I dunno. At the risk of getting called a I’m a gun owner butt, I submit the following harrowing tale for your consideration:
Police first dispatched an officer to investigate a “suspicious person” with a holstered firearm.
“It does look like he’s got a handgun on,” Moe can be heard telling a dispatcher in the video. The officer also suggests the man is “talking to nobody.”
With traffic stopped, Moe drew his firearm and ordered 28-year-old Deffert to the ground.
“Do not move. Why do you have a handgun on you?” the officer asked.
“It’s my constitutional right to defend myself,” Deffert replied.
Later in the video, Deffert continuously informed the officer that he was not a felon and he was legally openly carrying his gun.
The guy was obviously trying to provoke a confrontation to make a point, and possibly give himself grounds for a lawsuit. Okay, I guess. Personally I see this as an unusually dangerous way to look like a dick, but I never was a happy activist.
Shirt stains optional at extra cost.
I obviously have nothing against open carry. I open carry every single day, but I’m in an environment where it never causes any problem. In other environments, I cover the gun because why make a spectacle of yourself? In hostile environments I cover the gun carefully because I’m more afraid of the “good guys” than the bad ones. But I’m just some guy trying to get by, I’m not an activist. An activist has to like attention. And it always seemed to me that this sort of activism is likely to do more harm than good.
But I’ve been wrong before. What do you guys think about this sort of thing?
It depends entirely on where you are and how you handle it. I carry a gun openly all the time, everywhere I go. It isn’t usually even noticed. I don’t believe for a moment that I’m “making a spectacle of myself.” On the other hand, I don’t give a rip if anyone just happens to be upset or “offended” by it. That has never even come up here in town, but I would just have to deal with it.
Now, all that said, to go out looking like a mall ninja with a belt full of tacticool crap is a whole different animal, and doing so where cops are COPS and take exception to OC, it does indeed seem to be seriously stupid and unnecessary. Doing something like this “in your face” with unfriendly cops could seriously wreck your whole day… or kill you.
There are “activists” and then there are stupid mall ninjas… and the categories do not always overlap. I’m an “activist” in the sense that I think it is important for people around me to see an ordinary person armed, simply going about their normal business without causing any harm. When people ask me about the gun, I tell them in a non-confrontational manner and hand them my card. I’ve never really had a hostile reaction (outside of two officious WalMart managers who turned out to be merely uninformed about the legality), and most people are truly interested in learning more. But that’s rural Wyoming. Chicago or NYC, probably not so much.
Each person has to evaluate their own situation, the people around them, the attitude of the powers that be in their area, and most assuredly not get stupid about it.
Like ML said, it depends on the place and situation. I have zero problems with somebody doing OC or CC. What I have a problem with is people who do OC just to get in other peoples faces. Some people seem to have a visceral reaction to guns..a deep fear, an irrational hatred. Away from the sticks, there are more and more of those sort of people. They can and will make trouble for you.
In a vague way I think of it a bit like I think of burning the US flag.
Sure you have a right to do it….and I’ll defend that right. But there are many who think its bad taste to do so. Why piss people off unnecessarily? If you feel the need to carry somewhere that isn’t rural Wyoming or its equivalent, probably better to carry concealed…it accomplishes the same purpose and doesn’t get the cops called.
There are rights, and then there is the prudent exercise of those rights.
In other words, I see no point in going into a field and waving a red flag in front of a bull. Yeah, you can probably get away with it, but its probably not a great idea.
But that’s just me. YMMV.
Personally I would never carry openly in public, simply because if I’m gonna pull my weapon I want it to be a complete surprise to my intended target. However, I would much prefer that open carry be totally normal in public.
And another gun owner makes us all look bad, IMO. Here’s that location location location thing again. Around here in the forest I always OC, but in town I prefer to CC. One time there was a situation in town where I felt the need to OC and, throughout the entire day of work and errands, only one person(who knows me)even noticed it that I was aware of. He wasn’t alarmed or unpleasant, but was surprised that this little old grammy do-gooder volunteer type would consider having a gun.
Not being the activist type either,I don’t look for opportunities to be provocative, but I don’t pass up opportunities like ML mentioned to educate people and to let them know that most of us gun owners are normal decent people. We’re rarely dangerous and like Joel’s recent post, we’re mostly not dicks(dickettes?).
Even us Dick’s don’t believe you should provoke to prove a point. However if this man had only gone on his daily walk/jog with his pistol holstered and the law allowed open carry then good for him. I for one don’t care for open carry in a large city environment. I can just forsee too many situations were things can go horribly wrong. Florida doesnt have open carry but believe me a large portion of the population is armed. More conceal carry licenses issued than any other state. About a fourth of the population. Thus the reason we’re called the Gunshine state. Most people assume you’re armed here.
“With traffic stopped, Moe drew his firearm and ordered 28-year-old Deffert to the ground.”
