RoyGBiv wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 8:23 am
LDB415 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 3:15 am
I've never open carried and never will. It's great for anyone who wants to, and no offense but it's idiocy for my own personal point of view. Bad guy comes in to have a look around, sees me open carrying, decides I'm the first one to shoot. No thanks. Karen or Kevin come in, see me, come get in my face being their annoying selves and spoil my lunch or whatever it is I'm doing. No thanks. Junior (someone else's junior) comes over "mister, mister, show me your gun, what is it, how much does it cost, have you ever shot anyone, is it really loud, how fast can you shoot it, etc etc etc". No thanks. No open carry for me. Helps avoid the crazies.
Pretty much how I feel... OC, for me, just lowered the threshold for how much I need to care about concealment... Down to near zero.
I'm in the same crowd. I fully support OC; I do it on my own property and for short walks in the neighborhood (the neighbor I'm most friendly with is thoroughly accustomed to it and I go across the street to his house OCing all the time; and I often give a friendly nod to people I see OCing and who catch my eye...kinda like the days when I had my Norton Commando and motorcyclists would give a little wave to each other simply in recognition of shared knowledge.
It's just that I view OC as a less than optimal solution tactically. I'm in no hurry for it to be too obvious that I'm carrying a firearm until the time comes for it to be
very obvious. I'd say 90%-95% of what practice I do is from concealment. I don't even own a good barbeque holster...though I surely wouldn't be adverse to having one for, say, a forum get-together at someone's ranch.
But what OC has done for me is mostly remove IWB carry. The exception there is that, if I feel I need deeper concealment--but short of having to go with only pocket carry, e.g., in business slacks and a tucked-in shirt--I go IWB appendix carry with one of the smaller of my EDC options. Otherwise, it's OWB but covered. And I'm less finicky (again, depending upon where I'm going) about the volume and obfuscation of the covering. I OWB at three o'clock and, several years ago, I wouldn't have done that with just a T-shirt or knit polo.
I like me some NRA merch, but generally don't wear or carry it anywhere I wouldn't OC...meaning around the property or someplace specifically gun-friendly like the range. It isn't so much about the Karens; I've never been confronted over an NRA logo. It's more, again, about announcing to those with bad intentions that I may have a gun. I'm in no hurry for my truck to be broken into because I have a Benefactor Life Member logo in the window.
I do have an all-black, no-text, small raven logo from Gunsite in the back window, though. I kinda doubt the average thief is going to have any clue what that is. Heck, I haven't even had any friendly, shared-knowledge waves about it that I know of.
