I am all for open carry. An armed sciety is a polite society-

In Florida we can open carry under certain circumstances (Hunting, Camping or Fishing). With our new and improved Castle Doctrine I would like to see an open carry bill passed for those who want to open carry

Quoted: From what I've heard, open carry is technically legal, since the old cowboy days. BUT, all it takes is one person to call a cop and say it is scaring them when they see you in public. You can then be arrested for disturbing the peace, or something like that. I may be wrong, but that is always what I have heard.

exactly the same here in NE

Quoted: As it is, people think nobody carries a gun.  So they don't need one either.  If everyone carried openly, you would see how many people actually do carry, and more people would think, "hey, the streets aren't running red with blood afterall!"  Then they would think, "maybe I need one too."  More people with guns, less crime, etc.  And that would be absolutely unacceptable! Well that's my take anyway.

Actually, people think only bad guys carry guns.  They see a regular joe with a gun so they automatically think "Oh no!  A bad guy!  He's here to rob the place and rape all the women before shooting everyone!" so they panic and tell a manager or call the police.

I blame Hollywood.

I agree with you about the "absolutely unacceptable" part.  Politicians know that society must be kept in a constant state of chaos to some degree.  Crime works in their favor since without some form of constant danger, the public would begin to think they don't need the government around to help them.  If there were less crime, politicians would become less useful to the sheep.

Quoted: I am just curious, whoever made the laws agaist open carry but are okay with concealed carry, what was the logic? I mean carring is carring right? Are they afraid if you open carry, the bad guys will try to take your gun? If that was the case, then would bad guys try to take the police guns? What do you all think? Travis

we can open carry in Ohio......and CCW with a CHL

As far as I know, open carry is legal in Louisiana, but frowned upon.

Quoted: I am all for open carry. An armed sciety is a polite society- In Florida we can open carry under certain circumstances (Hunting, Camping or Fishing). With our new and improved Castle Doctrine I would like to see an open carry bill passed for those who want to open carry

I would like to have it both ways as well!!
That way I wouldn't have to worry about my "slip" showwing in public...

Quoted: As far as I know, open carry is legal in Louisiana, but frowned upon.

Depends on where you are...

I carry openly more often than concealed.

Open carry is legal in Arizona, but trust me, if you openly carry a gun in any of the larger city areas you will be the center of attention.  Walk into a store or restaurant with a pistol on your hip and you will either be pointed at and whispered over, asked to leave, or be speaking with a policeman or store security.  I've seen it happen several times.  Once I watched some young kid with a revolver on his belt get hassled in a Best Buy for 15 minutes by store security while my buddy and I stood there, armed to the teeth but concealed, and watched.

When I first moved to Arizona around 12 years ago I saw the occasional open carrier (this was before the CCW law), now I rarely see it except in the smaller towns and rural areas.  

Down by the border it seems like everyone has a gun, usually nickel plated with pearl grips in some fancy tooled OWB holster with chrome rivits and conchos.  

In Tenn, it is a "Carry Permit"....you can do either.

But....the instructor told us that if you do open carry:
1) be prepared to be swamped by police inquiries when they see you out, or from panic-stricken citizens when they call the cops , cause you just made them wet their pants.
2) you just telegraphed to the bad guys that you are armed and are a danger to them...guess who they are gonna shoot first.

Better to stay concealed , keep the public happy ...and make the bad guys wet their pants.

Well, in CA anyway, the reason why we can't open carry is the Black Panthers scared all the Limousine Liberals when they marched on Sacramento all those years ago.

If we all carried open, people would start getting used  to seeing guns again. Then the powers that control the press couldn't frighten the public into doing what they want them to do with horror stories of atrocities with guns being committed. Plus, we'd start dropping the crime rates everywhere, and the "scaring of the sheep into obedience" would be greatly hindered.

Quoted: Actually, people think only bad guys carry guns.  They see a regular joe with a gun so they automatically think "Oh no!  A bad guy!  He's here to rob the place and rape all the women before shooting everyone!" so they panic and tell a manager or call the police.

Actually, the two times I've been made while CCWing, the first question out of their mouths was, "Are you a cop?" Both led to polite instruction on the state's CCW laws, and discussion of my decision to take responsibility for my personal safety.

www.opencarry.org/

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Open carry is legal in most parts of KS, but no CCW. About to be changed.... congratulations! I doubt it. It will be passed by the house and senate, but the governor has already said she will veto it.

www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press-releases/cc_KS_passes_ccw.htm


"The measure had earlier passed the Kansas State Senate on a vote of 29-11, and this morning, the House of Representatives passed the bill with a lopsided 90-33 margin. Those numbers amount to a veto-proof majority in both houses, according to the bill’s sponsor, State Sen. Phil Journey (R-Haysville)."

