A trip to the range offers a reminder why I don't open carry

Miscellaneous
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This entirely depends on where you live. The firearm itself doesn’t even matter, its how people perceive it due to how often they see firearms carried around.

I live in a pretty liberal area and if you open carry here, even though 100% legal, you will SURELY find yourself staring down SWAT in short order as people run from you in terror.

Other parts of the country, you can carry that same firearm and folks don’t even bat an eye.

Personally, because it is weird (here, near me) to see open carry, I won’t call the police but that person will certainly draw my attention and I will up my situational awareness. I’ll take other things into account, primarily his/her behavior as to whether or not I consider them a threat

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162

Its not that I don’t like cops. They are not there to like nor dislike. I am a police critic, however… not a hater nor defunder. The police are NOT your friends. Yes, I think cops are, for the most part, cowards-- they use their “uniforms” as intimidation and threats of unlawful force to get people to bow to them. Much of the “cop bashing” they have brought on themselves from decades of abusing and violating innocent people and trying to enforce their will instead of the law!!! That’s just my opinion, as you say.

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Virgil, I can’t agree with you more, I wish people would stop bashing the POLICE and having so much hatred for them.

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I was out of town this past week and there were 10 of us bulls–ting at the motel and the carry subject came up. Everyone in the group had at least one hand gun with a spare mag. This group was composed of people from six different states. My buddy from home was late joining us and asked me about carrying, I told him that everyone with us was carrying, he just said WOW! and then another 8 head joined us and yes they also were carrying. That was the first time the subject had come up with this group in the past 5 years. Talk about a surprise

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Most people open carry a handgun, not a long gun. It is rather difficult to shop for groceries with a rifle on your shoulder.

The riots, looting, burning, assaults and lawlessness make the nation look like a third world nation, not people carrying firearms.

Been to third world nations.

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True, @virgil_H and @Cobra, while I agree, we have far too much police bashing, and most are dedicated and honest people doing their job…
Some should NOT be police officers, and then you see the ones who they Tased and arrested the mother at the football game for not wearing a mask (she had asthma and there is a waiver for that), or the officers who arrested church attendees at an outdoor service because they did not wear a mask… an OUTDOOR service.

Most every police officer and Deputy Sheriff swears an oath to defend the Constitution… while I do not want to bash them, they should be aware their actions are despicable.

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I support law enforcement, as most all of us here do… but, some should NOT be police officers, and then you see the ones who they Tased and arrested the mother at the football game for not wearing a mask (she had asthma and there is a waiver for that), or the officers who arrested church attendees at an outdoor service because they did not wear a mask… an OUTDOOR service.

Most every police officer and Deputy Sheriff swears an oath to defend the Constitution… while I do not want to bash them, they should be aware their actions are despicable.

These are some of the officers that are clearly open to be criticized.

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Cops, like the thug at the ball, game don’t realize that their stupid, inappropriate actions reflect on ALL law enforcement… yet, they are protected by police unions and their fellow police officers… hence, today’s issues…

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In your opinion, third world country residents arent unique to rioting, looting etc. I’ve seen people in Texas walking around with rifles. people storming state capitals in america is 3W,

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Walking around with rifles? Perhaps in Texas.

Third world nations do not generally have people freely walking around with rifles, or any firearms… unless they are rebels, insurrectionists, or the government. So, not sure how you see free people with the right to keep and bear arms appearing as third world nation simply for having the freedom to keep and bear arms.

As for storming of the capitals? Can you explain where in the US there has been storming of any state capitals except perhaps by Democrats and / or their allies.

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I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Concealed carry is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. I put a link to a brief history of open and concealed carry in the US. It is from Wikipedia, but factually, it is fairly accurate.

Prior to the Revolutionary war and following the war, Open carry was very common in the US. Carrying concealed weapons was considered to be a problem because you had something to hide. People concealed weapons when they were planning on committing crimes.

Over time, fewer and fewer people carried weapons, open or concealed. As this time passed, it became taboo to see someone openly carrying a firearm in public. And while 30 state constitutions recognized the right to bear arms, only Vermont recognized the fright to both open and concealed carry.

In 1976, GA was the first state to change their laws to a Shall Issue state and was followed by 20 or so other states becoming shall issue through the end of the 20th Century. The remainder of the states have gone to a shall or may issue status from a complete no issue status.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_concealed_carry_in_the_U.S.

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I find it rather interesting the the states that fought for freedom are now the states fighting to end the same freedom.

