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New guy from SW WA

Fibresteve

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
50
Location
Woodland, WA
I have been lurking on OCDO for a few weeks now and decided to OC for the first time today. First I took my two kids to our city park in town (right across from the police station I might add) and let them run around for about and hour. A large group was having a company reunion and I talked to a guy fishing with his kids and had no issues. Next we went inside our local Starbucks for roughly a half hour. Again no issues. Lastly we stopped at Safeway to get a few items before heading home and no one even looked twice. Not that I saw anyway. I must say I was a bit surprised at the normalcy of everything. I think a majority of the people didn't even notice that I was carrying a pistol. I did talk to a local gun shop owner who knows our local police well and asked him how they felt about people OC and he said they were OK with it. We live in a town where a lot of people hunt and fish and people are a custom to seeing firearms. I must say I was a bit nervous at first but after 15 minutes or so I actually forgot I was even carrying. Hopefully my future experiences go as well as my first.
 

WOD

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2012
Messages
224
Location
Onalaska WA
Welcome to OCDO! Glad your first trip out was uneventful, and you were able to overcome the nervousness quickly. For the most part, people don't notice, and those who do will pretend they didn't see it, but just keep glancing at it while they decide to say something about it. I've had a few cashiers do that, and I just go about my business as normal. If you keep doing it everyday for a month, you'll feel naked without it on, at least I do, and I've only been OC'ing since the start of this year.
 

MSG Laigaie

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
3,239
Location
Philipsburg, Montana
Welcome to OCDO. Spending time with others who carry openly will help ease the MWAG feeling. Coffee groups pop up now and then (we have one at the bakerview starbucks in B'ham) and a few have BBQs coming up. Just keep calm and carry on.
 

Squeak

Regular Member
Joined
May 31, 2009
Messages
827
Location
Port Orchard,
Welcome to the fore-um! Step out and plan a coffee meet in your area. Better yet, plan a picnic. You'd be surprised how many will show up. People in the Tacoma area have gone to Spokane and Vancouver for an excuse to have picnics. Potlucks work out good.:banana:
 

Fibresteve

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
50
Location
Woodland, WA
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. I'm looking forward to learning a lot from this forum and hopefully meeting other OCers from my area. It would be great to get a regular meet going in SW WA somewhere. There is so much good information here and I have been soaking up as much as I can! Tannerwaterbury, nice comments in today's Daily News. I too am wondering where Byrne got his statistics.

Here is s link if anyone wants to read the story
http://tdn.com/news/local/rise-in-c...cle_1d2e178a-c25e-11e1-8a43-001a4bcf887a.html
 

LkWd_Don

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2012
Messages
572
Location
Dolan Springs, AZ
Welcome to the Forum!
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. I'm looking forward to learning a lot from this forum and hopefully meeting other OCers from my area. It would be great to get a regular meet going in SW WA somewhere. There is so much good information here and I have been soaking up as much as I can! Tannerwaterbury, nice comments in today's Daily News. I too am wondering where Byrne got his statistics.

Here is s link if anyone wants to read the story
http://tdn.com/news/local/rise-in-c...cle_1d2e178a-c25e-11e1-8a43-001a4bcf887a.html

While reading most of the article, I got the impression that it was well written. But then I came across this:
According to Byrne, it's more dangerous. The average man or woman doesn't react with Dirty Harry-like reflexes when under attack or facing a burglar, he said.

"They freeze. They get confused. They end up killing their friends or themselves 22 more times than the other person," said Byrne, who thinks the state should make it tougher to get a concealed weapons permit. "If a gun's not around, the odds of people getting killed are much lower."
and get the impression that was plagiarized from Washington CeaseFire without checking for accuracy first.
 
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BoreSighted

New member
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
2
Location
Washington
Hi FiberSteve!

I'm from SW WA as well and also new to the forums. I've OC'd for about three years and never had a problem until this weekend at Costco in Tumwater when they quoted their non-existent "it's in your membership information" rule (but they guy clearly stated that CC was okay). In fact, I've received several positive comments and one time a retired navy guy gave me a discount at a farmer's market because I was OC'ing. It took me a couple months before I really started to feel comfortable and not self-conscious. I've discovered that probably 90% of the time people don't even seem notice. LEO and vets consistently seem to notice and other's who carry (OC and CC), but that seems to be about it for the most part. Now if for some reason I leave the house w/o my sidearm I feel naked. :)
 

oneeyeross

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2010
Messages
500
Location
Winlock, , USA
Up here in Lewis County, it's also a non-issue. I've never had a problem here is SW Washington....

gotta love living in the sticks.
 
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