Open Carry: A Right or a Fashion Statement?
http://jpfo.org/articles-2021/open-carry-right-or-fashion-statement.htm
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I call it a personal preference. As I can no longer easily AIWB, I carry OWB, but with a cover garment (Hawaiian shirts in Summer).
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I consider it both because it is your god given right and open carry can look good with certain wardrobe.
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Interesting article. I personally prefer the tactical advantages of concealed carry but believe folks should also be able to open carry if they want to. Though I do not like folks who open carry with the clear intention of intimidating other law abiding citizens.
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If that were true, they would be getting arrested.
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Not necessarily if they happen to support certain political agendas that the local authorities happen to agree with.
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At that point it is not intimidating “other law-abiding citizens”, it would be criminals intimidating law-abiding citizens.
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I guess there is a grey area in there that I am not comfortable with. You can have the obvious criminal intimidation and the obvious people who are simply legally practicing their natural and 2A rights to self defense. But I am not a big fan of a group of protesters showing up with rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols on their hips with the intention of making a statement against other groups with differing opinions. Even though they may be legally practicing their 1A and 2A rights. Speaking with the threat of violence isn’t a good way to start a dialogue and solve problems. It also doesn’t help to draw broader public opinion to their side.
The one exception for me would be for peaceful armed groups showing up in response to clear threats of violence from another group.
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Carrying a firearm is not “speaking with the threat of violence”. Do you carry as a threat of violence? or rather as a means of self-defense? Are soldiers on parade threatening violence or just exhibiting all their arms? OC is one means of showing the general public that normal people carry firearms and that they are not criminals nor a threat. It is the media and anti-rights groups that try to make us seem inhuman/inhumane, violent, racist, blood-thirsty thugs. We surely cannot prove that if we cannot even show that we are firearm owners.
The January 2020 Lobby Day in Richmond, Virginia, had our Governor accusing us of being White Supremacists, and that there would be violence at the event with Antifa showing up. He then declared a state of emergency and banned firearms at the Capitol and the legislative offices.
Due to his commentary, many people did not show-up, I can attest to this fact as amongst my friends and family, only one friend came to the rally. Even with the Governor and the media scaring people into not attending, the media stated there were only 22,000 people there, compared to the typical several hundred to 500 on a bitterly cold morning as it was that day. However, having been there, I can state for a fact there were far more than that there, estimates of about 50,000 seem more reasonable to me.
My daughter was afraid to attend, with good reason, as leaving an event in the Summer of the prior year, a man got literally, right in my face, within a foot, and began yelling at me at the top of his lungs that I was a killer. She became quite visibly upset as woman nearby came over and began to console her. I neither responded to him nor did anything else, but stood calmly until he left, maybe 20 seconds. I don’t know if he wanted a reaction from me, but I was not going to give him one, unless he got violent. That is one huge difference between us normal people - firearm owners - and people like him. I would never get in someone’s face like that - extremely disrespectful, and likely to result in a physical confrontation, except I am a pacifist at heart.
Here is one picture from this event:
P.S.: I did not feel threatened by their open-carry of their rifles.
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Completely agree as long as the intent of those carrying is for personal defense and not for intimidation.
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