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173

Human beings have been around this block many, many times in our history. In spite of all our advancements we are susceptible to the same old things, disease, selfish rebellion, and even prejudices one against another. Even as there is a movement claiming to be against racism and sexism at all costs, it is it self rife with the dehumanizing treatment of others based on their perceived guilt as evil persons with an unfair advantage. But the treatment of the people the activists claim to be trying to change, is no better than the treatment they claim to be fighting. They have become the very thing they claim to be fighting against, and they can not see it, not at all, even as they do everything they say is so wrong. If you push one of them hard enough you will hear the same excuse over and over. It goes like this - : “Well”, they will say, “even if that was true, it’s our turn.” - And there you have it, the selfishness, the fact that the behavior is OK because of who they are, and who they are mistreating. But wasn’t that the same excuse at the heart of the previous abuse? and the abuse before that? and… It’s as old as human history, and has not changed in all this time.

As has been said here many times one way or another, the way to peace is a strong and ready defense. Be it a single person or single home, or an entire nation.

There will always be a need to practice good hygiene to combat disease, and there will always be a need to practice for a strong defense to combat violence , crime, and war.

To conceal, or to open carry, is a question who’s answer can change with times, places, or personal needs, and that’s just fine. Likewise my cleaning supplies can be hidden in a cabinet, or I may leave the soap out on the counter for a little more convenience, that’s fine too, just so long as it’s there and I know how to use it!!

To think that modern times makes defenses against violence, crime, or disease a thing of the past, is utter folly, as current events must surely prove.

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law enforcement has become a lot more threatening to the average citizen, but it would pay to recognize how much of that is due to politics, and the use of law for political gains. Lets not forget that unethical news is a political tool with real world consequences and ask your self, how many times a portrayal of an event has turned out to be vastly different than it first seemed to be when it was first reported!? There is almost no such thing as real, hard, objective news in today’s America, and law enforcement is squarely in the target zone of most news outlets.

There is no question that law enforcement has become much better armed and more authoritarian over average citizens that it used to be. But how much of that is the fault of the officer? We all know some get into law enforcement for the wrong reasons, and glory in their power, abusing it, and make all officers look bad. But there is also the much more powerful media that can take an event in which an officer did everything right, and still they can make that officer look like a blood thirsty coward who shoots at the slightest provocation. And they do it because they know they can get a protest out of it that will serve political goals. The truth that comes out later ,and any corrections that have to be made, will be little noticed, and they know it. Truthfully, we all know it.

By overreacting to good law enforcement’s minor mistakes, we make bad law enforcement harder to identify, and therefore , harder to eliminate. That does not serve anybody well. We should continue to celebrate the good law enforcement, and officers, and,on those few occasions where an officer or enforcement entity is proved bad, deal with it decisively. But to do that, we first have to deal with the deceptive portrayals and false information even more decisively.

I know there are bad cops, and I fear them as much as anyone does. But some of the very best people I have ever known are cops too, so I know there are a lot of good ones out there, a lot! I think we just need to keep in mind that it’s never the good cops we hear about, just like we never hear about the lives saved by CCW !

A modified old saying that makes my point would be : " Mind you, don’t throw the baby out right along with the dirty bath water!, But by all means, lets do get rid of the dirty bath water".

Just my current feeling on the matter.

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@DS-1, you are certainly an articulate writer, I enjoy reading your posts. Having said that: I am 64 years old and I can still recall the abuses of police officers from age 15 in Kansas City Kansas up to just a few months ago in Omaha/Bellevue, NE… My take is that much of the contempt and disrespect the police are getting today is from the 100,000s or millions of people that have been abused by police, just like me and so many I know. I believe much of the unrest directed at the police today was brought on by pompous, arrogant officers that abused their authority against people who could not or cannot afford an attorney- and the police place their bets that most of us cannot afford an attorney. I believe that the vast majority of police think they are the 4th member of the Holy Trinity, and earn the contempt. They know little about the laws they are enforcing and even less about the Constitution and the oath they took. I am neither a cop hater, or am I a defunder. I am a police critic. I am a fierce opponent of police unions and “civilian” police boards with no authority. As long as officers aren’t held accountable for their actions and tax payers pay for their “mistakes” nothing will change. I also ascribe to the saying "If “good” cops are not exposing bad cops then they are not good cops but bad cops. I don’t wish ill an any officer, but the officers, police unions and cowardly police management brought it on themselves.

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And a single shot muzzle loading ‘derringer’ was introduced in 1825 by Henry Deringer.

There may have been those who considered concealing a firearm to be suspect, but there were those who were ‘gentlemen’ and dressed in the finest fashions and did not carry openly yet they did carry for self defense.

Then there was the Queen Anne pistols, carried by travelers to fend off ‘highwaymen’.

