Has open carry ever made you a target?

Very simple question:

Has open carry ever made you a target?

Examples:
"A criminal robs a store, and attempts to remove you from the situation first, purely because you were open carrying"
"A criminal attempts to rob you of your firearm"

I'm arguing with a moron here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TDFIVYqaDo

I need some statistics.

If you click yes, please explain.

It's made me a target of the Brady Bunch. Does that count?

buster81 said:

It's made me a target of the Brady Bunch. Does that count?

Click to expand...

Wrong kind of criminal.

By the way, if you click yes, you MUST provide a story.

I posted this up on AR15.com...there's so many anti-OC trolls who are clicking yes, it's ridiculous. They're not providing a story though, so, they get omitted I guess...

1 Yes.

Post the story please, or your vote will be omitted.

This is purely to discourage anti-OC trolls, and is nothing personal.

Not criminals, but over zealous police who were saying I was trying to impersonate them.

target?! the madison 5 ain't no steenkin target!

Thanks for the links, but I need statistical evidence that points towards open-carry does not make you a target.

He fails to comprehend how many criminals COMPLY with armed individuals per year, rather than have a shoot out.

easy answer

ask the other one to provide stats that oc does not prevent crime. he will find the same impossible task you have in front of you. It boils down to opinon and some common sense. there will always be those individuals in the world that no weapon will stop them from what they want to do. and a large number that will just find a softer target if a weapon is present. I personaly would rather mine be seen if only to play the averages of not having to use it.

It has made me the target of my local LEO's.

office888 said:

Very simple question:

Has open carry ever made you a target?

Click to expand...

Sorry, but that is not a "simple question." A target of WHAT? You must narrow down the focus of the question if you wish to receive the answers you seek.

office888 said:

I'm arguing with a moron here: ... I need some statistics.

Click to expand...

I don't think that "a moron", one moron, can argue.

In a way, yes. I get stared at when I walk into Whole Foods. I get stared at when I walk into any place simply for carrying a firearm in public or into places that do business with the public. I get stared at by LEOs.

NavyLT said:

It's next to impossible to prove a negative with statistics.

Click to expand...

The proper use of statistics can certainly help prove or disprove a hypothesis, provided it's properly formulated and bounded:

Hypothesis: Those who routinely open carry are less likely to be confronted with violent crime than those who carry concealed.
Approach: Use 90% confidence interval and state margin of error
Allowances: Ok to estimate numbers from random sampling

Definitions:
routinely - more than 50% of the time
confronted - meaning they were approached by the criminal, and reacted defensively

Required statistics:
1. Number of people throughout the US who routinely OC'd in the last 12 months
2. Percentage of the OCing above who were confronted with a violent crime in the last 12 months.
3. Number of people throughout the US who routinely CC'd in the last 12 months
4. Percentage of the CCing above who were confronted with a violent crime in the last 12 months.
5. Number of people throughout the US who were confronted with a violent crime in the last 12 months.

The stats work relatively straightforward for a statistician. The problem is in finding accurate numbers for items 1 through 4, above.

But proving or disproving a negative is entirely possible.

since9, you've just done an admirable job of proving NavyLT's point. Gathering your statistics would be "next to impossible".

MD