I have now been open carrying in the Virginia beach area for about 1 year. Originally I open carried about 50% of the time I now open carry 100%; for a reason I will get to in a moment. Reflecting on my experiences, I have yet to have an individual customer say anything to me. Only 2 people have even mentioned my gun to me at all: both were bank managers at Wells Fargo 1 positive and 1 negative. I have passed police officers numerous times and none has said a word to me; in fact once while in line at Walmart one of the cashiers asked an officer if what I was doing was legal. He said “What open carry? Yes its legal”. She said that she had never seen it before. He replied that it just was very rare.
Now to the reason why I open carry now 100% of the time. A few months ago I noticed that sometimes myself and my family were being tailed while in a store by plain clothes store security people. I thought that it might be because I was open carrying so I started to open carry less to avoid the hassle. I then realized that store security follows you around either way. Part of it is because my family fits a profile I have 2 young kids and use a baby stroller. My wife is in her early 30’s but looks younger and is a minority; this also fits a profile as well. I have heard people say that once a woman with a stroller enters a store Loss prevention goes on high alert. While I am followed much more when I am with my wife and kids, I do sometimes get followed while shopping by myself.
All of this brings up an important problem. I am fairly certain that these people are just security idiots living in a fantasy world, but when you follow a normal customer for no reason throughout the store your intentions might not be so clear. I don’t know for a fact if these people aren’t purse snatchers, kidnappers, etc so I have to keep my eye on them as well. This often leads to an exchange of angry glances and sometimes they will back off a bit. An additional huge problem is that although my wife is Hispanic, she is dark enough that many times people think that she is black. Many of the store security guys are simply ghetto thugs making $9.00 per hour who let their seething hatred of interracial couples show through. The possibility of one of them inventing a reason to stop me has crossed my mind. I have had a few of them walk step for step with me as I cash out and get in line behind me. When I walk they walk, when I stop they stop; its ridiculous.
Anyhow, this is why I now open carry 100% of the time:
to protect myself and my family from criminals outside the store as well as the criminals inside the store who often work as loss prevention officers. Just do a Google search or you tube video search and you will see that numerous people are killed by these guys every year. They assault innocent customers everyday because they “think” they saw something. They often will tackle women, even pregnant ones (my wife is 6 months pregnant) with no regard for the baby.
Now to my dilemma, what to do if I am surrounded by 5-10 of these people for no reason other than one of the racist ghetto thugs wants to bother the mixed couple and make a false accusation. I am a big guy and I know how to wrestle; but I don’t have a distorted view of myself and I know that I can’t defend myself against 10 other big guys without the use of a weapon. If someone tries tackling me, I have no way of knowing if they are going for my gun or not. I have no way of knowing that one of them won’t tackle my pregnant wife for no reason either. Open carry should prevent most of this as most companies have a policy of not physically interacting with armed people, simply calling the police. I have no problem with this as I am doing nothing wrong other than shopping while white while open carrying. The hypothetical problem is if one of them initiates a physical altercation with me or assaults my wife I have 2 basic choices.
1. Let it happen and be at their mercy and pray they don’t go for my gun or tackle my pregnant wife. Or
2. Be willing to go the full distance to protect myself and my family; up to and including use of deadly force.
In the past year of living here I have seen less than five interracial couples with a white man and a black female; I have yet to see one with kids. Having kids really pushes racist people over the edge. I know that they exist, but like the couple in northern VA who had Walmart security call the police on them, they never go out in public together due to the harassment.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...hters-walmart-shopping-trip-article-1.1351429
A few other concluding thoughts. I have heard others say that store security now treats everyone like criminals since the Obama recession as things are so bad that even normal people are committing crimes. I have also heard that some stores now use facial recognition and perhaps we open carriers are in such databases whether we are open carrying or not. It wouldn't surprise me if one of these thugs put me in the database just so that I would get further harassed.
Finally, I dress conservatively I am a clean cut 40 year old white guy with 2 masters degrees working on a PhD. I am usually left alone when I open carry by myself and I have heard the stockers mumble 5.0 as I walk by. My wife is almost done with her law degree and looks very sweet and innocent. I know that I could avoid 90% of this harassment by doing all of the shopping by myself, but I refuse to live my life like that. Any thoughts, comments, anecdotes or solutions would be appreciated.
