As Texas joins the rest of the nation in varying degrees of freedom to bear arms in public, I advise caution while the kinks are worked out, authorities get used to the new standards and procedures, social norms develop, shop keepers acclimatize, the public gets used to the new normal of open carry, some bad apples test the limits of endurance and civility (not recommended), and a few of you become test cases to clarify the gray areas. Even here in Arizona where I am, with free (paperless) open carry legal since statehood in 1912, there’s a little more to it than just putting on your boots.
Do your best to avoid being a test case. The anti-rights advocates out there and some authorities will be looking for the very worst examples to make into test cases, to hurt our rights, make gun owners look bad in public, and set precedents that limit exercise of the Second Amendment. They’ll be seeking to “prove” the BITS myth — blood in the streets — like they tried in vain when CHL passed. Don’t argue in public while armed.
Especially in the early days of open carry, watch out for each other and be on best behavior. We don’t live in the same wild west any longer. Belligerence or anything less than calm civilized behavior while you’re reasonably well dressed and carrying openly is an invitation for scrutiny and attention you would do best to avoid. I’m being nice about that (from a state that now enjoys full Constitutional Carry). Go slowly as you test the waters.
Open carry has advantages, especially the “inoculation effect” on the uninitiated, when they see reasonable people going about business politely armed.
Alan Korwin
January 28, 2016
Texas Open Carry Overview
[I think this is some good advice. Especially about being a test case. If we let our opposition chose the cases to take to court we stand a much greater chance of losing ground. We, closely supervised by experienced gun rights lawyers, must be the ones to carefully craft the cases to challenge the repressive gun laws in this country.—Joe]
As my saintly mother told me, approach everyone politely, treat everyone decently, and have yourself a nice, quiet plan to kill anyone that needs killing.
Good advice and words to live by.
She wasn’t kin to Clay Allison (“…never killed a man that did not need killing.”) was she?
🙂
Jeff B.
Louisiana has been an open carry state since… forever. It’s not an issue. It just really isn’t. Yeah, we’ve got some folks who flaunt it, but they’re generally looked on as nut-jobs. Most of us don’t open carry, but that’s a personal choice. Those who choose to open carry, and don’t call attention to themselves are generally amazed that no one notices. It’s just not an issue.
This sounds like an oxymoron to me. Don’t be a test case is excellent advice, but not doing so in any way (careful or otherwise) seems to leave it open for any random wackadoodle to step into the breach, do something really stupid–maybe even indefensible–and make bad case law in the process. I don’t know what the solution is, because there is no way I am sticking my neck out. I don’t even care to get a permit, especially after what happened to that guy outside Capital City ( it involved a swat team).
I challenge the basic beneficial assumption of O/C, the “innoculation effect”. After all, it’s nothing but a self-initiated learning curve to instill beneficial thought in those without it. Here’s the pitfalls:
1. It assumes open minds on the part of the learners. Sorry, two generations of FUBAR schools have eliminated any new supply of open minds.
2. It assumes good teachers. You agree that this is important, but you seem to admit that there will be bad teachers. One bad apple CAN spoil the whole bunch, baby. One Ah Shit DOES wipe out all the attaboys.
3. It assumes the best teaching model has been accepted and standardized. That has NOT happened.
4. It will take very little active opposition, UNSUPPRESSED opposition, to sink the entire O/C effort. That oppo force is alive, trained and itching for combat.
Alan Korwin is a superb attorney. He gets good results in the heavily-managed and rule-laden milieu of courtrooms. Out here, where the O/C meets the gun-grabbers and their zombie army of GFWs, Korwin’s gentle suasion has no chance to prevail. We need and must have the Equalizer, that being putting a prohibitive price on anti-rights activities. Until we get that Equalizer, O/C doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell.
Sorry.
There are occasions where open carry may be acceptable and perhaps even preferable to concealed carry. But on average that would be the exception.
However if one does open carry it is incumbent upon them to use a HIGH QUALITY maximum security holster FIRMLY attached to a belt. It is far too easy for a bad guy to obtain a firearm by simply sneaking up behind a distracted
person open carrying and remove said firearm from the holster in a split second.