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I don’t think open carry (OC in this thread) would really make any substantial difference to the CHL’r.

Failure to conceal:

There is often a statement around it would protect me against inadvertent exposure and printing, but I doubt in reality this would be the case (I used to, but I don’t anymore). Take for instance a situation where you are legally carrying concealed, but for some reason your weapon is seriously printing. If an officer, or a citizen sees that, why would an OC law change their response? After all, the law is for open carry, not concealed carry. If they were going to raise the flag before open carry, they’ll still raise it after open carry. An OC law won’t change the intentional failure to conceal portion of the CHL law.

You will be shot first:

Yep, that’s a possibility…but I bet a slim one. Many of the robberies caught on tape show the BG’s pacing around outside the store waiting for customers to leave, or at least the count to go down, before they enter to rob the place. If they see a citizen with a gun I suspect that will typically encourage them to wait rather than pull their roscoe, run through the door and shoot the citizen before he can respond.

OC response if faster:

This is true for most people when comparing non-retention holsters with and without a cover garment. But if you switch to a retention holster for OC, your time to presentation could be impacted. If you go with a level III, under pressure you may not even be able to get it out of the holster (as some LEO’s have discovered).

In one class I attended, two students were using the level 3 Serpa. During force on force they would have trouble locating the button 2 out of 3 times…the net result is they “died” during the simulation. They were very proficient on the range, but add in an attacker to put pressure on them and things fell apart fast.

Also, if the deterrent factor of open carry didn’t work, you’re going to need the faster response time since that means the guy knows you are armed, and doesn’t care. You no longer have surprise on your side.

Crowded locations are a pain:

If you are OC’ing, crowded locations represent a lot of mental stress. You end up spending all your time worrying about retention, which means you’re probably not spending a lot of time on your primary purpose for coming in the first place.

The average citizen will have a cow:

I kind of doubt this one…I suspect most citizens would assume legal activity and their initial thoughts would probably be “LEO”. Of course that’s assuming your attire is commensurate.

But Joe Average is not the one I’m concerned about…it’s the self righteous big mouth that worries me. This is the one that’s going to make a big stink and call the Sherriff and demand action. I’ll win in the end, but I would rather avoid the situation in the first place.
There’s also the possibility that the more law abiding citizens are seen carrying without the streets running red with blood, the more acceptable carrying for self defense will become.

My stance on Open Carry is I’m for it. If a bill was to end up before the legislature I would lobby for it to pass.
There would be places and times I would OC and think nothing of it…where I live, no one would think anything of it. For instance when I have to cross the road on horseback to tend cows I wouldn’t bother to conceal. But I would probably stay concealed when I visited Austin or even Bastrop.
When I stop at the local station to fill up, I probably wouldn’t bother to put on a cover garment. But if I decided to go into a crowded Quick Trip I probably would.

To me there are both pros and cons to open carry. There are tactical issues for and against, and the same is true for social issues. But I think I should have the right to decide which I prefer to do in a given situation in public, not the state, not the Sherriff, not the anti gun citizen, and not other CHL’rs who have decided it’s a bad idea…it should be my call.