Bob Warden wrote:
Both state and federal constitutions protect the separate rights to keep (possess)and bear (carry) arms. Neither source specifically protects a right tobear open, or tobear concealed. A natural argument could be made that a government entity that allows one form of carry but not the other is in accord with the constitutional guarantees. In other words, we cannot say with legal certainty that we have aright toOPEN carry.
Pragmatically, I don't think pushing the open carry envelope achieves anything positive. I don't think one's ability to defend self or others is significantly enhanced by open versus concealed carry. Perhaps even the opposite: an observant armed bad guy will seek to neutralize known threats. If you carry open, you are a known threat to the criminal. Concealed carry has the obvious added benefit of not inflaming anti-gunners. And stop pretending you can change the minds of anti-gunners by openly carrying guns! Whether the opinion is justified or not, people with strongly held beliefs and opinions very rarely change their minds.
To summarize, no clear right to open carry, and no productive reason to do so.
In regards to paragraph #1, if a government only allows licensed carry, either open or concealed, and does not offer a means of carrying without a license, such as Texas and Oklahoma (two that come to mind), that certainly is in violation of the right to bear arms because the state has turned it into a taxed privilege.
As far as the second paragraph, my personal opinion is that it simply reeks of B.S. I am not even going to address that pile here.
The last section is a mixture of summarization and B.S., in my opinion.
There you go, Dave, now you have your "stinks like an ogre" post, whether you consider it to be my reply, or the opinion of the esteemed Bob Warden, or both.
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