OC in grocery store

I went to my local grocery store the other day and had some googly eyes burning into me. This particular family kept their distance and both the father and daughter found it necessary to keep their eyes on me at all times throughout the whole store.

So I bought some milk, eggs, v8 juice, bananas, hamburger, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, broccoli, spinach, croutons, black olives and a pizza.

I then left the store.

I don't know how I managed all of that without any wrong doing to the innocent.

And yes I'm being sarcastic...

I was OC'ing around our neighborhood on the 4th. A couple of my daughter's friends (about 7 years old) came up to me. One commented that she liked my "holster thing", then asked if it was a real gun.
"Yes", I replied.
"Not a pepper spray?"
"Nope"
Pause while she digests this.
"How come you carry a gun?"
"For protection"
The other girl then chimed in "My dad has a sword," but I could see on her face that she had already come to the conclusion of who was better protected. The parents of both were within earshot of the whole exchange. Both sets of parents are what I would classify as passive anti's, but the kids are still coming over to our house to play, so maybe some headway was made.

Part of the problem right now is that the other side has done an effective job of making a lot of people just plain scared of guns. That's part of the reason OC is so important. Every time they see us out, armed, and just going about our business it undoes that gun-fear just a little bit.

My favorite answer to kids is "just in case there's a bad guy around". In their mind, it immediately focuses the negative attention on a wrong-doing person, and also turns you being armed into a positive, protective idea. It's also a much easier concept for them to grasp, and if you smile when you say it, parents don't tend to have any time of rebuttal.

That too is part of the reason why I open carry. Many times when the public sees a person open carrying, its their first time. Which is quite sad considering there are 76,264+ permits in Minnesota. http://www.madfi.org/permitcount.asp

I've talked to a few permit holders that insist on concealed carry only because they're worried about the police encounters. For some reason I don't think they'd be worried if they were with other OC'ers, lets say at a picnic or having a nice hot cup of coffee... =) I'd bet the police that tend to be hostile towards OC'ers would immediately change their approach when addressing 3 plus OC'ers.

Count me in for a Twin Cities gathering .. anyone else interested in getting something together ?