The second that cop reached for his gun, Deffert was within his rights to respond with lethal force. Not usually a good tactical move to shoot a cop, they being members of a large, violent, criminal gang, but it was his right to defend himself.
I’ve open carried in the past, when it was my only legal option, and nobody ever batted an eye. Where I live now open carry of pistols is explicitly forbidden, but if the law ever changes I’d start doing so–not to be an activist, but because it gets really hot in Austin in the summer.
GunRights4US, I can’t imagine why you’d want the fact that you are armed to be such a surprise. If the bad guy sees you are armed, he’s much more likely to simply change his mind and go away. If you conceal and he’s already committed to the attack, you are much more likely to be forced to shoot. I have experienced at least four solid incidents where the sight of my gun, and my body language – including once when I gripped the gun and flipped off the thumb break, clearly and completely aborted an attack. They literally ran away.
Nobody will ever know how many times someone saw a visibly armed person and went looking for an easier victim… without the armed person ever being aware of it. Any criminal who would go ahead and attack someone visibly armed is insane, and having your gun visible or concealed would make no real difference – except maybe taking longer to draw.
The old saw that the BG will see you armed and take you out first is bullshit. Find a documented case of that in all the years we’ve carried openly. It happens to cops… but that’s a whole other ballgame.
Now, there are places and times where CC is absolutely appropriate and necessary, but you actually put yourself at a disadvantage in the event of an attack. I carry both ways, depending on that necessity, but I’m always far more comfortable in every way when that gun is riding openly on my hip.
“The second that cop reached for his gun, Deffert was within his rights to respond with lethal force.”
Really? I’ll have to remember that.
Geeze . . .
Used to be O.C. was all AZ had. And we – and many others – did. They only folks who noticed were hoplophobes and East Coaster/Cali folks who’d exclaim, “OMG! He’s got a gun!” to no one in particular.
THEN, CCW passed. Now the culture, at least in the cities, has changed. Rarely does one see O.C, in town, anymore…
gfa
I generally CC, but I do OC off-and-on during the summer because I regularly wear t-shirts. I live in a city in which OC isn’t very common, and we have quite a few transplants from back east and places like Colorado. I believe that it’s important for me to OC every now and then because I want folks to have enough exposure to the open carrying of guns that they don’t call the cops when it happens. That and I think that OCing while acting like everyone else may help assuage the irrational fears held by some folks…but maybe not.
It depends, just like anything else. Open carry is fine and dandy, and I appreciate the states where it isn’t a crime to accidentally allow someone to see your gun. I also open carry regularly, but just like anything else I do, I see it as an “appropriate time, appropriate place” type thing.
I bitched on my blog the other day about people coming to a black tie affair dressed in blue jeans. I’m a backwoods hillbilly by most standards, but when i go to a black tie affair, i dress in a goddamned tux with a black tie or I don’t go. Doing anything different is just plain rude to the people who put on the event..
Gun carrying is no different. If you go into a place where the presence of your gun is going to cause consternation and make people uncomfortable (for instance, in my opinion, only a dick would OC into a bank) then I think you’re being a dick. I won’t go so far as to say that you don’t have the right to do this, but having the right to do something, and that thing being actually right?
Two different things.
Open carry in a manner that you aren’t being a dick? Cool.
It basically boils down to the old saw, and it really is simple advice:
“don’t be a dick” And recognize that whether you like it or not, there are a lot of people who are going to be uncomfortable around your gun.
That being said, this guy walking down the street OC should have been an example of NOT being a dick, so unless he really was acting like a crazy person, I think the officer over-reacted to his OC. Stop and talk? Sure. Stop with gun drawn and demand he “get on the ground?”
Not unless he really was acting like a crazy person. Which is not a settled issue.
Just becasue you can doesn’t mean you should…. and attempting to provoke an incident is just plain stupid and coul end badly for both sides ( and you can’t fix stupid )
Sorry, Goober, but there is no exception just for banks. 🙂 I carry into the bank each and every time, same with everywhere else I go. I’m not a “dick.” NOBODY in the bank is nervous or upset. I think the tellers should be armed, as well as the clerks in every store, the lady at the desk in the library…
Why is it again that so many mass murders happen in schools, hospitals…? Oh yeah… because nobody but the criminal has a gun!! Do the criminals wear their guns openly on their belt? Noooo
And, BTW, we don’t have much in the way of bank or other robbery here. Maybe because the criminals understand that far too many Womingites carry a gun – even in the bank. LOL The criminals are much happier in Chicago, NYC and even Denver.
Absolutely nothing against CC, remember. But the whole thing about CC believers trying to paint the rest of us as “dicks” so often pretty much chaps my hide.
I’m with ML – I OC all over the place (I’m in Arizona) and it just isn’t a big deal. Never had an issue, most of the time it doesn’t even get noticed as far as I can tell. Of course, I’m not a jerk either *g*.