Fingers crossed for you guys then.

Quoted: I am just curious, whoever made the laws agaist open carry but are okay with concealed carry, what was the logic? I mean carring is carring right?

I have no idea what "carring" is, but open carry of a firearm is legal in most states, whereas concealed carry is illegal without a permit.

In Virginia, for instance, open carry is perfectly legal. I openly carry a handgun often.

Are they afraid if you open carry, the bad guys will try to take your gun?

Some worry about that.

Personally, I don't know of many bad guys who want to pick a fight with a gun toting citizen. Yes they might be able to steal a gun, but they also might end up getting dead. The overwhelming majority won't take the risk.

If that was the case, then would bad guys try to take the police guns?

Bad guys are known to try and take police weapons. That is the reason why retention holsters were developed that make it hard for anyone but the officer to get the weapon out of the holster.

Personally I carry concealed most of the time, as I just don't want the hassle that can sometimes accompany the open carry of a firearm. If you go into buisnesses, run errands, the bank, etc people can get all freaked out by the pistol on your hip. Not to mention some idiot soccer mom who just moved here from New York getting hysterical and calling the police claiming there is a man with a gun threatening everyone in the Starbucks. The cops, most of whom don't actually know the gun laws, show up and then you have a real situation on your hands.

It is less hassle to carry concealed, but it is also less entertaining.

There is nothing quite like going into a bank or a convenience store and standing in line with a bunch of people while openly carrying. Eventually some clueless wonder will finally realize you are openly carrying a weapon and you can watch the blood drain from their face and the fear rise in their eyes. Then you can watch them turn and look away from you and almost hear them freaking out in their head.

I was at a gas station recently openly carrying my Walther P99 and my Sig P239 as a backup while traveling, and the guy on the other side of the pump wasn't paying much attention. So I decided to have some fun with him.

I started pumping my gas but remained facing him. With my Oakley M frames nobody can tell where my eyes are looking. I watched as he finally looked up and noticed that I had a gun on. He got real pale, swallowed hard, and then stared at the ground hard enough to bore a hole into it he could hide in.

It was hilarious.

I live in Virginia.  I open carry every now and then.  It is legal and in the rural areas, no one bats an eye (though it is tactically unwise to do so)

Based on the responses so far, it looks like VA is the most progressive state. As others have said, you can open carry just about anywhere and I have. If you carry your weapon on your side and it's reasonably sized and you do nothing to artificially expose it, most of the sheeple don't even notice. The ones that do, at least with me, seem to think I'm an LEO.

With that said I mostly cc unless I'm in a restaurant that serves booze. That's the confusing part of VA's laws. OK to open carry where booze is served by the drink, but CC is not . VA has a shall issue for CCW and you can even bring your CCW on school grounds as long as it is out of sight and remains in the car. That is very convenient for those of us who carry and have to pick-up or drop off kids.


Bomber

Quoted: I would not open carry, it would be better for the badguy to not know i have a gun.

Open carry= attractive target

Quoted: Quoted: Actually, people think only bad guys carry guns.  They see a regular joe with a gun so they automatically think "Oh no!  A bad guy!  He's here to rob the place and rape all the women before shooting everyone!" so they panic and tell a manager or call the police. Actually, the two times I've been made while CCWing, the first question out of their mouths was, "Are you a cop?" Both led to polite instruction on the state's CCW laws, and discussion of my decision to take responsibility for my personal safety.

Ok, I meant that people think only bad guys and cops carry guns so when they see a plain clothes individual who doesn't look like a cop, they assume he is a bad guy.

If you go around wearing khaki pants, a polo shirt, and keep your hair cut short and neat, most people will just assume you're a cop.

You cannot open carry because the .gov wants the populace to fear guns.  They toe the line that guns cause crime, that they are spontaneously dangerous, and that the police are the only ones professional enough to handle them.

This is a good thing for the .gov, as it allows them to take our guns and rights a few at a time.  They want to disarm us.  That is why you cannot open carry.

Open carry legal here, just not practiced

Do not conceal the right for which you fight, simply to spare the sheep.  Show it!

