Open Carry: Yes or No? And why?

[Dinglenutz]

Karen transcends political party. Understandable, we as a species lack objectivity. Some of us are better at it than others. I suspect it goes back to our tribal origins when an outsider was an actual physical threat to your survival. If not killed immediately, he would eat your food and mate with your females. Now we congregate around discourse communities, but the same rules buried deep in the frontal cortex apply.

People vary on this. I've never been big on telling other people what to do, and I don't generally cotton much to others trying that on me, but people seem to run the spectrum from me to people who actually like being told what they can do or who love to control others. All the permutations and in-betweens as well.

Big government is generally speaking a tool that's wielded by authoritarians of all stripes and that's one big reason I'm no fan.

 

[GripItAndRipIt]

What makes you think they care if you don't?

Well, I vote. When laws are proposed to restrict their rights... we don't exist in a vacuum. I don't like open carry. However, I'm not going to presume to impose my dislike of the practice on you. That said, I will ask my fellow gun owners who wish to OC to consider the impact of that act on the rest of us. I wish fewer gun owners would OC (and on the same token, I wish more would CC). All it takes is enough triggered soccer moms and, well, you've heard of California, I presume?

 

[GripItAndRipIt]

Times and societies change. In the days of the Forefathers, gang-bangers and street thugs wouldn't have been allowed to exist. Mass schoolyard shootings were technically impossible but most people of that era had enough self restraint to not consider the idea.



Every gun owner is an ambassador for 2A rights. Antagonizing the non-gun public isn't the way to go about PR for the cause. On the practical side of it, the loss of advantage from concealment has already been discussed above. It seems to me open carry in public (boonies excluded) is for those who crave attention.

Yeah, I should have done a better job of delineating public carry in a city park or at Safeway from riding a quad on the BLM. If the former, you will never see my gun. If the latter, I keep my chrome SP-101 so buffed, you could see it from space. For example...

 

[GripItAndRipIt]

People vary on this. I've never been big on telling other people what to do, and I don't generally cotton much to others trying that on me, but people seem to run the spectrum from me to people who actually like being told what they can do or who love to control others. All the permutations and in-betweens as well.

Big government is generally speaking a tool that's wielded by authoritarians of all stripes and that's one big reason I'm no fan.

100%. On this topic, I may suggest a law-abiding gun owner consider the implications of flashing their steel out on main street, but I would never support any move toward a law prohibiting them from doing so. If I wanted to live in California, I'd move back there.

 

[GripItAndRipIt]

Interesting to me that this topic came back up, as I contemplate what open carry firearm to accessorize with today. So here's the back story, I own an ammunition manufacturing business. All my neighbors know this. Yesterday a neighbor comes over to order some 45acp ammo and is wearing his new Kimber and carrying his new pirate rifle (that's an arrrr for those that don't know) for show and tell. I'm torn between the stainless blackhawk bisley in 45 Colt or the Sig 10mm Legon.

I'm a customer of yours. You do excellent work. Creswell =/= Eugene, or even Bend for that matter. I would not expect anyone in Creswell to wet their panties at the sight of firearms on a human. I fully expect not only damp bottoms, but a flurry of phone calls to Kate Brown's office from her woke pals in Eugene, The Pearl, Lake Oswego, Corvallis... "Kate, hun, it's Barb... from Yoga? Karen and I were just enjoying some organic cruelty-free herbal tea at the Rainbow Cafe and we are both in a panic over this man who... he... OHMYGOD we are so traumatized... he. walked. by. us... with. WITH. A. GUN.... choking back the tears..."

Later that day on OPB: "Governor Brown has called an emergency session of the legislature to tell them she has appointed herself gun czar and will be using her executive authority to hire the gun fairy to melt all the guns... except the ones carried by her own personal OSP safety detail..."

 

[The Heretic]

Depends on the context.

For me, probably almost never in a populated area, especially some place like greater Portland or Seattle. Causes way more problems than it might solve. Most of the people who do carry open in such places - well... just not going to go there.

In the woods/field? Sure. Maybe if I am hunting/shooting in a small community like where I live (near Scholls) if I am going into the general store to get food or something - even then, this area is as much city folks who moved out of the city as it is farmers and not much for hunters.

Neighbor mentioned yesterday he talked to the new neighbors who just bought a house up the road - husband served two two tours in Iraq - said he was glad to have neighbors with guns. Not sure why - no real threats up here on the mountain - the only time I open carry is when I am walking to my private range about 50 yards from my house, or when I am going to the back acreage to check on things.

 

[The Heretic]

I'm a customer of yours. You do excellent work. Creswell =/= Eugene, or even Bend for that matter. I would not expect anyone in Creswell to wet their panties at the sight of firearms on a human. I fully expect not only damp bottoms, but a flurry of phone calls to Kate Brown's office from her woke pals in Eugene, The Pearl, Lake Oswego, Corvallis... "Kate, hun, it's Barb... from Yoga? Karen and I were just enjoying some organic cruelty-free herbal tea at the Rainbow Cafe and we are both in a panic over this man who... he... OHMYGOD we are so traumatized... he. walked. by. us... with. WITH. A. GUN.... choking back the tears..."

