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I haven't open carried at home in a long time. When I first moved to my rural haven the coyotes were so thick I didn't know what they were. It was like crowd noise, instead of individual voices.

Once I figured out I wasn't being overrun by zombie hordes, I decided to acclimate myself better to the evening music. The drill was grab a flashlight, holster my .45, and head for the fields at midnight on a moonlit night.

The point of the game was to leave the flashlight off and navigate by moonlight. The .45 was on my hip because I'm red-blooded, have a pulse, and I'm American. Not because I really felt I needed it. At least not until one night.

Once I got on the other side of a few trees from coyotes having a party. I was probably 50 feet away. What sounds like yips from a quarter mile away is actually more like a coughing sound when you're close.

If you can listen to that daemonic hacking without clearing your .45 from the leather, if you can leave your flashlight off when others are screaming for flood lights, if you can defy the coyote in the field and the household pup mugging for table scraps and treat those two impostors just the same - well, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. It gave me serious willies, but it helped me learn to keep my city-boy hackles from rising every time a coyote sang out.

When it was just me in the great Central Texas outback, I carried how I pleased at home. Even if I had visitors, including our level-headed Sheriff's deputies, nobody misunderstood my intentions. Generally, there was nobody to notice, and I have neighbors who open carry all manner of shooting iron on their land, also without bothering a soul.

Then there were two of us at home, and I became more discrete with handguns. Then there were three, and then a fourth. The guns went under lock and key.

The two newcomers are now grown and have CHL's of their own, as do I since yesterday.

And once again open carry at home is no big deal. Nobody there to bug me, at least not as long as I remember to take out the trash, leave the seat down, make the bed...

I think the key factor is whether or not open carry will disturb the general peace. If not, lawfully on your own property, be safe in the manner that suits you.