Quoted: In Tenn, it is a "Carry Permit"....you can do either. But....the instructor told us that if you do open carry: 1) be prepared to be swamped by police inquiries when they see you out, or from panic-stricken citizens when they call the cops , cause you just made them wet their pants. 2) you just telegraphed to the bad guys that you are armed and are a danger to them...guess who they are gonna shoot first.

I work in Clarksville and travel in Tn daily. This has never happened to me. Maybe your instructor was confused.

Quoted: As it is, people think nobody carries a gun.  So they don't need one either.  If everyone carried openly, you would see how many people actually do carry, and more people would think, "hey, the streets aren't running red with blood afterall!"  Then they would think, "maybe I need one too."  More people with guns, less crime, etc.  And that would be absolutely unacceptable! Well that's my take anyway.

Amen, brother.

You can carry anywhere you want............... concealed, as long as you don't go yaking yer jaw about it. Whose going to know?

AB

Quoted: In Tenn, it is a "Carry Permit"....you can do either. But....the instructor told us that if you do open carry: 1) be prepared to be swamped by police inquiries when they see you out, or from panic-stricken citizens when they call the cops , cause you just made them wet their pants. 2) you just telegraphed to the bad guys that you are armed and are a danger to them...guess who they are gonna shoot first. Better to stay concealed to ban guns alltogether , keep the public happy ...and make the bad guys wet their pantshappy.

Thats where your logic is headed.


Travis

Legal here. But, as said before, it scares the sheep. Probably 3 of 4 people see a gun and freak out. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in.

I concealed carry in PA. I haven't yet gotten my VA permit.

Anyway, I like the idea of open carry. In this one book I have (Terry Pratchet) one of the characters berates another for having a very small crossbow (this is going somewhere). Anyway, he points out that the only purpose of the thing is to kill people. The other guy responds that killing people is what weapons are for. The first guy responds that, no, most weapons are for seeing.  That open weapons are more effective than concealed ones because one can see the consequence right there openly.

I kind of agree with that. Concealed weapons may make a criminal go "jeez, gotta be careful 'cause anybody could have guns" which is nice in a collective sense but I rather like the idea of "I won't mess with that guy because I can SEE his weapon right there." and they will go do their crime elsewhere.

*shrug*

See, I think concealed weapons do not so much prevent crime as much as thwart crime in progress. Having it openly means you're probably not going to get hassled in the first place, nor the people in your immediate area.

Because you don't live in AZ. But we can't carry into bars like a lot of other states.

I have open carried a lot and have never been harassed by the police and never been shot in the back by a bad guy

But now that I do have a CCW I always conceal. It seems to make girls uneasy at first

Quoted: I am just curious, whoever made the laws agaist open carry but are okay with concealed carry, what was the logic? I mean carring is carring right? Are they afraid if you open carry, the bad guys will try to take your gun? If that was the case, then would bad guys try to take the police guns? What do you all think? Travis

In states where open carry is not legal, the logic behind it is that it appears threatening. That's it. It has nothing to do with the bad guys trying to take your gun.

Some folks scare easy.

It's legal in NC except Chapel Hill and Durham

In fact I believe a court upheld the legality of open carry in NC

We can't open carry in many places because our elected representatives think they know better than us what is good for us.  And they have violated the Constitution and passed laws infringing on our right to keep and bear arms....that's why.

Boy I am kinda surprised at how many of you feel that "open carry" makes you a target.  I figured that the states that didn't allow it were just "afraid" of the image and all.

I am adding a poll to see how many feel this way.



Thanks for all the input,

Travis

Hey everyone I got another question about open carry.(Plus I wanna bring my theard back to life)


Can you Open carry in a state that allows it if you are not a resident of that state, you know , just visiting.

Kinda like helmet laws, you don't gotta wear em in the states that don't require them.  Doesnt matter what state your liscence is from.

Thanks,

Travis

I’ll go with the second option, walking down the street with a pistol on your leg not only attracts the law it also scares some people, as far as criminals I’m sure they’d have a sudden change of heart once they saw you were armed, don’t know why it would make you a target.  

Quoted: I am just curious, whoever made the laws against open carry but are okay with concealed carry, what was the logic? I mean carrying is carrying right? Are they afraid if you open carry, the bad guys will try to take your gun? If that was the case, then would bad guys try to take the police guns? What do you all think? Travis

I don't know what your talking about, we can open carry in Ohio all day......

CA is county-specific. Some counties it's permitted (Pop less than 200,000).  I presume the reason it wasn't totally gotten rid of is that the more rural counties occasionaly having furry critters with large pointy teeth, and being refused the ability to carry a side-arm is a danger.

NTM