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While I would rather the CC and OC both be available as unlicensed means of exercising the RKBA, they provide an example of a reasonable restriction that, I am sure, would pass muster with the SCOTUS.
The right is to be able to move around with your firearm available for immediate use. If a State were to say that you have the right to carry it around, but need a permit to cover it, that would be a reasonable restriction. The core right is not actually being restricted (even though one might argue that exercising the right has been made more difficult). What is being restricted is contextual behavior.
What makes the restricting the right (I know some hate that phrase) reasonable is that the State has a compelling interest to make sure we are all aware of who is armed and who is not--or that the State vouches for those who might be secretly armed.
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I understand you are using CC and OC as easy examples of what might be considered a "reasonable restriction". But I must disagree about whether the state has any compelling interest in knowing who has a gun or vouching for those who carry one concealed.
As others have pointed out, despite the often used, simple example of yelling fire in a crowded theater (when there is no fire) as being illegal, what is actually illegal is inciting a riot or panic, or even causing harm as people are trampled trying to get out. So long as the yelling of fire does not have a reasonable likelihood of causing a panic or harm, it is not illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater even in the absence of a fire. Imagine actors on a stage running about yelling fire at the top of their lungs. Perfectly legal free speech. However, to stop all action, walk to the front of the stage and calmly and authoritatively announce: "Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a fire in this theater and we need everyone to exit very rapidly lest you be burned alive," might well be illegal in the absence of a fire.
I have to ask, what is the harm done to others, where is the cause for panic, if I carry a gun out of sight without benefit of a government permission slip? Indeed, were I to play devil's advocate for a moment, I might well argue that it is the presence of a visible gun in modern society that is most likely to cause a panic and thus the action that might be most subject to state imposed limitations.
Also, consider the history of laws against concealed carry. In his "Racist Roots of Gun Control", Clayton Cramer explains that laws barring the concealing of arms were intended to force recently freed slaves to carry guns openly where they could be seen and the black man more easily disarmed. While these laws were written in an officially race neutral manner, they were rarely enforced against whites, or at least not against "respectable" whites.
I agree with Cramer that gun control laws generally--and laws governing whether a gun must be visible or hidden in particular--should be viewed as "suspect classifications" that are presumed racist and unconstitutional until they can be proven otherwise.
To ban removing a gun from the holster in public (excepting lawful need to use the gun) would seem to me a reasonable restriction given the chance for NDs and harm to the public from a loaded, unholstered gun. To consider the visible presence of a gun in full context of someone carrying that gun making threats (verbal or otherwise) against another person would be reasonable (obvious immediate access to a weapon to carry out a threat of grave harm). To ban guns from court rooms, jails, and other places where the state has an over-riding interest in (and actually does) maintaining high security and complete control of the facility would seem a "reasonable restriction".
But to say that the public has some compelling interest to know whether or not I am carry a gun, or to suggest that all of a city, or national park is somehow under enough control and security as to warrant a ban on guns would not be reasonable, IMO.
Charles
