I couldn't have said it better myself.Liko81 wrote:Wow. I had thought I wasn't going to reply; my views on OC are pretty well-known around here. This post is a bit long, but please continue reading:Skiprr wrote:I don't really care one whit or another about whether Texas allows open carry. Even in the states where it's legal, we've already seen numerous reports that far fewer people do it than might be expected. I won't go into all the very good reasons that's so, but I could envision very few circumstances I would open carry.
But what deeply concerns me is that we have issues that are important to Texans; issues that have been on the table for years and that failed to make it out of committee in the 2007 Legislature; things like the Parking Lot Bill, for one.
Who knows how the political landscape in Texas will look in two more years? We need to accomplish this session those issues that are most pressing to Texas. We don't need the important, focused, legislative agenda interrupted, confused, or diluted by Pierce and Stollenwerk deciding to "mess with Texas" from their Virginia homes in order to foster their own agenda and belief sets.
I'll make it quite plain; this is not Virginians interfering in Texas, this is not a bunch of people creating a ruckus over something they won't actually end up doing, and the "agenda and belief sets" that OCDO is attempting to foster are that which every person who says he supports the 2A should be in agreement with. Parking lot exemptions, definition of "schools", etc etc are issues that need to be discussed, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. Focusing on these while ignoring OC is like focusing on scrubbing off one rock in the midst of an oil spill. Sure, you can get that rock all nice and clean, but it doesn't make the beach much cleaner, and while you're focusing on the next rock there's every likelihood that the next wave will undo all your efforts. By comparison, hemming in the spill and putting down mats to soak it up focuses on the root cause, then allowing you to clean up the rest. In this case, the problem is that the State of Texas has one HUGE law running contrary to the majority of States in general, the majority of our neighbor States and even its otherwise pro-gun stance. Open carry is the keystone; you can chip away around it, but if we get OC many other current gun rights issues go away entirely, and the rest become far easier to negotiate for.
This is a Second Amendment rights issue. "Shall not be infringed". When the only possible way to exercise the right to bear arms in self-defense is to pay roughly $250 for the class, qualification, and application in order to be granted permission by the State, the Second Amendment is being infringed. It's a poll tax; those who can spare $250 can get a CHL, while those who can't cannot carry at all. Now, I'm sure that I can scrounge up $250. I probably have it to spare right now if I looked closely enough at the next couple of weeks' finances, and it is important enough to me that should there be absolutely no other choice, I would pay it. The question is, why should I have to? Why should anyone have to? The right to keep (defined as "to retain in one's possession") and bear (defined generally as "to be equipped with", and in this context defined specifically by Webster as "to carry or possess [arms]") recognizes the necessity, without restriction, to be armed in general, not just in certain areas with government permission. I could be mugged or assaulted just as easily at Texas Stadium (a "gun-free zone") as I could at home, in my car, or out and about. In fact I would say the chances are higher that I might need a gun to defend myself from violent fans of some other football team than I would need a gun in a grocery store.
If you want more practical reasons, I can come up with plenty, not the least of which is that OC will always, always, be faster than drawing from concealment. If I have a split second to act, I don't want to be fumbling to get my shirt untucked so I can get to an IWB. Open the thumb break, pull, point, and if necessary shoot. I'm also sick of hearing that OCers are the first ones targeted. Head over to that forum and look in their "Self-defense stories" board, and you will find that the statistics are true; 92% of gun carriers who have used that gun to defend themselves never had to pull the trigger. Many stories, in fact, end without the carrier ever having to draw; the minute the BG notices the gun, the encounter is over. Why this is has to do with a tenet of fighting that Sun Tzu knew very well, as do most criminals and lawyers, but is less commonly known among more decent folk; "The wise general will not engage in battle unless and until the battle is already won". A fair fight leaves too much to chance; a criminal wants an easy target, and most will disengage the moment they are no longer sure they'll get what they want. Therefore, advertising the fact that you are armed is a help, not a hindrance. If you're armed and aware of your surroundings (Remember St. Cooper's words; if you are carrying, you are in Condition Yellow at all times), 92% of criminals will avoid getting in a tangle with you, and the other 8% will be seen, marked and confronted before your visible weapon can ever become a hindrance.