Later that day on OPB: "Governor Brown has called an emergency session of the legislature to tell them she has appointed herself gun czar and will be using her executive authority to hire the gun fairy to melt all the guns... except the ones carried be her own personal OSP safety detail..."

When I was going to LCC back in the early 80s, I would put my .30-30 behind the seat in my pickup, hunt in the woods behind the college before and after classes. Sometimes go back there for target shooting. There were lots of deer back there.

 

[GripItAndRipIt]

When I was going to LCC back in the early 80s, I would put my .30-30 behind the seat in my pickup, hunt in the woods behind the college before and after classes. Sometimes go back there for target shooting. There were lots of deer back there.

Oh heck yes. My dad took marksmanship as an elective in high school. 1960, U.P. of Michigan. He brought his rifle to school...

 

[Caveman Jim]

This is the way I look at it (and not just OC). You do you and I'll do me, you worry about you and you won't be worrying about me. In other other words mind your own f'ing business.

Exactly this.

We are not the Borg so don't except all gun owners to assimilate to one collective thought and do not begrudge them to use their rights the way they see fit.

 

[Member 53328]

But they don't.

I personally am a huge fan of the people who get these pcc or AR15 pistols and carry them as their "concealed carry." Just another person for me to check off my list and not associate myself with. We live in a world where everyone thinks they are John Wick with their edc.... unfortunately that is fantasyland. Open carry just means you're gunna be shot first in a scenario where an active shooter with half a brain opens up.

There is a reason the military wears camouflage and it translates directly over to concealed carry in civilian life. But if you wanna be Rudolph's blinking red nose in the middle of night by all means please take as much attention away from me as possible.

 

[Kruel J]

I personally am a huge fan of the people who get these pcc or AR15 pistols and carry them as their "concealed carry." Just another person for me to check off my list and not associate myself with. We live in a world where everyone thinks they are John Wick with their edc.... unfortunately that is fantasyland. Open carry just means you're gunna be shot first in a scenario where an active shooter with half a brain opens up.

There is a reason the military wears camouflage and it translates directly over to concealed carry in civilian life. But if you wanna be Rudolph's blinking red nose in the middle of night by all means please take as much attention away from me as possible.

You're not trying to justify the size of your manhood with a fancy AR at low ready? Damn.

 

[Member 53328]

You're not trying to justify the size of your manhood with a fancy AR at low ready? Damn.

No need. Although there are people on this forum who will declare that a pistol is a crapshoot of a tool and is only there so you can get to a rifle.... a pistol is good enough for me.

 

[GripItAndRipIt]

Exactly this.

We are not the Borg so don't except all gun owners to assimilate to one collective thought and do not begrudge them to use their rights the way they see fit.

All well and good until those rights no longer exist because we scared all the soccer moms who have nothing but time on their hands to join gun-grabbing groups and, yunno, tell us all about "common sense." And the useful idiots in the Fourth Estate regurgitate the countless fallacies and outright lies of the anti-gun cabal so that fence sitter eventually gets off the fence and sends $10 to Moms Demand Action... Cutting off your nose to spite your face, as the saying goes.

 

[SrMachoSolo]

No need. Although there are people on this forum who will declare that a pistol is a crapshoot of a tool and is only there so you can get to a rifle.... a pistol is good enough for me.

A crapshoot, what caliber would you say that is? I've seen(and heard) some fully automatic crapshooters recently... never even took a breath to reload.

-Robert

 

[The Heretic]

No need. Although there are people on this forum who will declare that a pistol is a crapshoot of a tool and is only there so you can get to a rifle.... a pistol is good enough for me.

It will be, until someone starts shooting at you from 200 yards

 

[Member 53328]

It will be, until someone starts shooting at you from 200 yards

I'm not going to be engaging with someone at 200 yards.... I'll be running and getting cover and then getting the hell out of there. I'm not getting into a shooting match at distance with civilians around.....

 

[Kruel J]

It will be, until someone starts shooting at you from 200 yards

I have a better chance of being struck by lightning. Multiple times.

 

[Xaevian]

I would not expect anyone in Creswell to wet their panties at the sight of firearms on a human.

Some of the people where I'm at wet their panties when they see other folks open carry, but I think it is a different kind of wetness...

 

[The Heretic]

I have a better chance of being struck by lightning. Multiple times.

Give it time - the longer you live...

I don't carry hardly ever at all, but then I live as a recluse on a mountain in the boonies, rarely far away from my rifles.

 

[Xaevian]

I have a better chance of being struck by lightning. Multiple times.

Well, if you were only more attractive!