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Why Open Carry?

ixtow

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2006
Messages
5,038
Location
Suwannee County, FL
I've never seen a direct reply to this category. The answers always dance around the topic, but never say it like it is.

"Why Open Carry?"

"Because having the right to protect yourself is not the same as actually being able to."

It's all fine and dandy to think about your Rights. If you don't actually carry a weapon where everyone can see it, reality is that you are incapable of defending yourself.

Concealed Carry increases your odds and you might get lucky if you're one of the special elite selected for that privilege. But, supposedly, it's a Right we all have...

OC is all we've really got.
 

Mr H

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
286
Location
AA Co., Maryland, USA
I've never seen a direct reply to this category. The answers always dance around the topic, but never say it like it is.

"Why Open Carry?"

"Because having the right to protect yourself is not the same as actually being able to."

It's all fine and dandy to think about your Rights. If you don't actually carry a weapon where everyone can see it, reality is that you are incapable of defending yourself.

Concealed Carry increases your odds and you might get lucky if you're one of the special elite selected for that privilege. But, supposedly, it's a Right we all have...

OC is all we've really got.

Because the founders saw fit to acknowledge--and preserve--our natural right to self-protection, and give us the option to exercise it as we saw fit.

Sadly, our political keepers have determined that many of us (especially in states like MD) aren't wise, willing, or capable enough to make that determination for ourselves.

I have made a personal decision, whenever I travel, to open carry whenever it is legal (and not an obvious
issue for the event). I do, thankfully, also have an option of CC... but that's a topic for another forum!!

;-))
 

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
I've never seen a direct reply to this category. The answers always dance around the topic, but never say it like it is.

"Why Open Carry?"

"Because having the right to protect yourself is not the same as actually being able to."

It's all fine and dandy to think about your Rights. If you don't actually carry a weapon where everyone can see it, reality is that you are incapable of defending yourself.

Concealed Carry increases your odds and you might get lucky if you're one of the special elite selected for that privilege. But, supposedly, it's a Right we all have...

OC is all we've really got.

Not really.

I carry a firearm for several reasons, including self-defense being my Constitutional right, and the fact I served my country under oath to protect and defend my Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

The Brady Bunch and their ilk aren't the only domestic enemies of our Second Amendment rights. Complacency and the lack of exercising a right is as much an enemy as someone actively campaigning against you.

That's why I carry.

I open carry because although I can (and often do) concealed carry, when I CC, no one knows. I may be exercising my 2A rights, but the only one who knows about it is me. No one in the general public is reminded that we all have the right to keep and bear arms. Furthermore, there's no deterrent effect when I CC.

Thus, I OC for three intertwined reasons:

1. To educate/remind the public. "A right not exercised is a right lost."

2. As a visible deterrent against crime in the general areas I normally frequent.

3. For self-defense.

When I CC, only the third reason applies.
 

Brimstone Baritone

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
786
Location
Leeds, Alabama, USA
It's a tradeoff.

When I OC, I'm making a tradeoff. If I CC I look just like someone who is unarmed. I take the risk of being targeted by goons in order to look less threatening to the sheeple.

When I OC, I lessen my attractiveness to criminals, but have to put up with more flak from antis, cops, and other 'concerned' citizens.
 

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
When I OC, I'm making a tradeoff. If I CC I look just like someone who is unarmed. I take the risk of being targeted by goons in order to look less threatening to the sheeple.

When I OC, I lessen my attractiveness to criminals, but have to put up with more flak from antis, cops, and other 'concerned' citizens.

Yes, it is a tradeoff. And because it's a tradeoff, it's also a wonderful opportunity to educate.

I OC to educate both the sheeple as well as the goons.
 

JDriver1.8t

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2008
Messages
678
Location
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Thus, I OC for three intertwined reasons:

1. To educate/remind the public. "A right not exercised is a right lost."

2. As a visible deterrent against crime in the general areas I normally frequent.

3. For self-defense.

When I CC, only the third reason applies.

I would also add that I OC for two other reasons:
4. Comfort (OWB carry only gets covered when I wear a jacket or some button down shirts)
5. Speed of access to firearm. There is no cover garment to get in my way.
 

SouthernBoy

Regular Member
Joined
May 12, 2007
Messages
5,837
Location
Western Prince William County, Virginia, USA
I have carried a handgun for many years, most of them concealed. I just started OC'ing in the summer of '07 and my primary reason was because of my knees. I had the beginnings of osteoarthritis in both knees which precluded me from fighting or running from an attack. I elected to move to OC because when CC'in, you look just like anyone else; a potential victim. When OC'ing, your sidearm is visible, like the teeth of a wolf, telling others who may wish to do you harm that perhaps it's in their best interests to go elsewhere. Are there guarantees with this? Of course not. But your exposed sidearm does serve as a warning. And I am fortunate to live in a state where the open carry of a defensive arm is the default, or normal, method of carrying, and Virginia is VERY gun-friendly and lenient for those who chose to carry.

As for political statements? Nope, I don't really concern or worry myself about this. I am pleased that it sends a positive message to the general public and portrays the carrying of arms as a right among free people. And in the entire time I have been OC'ing, I have only had one negative encounter and that was from a customer at a MacDonalds who claimed he was a retired LEO. Judging from his accent, he was not native to my state.
 