To put it back on you, why would you want to hide the fact that you have a gun, and by so doing look like any other unarmed person? You then attract many times more criminal interest. The element of surprise is only effective for the aggressor; Tojo, MacArthur, OBL, etc. needed and planned for surprise because they were attacking. You as a gun owner should NEVER be the aggressor. It's like putting the window stickers on your home saying "this home protected by ADT". If you don't, yeah, you're still protected, but a burglar has to break a window to find that out. Why bother, when a little blue stop sign, or back to the case in point a visible weapon, makes a criminal that much less likely to even consider you as a potential victim? A burglar virtually never takes the time to try to disable an alarm system; he simply chooses another house. There is only one real advantage to concealment, and that is "out of sight, out of mind"; the normals aren't put off by a gun they can't see, and neither are they overly curious. At least until most people have seen a few OCing civilians, the only way to go about your business in a casual manner is to conceal. Make no mistake, that's a serious advantage for any civilian gun carrier, but it's no reason to discount any and all advantages of displaying that holstered weapon.
Other practical concerns include comfort and versatility. There are limited options for concealing a handgun under clothing; usuallly it's at 1:00, 4:00 or 6:00 IWB, with shoulder, ankle and pocket holsters pretty much rounding out the feasible methods of on-body carry. If you must conceal on a hot day, a shoulder holster is out of the question; you have to be wearing an overshirt, and there is no possibility of taking it off. Likewise, though the problem is lessened with IWB carry as you can take the overshirt off and tie the sleeves around your waist, you're still dealing with a lump of metal in a cloth or leather pouch pressed against your skin; the shirt underneath, or the holster itself, will be soaked through after a few hours walking around outdoors in a Texas summer. Pocket and ankle holsters are the best option, but severely limit weapon choice, and at least in the case of ankle holsters are the absolute slowest to draw from. OC has precisely none of these limitations. The gun is worn more away from the body, drastically reducing discomfort in such situations, while allowing carry of any weapon, anywhere, with virtually any wardrobe, with far faster draw speed than any concealment option.
30,000 people who support this measure are not "nobody". That's about 1.5% of the general population. Doesn't sound like much, but any gun manufacturer's marketing department would give their eye teeth to put their new model in the hands of 1.5% of the general population. Also, consider the following; say that half of the people who support OC would be carrying at any one time. 15,000 armed, openly-carrying civilians at any given moment. Currently, the number of on-duty patrol officers in the state at any given moment is about one-fifth the sworn force (the force is divided into three or four shifts, with a substantial portion of each driving a desk), which if you do the math (I have; I'll find where I posted it earlier) works out to only about 7,500 officers. So even if only half of the OC supporters would follow through once they could legally OC, you've just tripled the percentage of people that criminals don't like to see. If every signer of the petition OCed in public, that quintuples the chances that someone openly carrying a gun will be able to respond quickly to some situation, and in addition deter criminal activity by openly promising a fair fight. This is not to be sneezed at; wouldn't you rather be five times less likely to be assaulted or robbed if you weren't carrying a gun?
What it comes down to, at the end of the day, is my freedom of choice. Though not specifically mentioned as a right, it is a fundamental tenet of "liberty" which this country stands bound to preserve by its Constitution. Currently I can choose to conceal or not to carry at all. 13 years ago, Texans didn't even have that choice; you could own a gun but could not have it with you except in your home. You now can make your preferred choice, to conceal; I want the extra choice that 44 of 51 jurisdictions currently provide; the choice to carry openly. I think it's hypocritical for anyone, especially a fellow gun rights advocate, to say that I, an upstanding, lawful citizen of the State of Texas and the United States, should not have the ability to make my choice while at the same time zealously safeguarding that same ability for themselves.
JL
I never made that quote!
