to be a big shot, and attempt to goad me into an argument or fight.
5. I do not want some child, mentally disturbed person, or someone strung out on drugs to come up to me and try to grab my gun.
6. I am not a law officer. I fear that someone upon seeing me wearing a gun may expect me to come to their aid when I am not qualified to help them.
7. I am fearful that if the law is changed to allow a person to openly carry a gun, that some people will use their gun as a device to bully or intimidate others, whether they ever draw the gun or not.
8. I also fear sitting with my friends in the coffee shop and a couple of armed punks come in rob everyone. If my gun is openly visible, and they decide to shoot someone, I would be the first person they will shoot.
9. It seems possible to me that if a carry bill passes that our culture could slip back into what it was in the late 1800’s. The legends of Fort Worth’s Luke Short and Jim Cartwright are fascinating but I am not longing to be a cowboy trying to get one up on the bad guy in front of the local saloon. I have no interest in Miss Kitty and I find riding a horse all day to be mighty uncomfortable.
3 comments:
Todd, with no disrespect to your Dad, I would have to politely disagree, by noting that, as it is currently being discussed, open carry would be an option, not mandatory - so objections #1-6 and#8 would be moot for persons continuing to carry concealed.
#7 is a fair point, as it is not implausible to believe some could abuse open carry to intimidate. I would fully expect there to be remedies/repercussions that would be written into the law that would revoke the license of anyone so doing, in a similar vein that revocation can currently occur for failure to conceal. But mainly, I would point out that there are a handful of other states in which open carry is permitted, and I haven't heard of it being a major issue, so I have to believe it's a manageable situation.
#9 is a bit ironic to me, as it's similar to the rationale used by the antis back when concealed carry was being considered. CCW didn't result in shootouts at the OK Corral, and I don't anticipate that the option of open carry would do so either.
In the main, my understanding of the open carry movement is to liberalize (it's not a bad word in this context) carrying of a handgun, to remove the absolute requirement of full-time concealment.
I have kiddingly posted on my own blog that I'd get a kick out of wearing a full-on cowboy rig, replete with a bandolero, chaps, spurs, and my hogleg, but for many if not all (maybe not #2) of the reasons your Dad cited, would probably find that to be most impractical, perhaps a bit embarrassing even.
What I would hope to achieve from OC is that if I chose to carry a .45, or other full-size handgun which is difficult to camouflage, I would avoid prosecution/license revocation if it were to be observed.
Like your Dad, I am not so interested in Miss Kitty - I think she needs to do something with that mole. Now, regarding Victoria Principal, back in the day in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean - well, I could be her huckleberry...
I lived in Arizona during the time when we had open carry but not concealed carry. Since then they added CCW with a license. I don't support open carry because it undermines the deterrent affect of armed citizens. If the bad guys know that a significant percentage of the population is armed, but they can't tell who is and who is not, they are forced to assume that anyone they meet could be armed. When he walks into a business filled with people to commit a robbery, it is quite likely that one of the twenty people in there is armed. With open carry, the armed citizen takes the first bullet. With concealed carry, the bad guy takes a much bigger risk, and statistics show that in most cases they decide against attempting that sort of crime.
I like the stippled frontstrap and the commander-style hammer on that 1911.
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