KYGlockster

Activist Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2010
Messages
1,842
Location
Ashland, KY
I open carry because there is no better crime deterrant than a firearm on your side. I carry to protect my young family from the criminals that are everywhere...I carry because it was a right given to me from the men that founded this country, and by god. I carry because I havent had the extra money to obtain a concealed carry permit, but even when I do get one, I will still open carry. We need to exercise our rights. The media is exercising theirs everyday talking about how govt. needs to take our rights away, or they need to limit mag. capacity. They exercise their 1st, then I will exercise my 2nd. Criminals are called criminals because they break the law, new laws will do nothing to stop crime. We need to open carry to show people that good, law abiding citizens can responsibly carry a gun. Not everyone is bad that has a firearm, and that not many criminals are known to open carry. We need to get the word out of its legality, where it is legal, and we need to fight to get this freedom back where it isnt. Yesterday I saw a wonderful quote, "When this country was founded it wasnt called open carry, it was simply freedom." Where did this mentality go? We need to get it back, If everyone carried, like they used to, what would happen to crime.? It would drop significantly, just like how it was almost non existant, until people stopped carrying their firearms.
 

William Fisher

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2011
Messages
238
Location
Oxford, Ohio
When I OC, I'm making a tradeoff. If I CC I look just like someone who is unarmed. I take the risk of being targeted by goons in order to look less threatening to the sheeple.

When I OC, I lessen my attractiveness to criminals, but have to put up with more flak from antis, cops, and other 'concerned' citizens.

My thoughts run along that line. If you're CCing and someone tries to rob or attact you then SOMEONE is going to get hurt. The confrontation is far less likely if the punk sees that you're armed in the first place.
 

MedicineMan

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2008
Messages
117
Location
Marion, Mississippi, USA
My thoughts run along that line. If you're CCing and someone tries to rob or attact you then SOMEONE is going to get hurt. The confrontation is far less likely if the punk sees that you're armed in the first place.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Thomas Jefferson's "Commonplace Book,"
 

alrossitto

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2010
Messages
25
Location
Auburn, California, United States
Im currently working on a formal argument paper for a college level communication studies course and have decided to do my argument in favor of keeping UOC legal in California. I have several reasons to use as support for my argument but the one that I would like to use as the foundation for my claim is our 2nd amendment rights. After reading SCOTUS' ruling in Chicago vs. McDonald and DC vs. Heller, I see the justices who consented reaffirming our rights as citizens of the US "to use handguns for self defense in the home" and for "lawful purposes". However I do not see anything in either of these rulings that show California would be in violation of the constitution if they banned open carry. Can anyone shed any light on this for me?
 

eye95

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
13,524
Location
Fairborn, Ohio, USA
Sometimes you have to take things a step at a time, and protecting UOC is the reasonable current focus. But, don't lose sight of unlicensed loaded carry without restrictions as the ultimate goal. Please don't think that protecting UOC protects the right. It is better than no carry, but is decidedly a State-granted privilege and not the right.

IMO, CA is (and most States are) violating the individual right to carry that was affirmed in Heller and McDonald. The SCOTUS left open the door to reasonable regulation, without defining such, but requiring firearms to be unloaded is not only unreasonable, it is downright silly and dangerous.
 

gogodawgs

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Oct 25, 2009
Messages
5,669
Location
Federal Way, Washington, USA
Im currently working on a formal argument paper for a college level communication studies course and have decided to do my argument in favor of keeping UOC legal in California. I have several reasons to use as support for my argument but the one that I would like to use as the foundation for my claim is our 2nd amendment rights. After reading SCOTUS' ruling in Chicago vs. McDonald and DC vs. Heller, I see the justices who consented reaffirming our rights as citizens of the US "to use handguns for self defense in the home" and for "lawful purposes". However I do not see anything in either of these rulings that show California would be in violation of the constitution if they banned open carry. Can anyone shed any light on this for me?

<snip>IMO, CA is (and most States are) violating the individual right to carry that was affirmed in Heller and McDonald. The SCOTUS left open the door to reasonable regulation, without defining such, but requiring firearms to be unloaded is not only unreasonable, it is downright silly and dangerous.

McDonald v Chicago:

It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 54). We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and gov-ernment buildings, or laws imposing conditions and quali-fications on the commercial sale of arms.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms.

Actually the court did...the 3 regulatory measures listed in the McDonald opinion are the scope in which the court will allow. So short of any area in CA being a 'sensitive area' the full right of the right to bear arms must be met.
 

eye95

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
13,524
Location
Fairborn, Ohio, USA
McDonald v Chicago:

Actually the court did...the 3 regulatory measures listed in the McDonald opinion are the scope in which the court will allow. So short of any area in CA being a 'sensitive area' the full right of the right to bear arms must be met.

Nothing in the ruling indicated that the list was exhaustive--the list is merely exemplary. (Note the words "such...as.") The court deliberately continued to leave open the door it left open in Heller, allowing them to individually decide whether any particular restriction would infringe on the Right.

Until several of rulings regarding the constitutionality of a variety of regulations and laws come down, we won't have a good handle on what the Court would find to be infringing. I believe that they should find laws requiring unloaded carry to be an infringement. I believe they will. There is no guarantee though.

On edit: alrossitto, don't be so sure that you now understand how McDonald affects CA UOC. No one can say with any level of certainty yet.
 
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