Pocket Pistol
Muff Pistol
Overcoat Pistols
The Protector Palm Pistol .32 rimfire…

There is a whole history, and much was not for criminal behavior but for self defense. Carrying a gun on your hip, or in some form of open holster was common, but in ‘urban’ areas, those who were considered the more ‘refined’ did not carry a gun on their hip, they concealed it… though some did perhaps still carry a sword or rapier.

Just as there were repeating air rifles used in the Peninsular War of 1808, there were concealable firearms for self defense.

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I liked your post because it’s the other side, which I know also exists, and because most of my experience has been in more rural areas. Also because accountability can not be done without, possibly even more so in a job that can be hard and prone to callousness. I find my’self glad for voices like yours, as contradictory as that may seem, because you make your point well and without obvious exaggerations. There is a painful amount of truth in what you say, and that should not be denied either, I just wish the good got more play for a more balanced perspective, and wish that our information was better, so we could deal with the bad more effectively. I come from the perspective that you can’t make good decisions with bad information. In fact a part of my ire for the constant bashing of Trump, is that if he were to ever start overstepping, it would be much more difficult to recognize it as a genuine problem, I find that a little dangerous.

Thank you for the kind words, they mean much to someone for whom the effort to communicate well does not come easily.

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You do know, the good can do good 1,000 times and probably never be recognized… but screw up just once and it is blaring headlines and you will be excoriated.

There are bad in every group, regardless of what that group is…

We should support those who are good and hold those who are not… accountable. Weed out the bad.

In that case, @Danny28 has a valid point, the unions (which are a problem with teachers, and most other careers and jobs), create more problems than they ever solve.

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You have a bad dentist, you are able to find a new one, a bad locksmith, find a new one, a bad “almost anything else” you can find a new one and the market will eventually weed them out (or lawsuits will), not so with police-- got a bad cop-- tough- neither the union nor the command staff will do anything- you are stuck or worse they can invent charges against you (I actually had an Omaha cop threaten to charge me with a crime just because he could). And therefore, the problem remains and innocent citizens will harbor anger and contempt for the police, and rightly so, and they will tell their friends-- who know they aren’t the criminals the police say they are. The police see themselves as victims. There is actually a group of chiefs who went to some police chiefs association to demand that they push legislation recognizing the police as a minority class. I will concede that the vast majority of my contact with the police have been bigger cities… My nephew is a police officer in Lincoln NE and at every family get together I grill him about what’s right even if his colleagues disagree. I’ve had very little contact in rural areas in my 64 years. I will end with this-- camera phones with video capabilities have changed everything… the police haven’t changed, they are just recorded now.

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I have generally had good contact with law enforcement. The fact I was a federal employee did allow me some contact to perhaps become accustomed to law enforcement, and my father retired from the Marine Corps and became a deputy, but before and after I have had generally good contact. Respectful and legal.
I will say, I had one attempt to intimidate me and threaten to charge me, and I told him to go ahead. I did not do anything illegal, and his threat was simply to create fear. When I told him, if he felt froggy, go for it’, he backed off on that. It was a traffic stop, and I was having trouble finding my registration… but I found it, and he let me go.
I did have one give me a ticket for running a stop sign hidden by a tree and he said "he had lived there for 34 of his 36 years and never had a problem with the stop sign, so I asked him if he thought that was because he had walked past it for several years before he started driving (I was from out of town and out of state), went to court and the judge chewed the cop out… (I took photos of the stop sign that could not be seen).

I can think of those two and about three others that were actually not good, but even at that they were minor overall.

But I have also had police assist when they did not need to, they have been primarily professional and that is across most of the nation.

After leaving the Intelligence Community, I obtained a CDL and drove ‘18 wheelers’ over the country east of the Rockies…so have had contact with many officers, both local and state.

Are there bad law enforcement officers? Yes. Does the Union protect the bad ones? Yes… the same with the teacher’s unions. Are there officers that do not know the law? Yes. But that is a training and department issue, not so much a bad cop issue.

1,000 good calls, virtually go unnoticed… .ONE bad call gets massive media attention… and cell phone video.

Just like the George Floyd case. Cell phone video (which included sound and people saying ‘get in the car, you can’t win’ which sounds like he had been resisting arrest… but we did not get to see it at first and Keith Ellison tried to hide the police video)… body cam video showed Floyd already saying he could not breath before he was on the ground, showed him resisting arrest, and fighting the officers, and the information that came out AFTER the condemning cell phone video shows Floyd had high levels of Fentanyl in his system.

So, we see the first video, and it looks bad on the police… then we see the video with more details… and we have to really search for it, because the media tries to hide that…

The same with Jacob Blake, the early video did not show the details, but made the police look bad… additional video showed he was armed and was fighting the police.

While I agree with you on some points, such as the unions, I do not condemn all police or a high percentage of police … and particularly not based on cell phone video alone.

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