imported post
A friend of mine, regular church-goer (how I know him), is a member of an area police department. I had the chance to talk to him about being a police officer, and one question I asked regarded Texas open carry. He was more than a little uncomfortable with the idea. To clarify; he is a strong supporter of gun rights. He probably has the most inside information on the real stats of lawful gun owners using them to protect themselves, and he very strongly supports our CHL laws. Under LEOSA, he carries his backup G27 more often than not.
However, I mentioned open carry, and his very first thought was "if I see a person walking around carrying a gun in plain sight, I will want to stop and question him". He understands and said very quickly that this would be a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of the person so stopped, and for that reason his opinion is that it is better not to have OC.
I explored that sentiment, and he further stated that the CHL holds licensees to the same standard of firearms handling skill that an officer is expected to show before graduating the academy and every 6 months thereafter (however a CHL only has to re-qualify once every four years). OC without that proof of competency, he felt, could lead to an increase in unintentional shootings.
This is all stuff I've heard before. I introduced the fact that more states do allow OC than prohibit it, and that the cops are (in gold star states) trained that a person carrying openly should not be questioned without reasonable suspicion that he has or is about to do something bad with that gun (a 911 MWAG call, unfortunately, must be followed up on). The justification is that a criminal does not wantthe publicto know he has a gun, and will therefore conceal it. A person carrying openly has nothing to hide, obviously. He was receptive to that argument, but still found fault with the lack of proof of training, to which I reiterated that concealed means concealed, and that applies to an unlawful carrier as well as a lawful one; the average joe on the street may be packing or not, and the ones packing may or may not have valid CHLs. There is simply no way to tell. He conceded that point as well.
The last point, which is totally true and thatwe OC supporters can only tackle head-on, is that a CHL holder carrying concealed appears normal. An OCer does not. To OC is to risk a disturbance of the peace every second of every day. That makes police officers' jobs very difficult; they will be called to many more "MWAG" situations, and given that guns are involved cannot do anything but act as if the situation is or could quickly turn violent. That's how it is. We all know that's not how it should be, but unfortunately a cop knows all too well that the world is not how it "should be". If a lawful gun owner carries openly and someone else is scared enough by the sight to call police, they HAVE to respond, they WILL detain and question you (a 911 MWAG call is reasonable suspicion just like a burglary call on a man breaking into his own house because he locked himself out), and it MAY result in a ride in the back of a squad car (I was in a car accident recently and spent some time keeping warm in just such a back seat; I'll tell you they are not comfortable). The only way past that is education; unfortunately there's a vicious cycle here of OC being illegal, so nobody sees an OCer without a badge, so most think it should be illegal.
