stealthyeliminator
Regular Member
I've spoken similarly in the past (see "natural carry") but I want to bring it up again with this specific application. It seems fairly common for open carry advocates to try and draw parallels between citizens openly carrying a handgun and patrol officers openly carrying a handgun. I think that this quickly becomes counter-productive. I think that it leads to false conclusions about why patrol officers carry unconcealed and also false conclusions about why citizens should carry unconcealed. Non-undercover police officers do not "open carry" for crime/violence/attack deterrence, even if the fact that they're armed has that effect... They carry unconcealed because it is the most natural way to carry a handgun and there has never been a reason for them to transition to the very specialized form of carry that is concealed carry.
This leads into my next point which is that open carry does not have "advantages" over concealed carry.. The "advantages" aren't advantages of openly carrying over concealed carrying, rather, the opposite are disadvantages that concealed carry has as the specialized form of carry. Open carry is the default. The advantages are not advantages of open carry, they're the natural results of carrying a handgun naturally. Carrying a handgun in the most natural way is the standard. Concealed carry is compared against this standard and the disadvantages that concealed carry has versus "open carry" should be viewed from the perspective that these are disadvantages to this specialized form of carry. In some cases there is great value in concealment, such as in undercover police work. In those cases, the benefit of concealment outweighs the disadvantages that come with the specialized form of carry which is concealed carry, namely less ease of access and slower deployment.
But it doesn't end there. Drawing a parallel between a patrol officer and a citizen openly carrying could lead to a whole host of false and negative conclusions because this will naturally lead a listener to consider what else about the patrol officer and the citizen parallel when the reality is there is actually very little parallel and common false parallels are detrimental to open carry advocacy. For instance, take the gun grab issue. While gun grabs are like unicorns in the citizen open carry world, police officers do get killed with their own firearms. This doesn't parallel with citizen open carry at all for a whole host of reasons, but as soon as you open that parallel box many will inevitably consider this false parallel. Another is that police officers typically use retention holsters, which again is for reasons that don't necessarily cross to citizen open carry world, but this inevitably leads to "well open carriers should have to use retention holsters."
So, there it is. I cringe a little when open carry advocates try to draw parallels between citizen open carry and patrol officer "open carry," especially when they aren't prepared to put the brakes on further false parallels. Agree? Disagree?
This leads into my next point which is that open carry does not have "advantages" over concealed carry.. The "advantages" aren't advantages of openly carrying over concealed carrying, rather, the opposite are disadvantages that concealed carry has as the specialized form of carry. Open carry is the default. The advantages are not advantages of open carry, they're the natural results of carrying a handgun naturally. Carrying a handgun in the most natural way is the standard. Concealed carry is compared against this standard and the disadvantages that concealed carry has versus "open carry" should be viewed from the perspective that these are disadvantages to this specialized form of carry. In some cases there is great value in concealment, such as in undercover police work. In those cases, the benefit of concealment outweighs the disadvantages that come with the specialized form of carry which is concealed carry, namely less ease of access and slower deployment.
But it doesn't end there. Drawing a parallel between a patrol officer and a citizen openly carrying could lead to a whole host of false and negative conclusions because this will naturally lead a listener to consider what else about the patrol officer and the citizen parallel when the reality is there is actually very little parallel and common false parallels are detrimental to open carry advocacy. For instance, take the gun grab issue. While gun grabs are like unicorns in the citizen open carry world, police officers do get killed with their own firearms. This doesn't parallel with citizen open carry at all for a whole host of reasons, but as soon as you open that parallel box many will inevitably consider this false parallel. Another is that police officers typically use retention holsters, which again is for reasons that don't necessarily cross to citizen open carry world, but this inevitably leads to "well open carriers should have to use retention holsters."
So, there it is. I cringe a little when open carry advocates try to draw parallels between citizen open carry and patrol officer "open carry," especially when they aren't prepared to put the brakes on further false parallels. Agree? Disagree?