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September 26, 2018, 09:57 PM | #26 | |
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I read the article. I generally agree that Open Carry is often not preferred over concealed carry, especially in urban settings. I do take some issue with the hyperbole in the article. Greg finds 20 incidents within the past 5 years where someone OCing was targeted because of their plain-view pistol, and then later says that this occurs with some regularity. I have a problem with that because we could also argue that aviation incidents happen with even more regularity (more like 10000 over the past five years if you count every little puddle jumper crash and hard landing) so we shouldn't fly.
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On the general premise, I do prefer concealed carry. There is, in fact, a tactical advantage to looking as normal and mundane as possible. Plus, the OCers with a hi-point in a nylon uncle mike holster that is ripping at the seams makes me cringe. The guys that open carry with no active retention do the same. Now, when I see a guy with a decent SD piece in a decent retention holster I am not put off at all by it, nor do I think that guy (or gal) is in great danger to themselves or of arming gang members. I occasionally OC running errands in small town USA. It's rare, but I do it. Most of the time it's when I took my outer shirt off while doing some manual labor in the yard and have to go out in town for something. That being said, I don't plan trips to the mall OCing. And again, I agree that CC offers a better tactical advantage. I just don't fully agree with the points that Greg uses to try and sell this.
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September 26, 2018, 10:26 PM | #27 |
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I'd like to see what glenn has to say. Being a guy who is a little older, quite a bit wiser, it seems, loaded with life experience in many areas, and also a professed member of polite society. He has remained silent so far other than dropping the subject here for discussion. The discussion has been interesting and informative. I know that he has something that he can add.
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September 27, 2018, 07:57 AM | #28 | |||
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With that being said, I grew up on a farm and I know a lot of rough necks and blue collar workers. Some of them make a fair amount more money than I do, as diesel mechanics and welders tend to be paid fairly well. The overwhelming vast majority are hard workers and good people. At the end of their work day, they are dirty, their clothes are dirty and ratty, and their hair will likely be unkempt. They may or may not shave or trim their beard diligently because it doesn't matter in their work environment. They will probably have tattoos. At first glance, the guy would look rough. When you see them get in their work truck at the store that pretty much advertises their job, you then realize there is nothing to it and the guy is just ready to get home. There are subtle, but very real, differences between my two examples of people that "look" rough. One is likely where they are to commit a crime, one is not. Either way, if you are practicing "situational awareness" in public, you are profiling whether you want to admit it or not.
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September 27, 2018, 08:47 AM | #29 |
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That's right.
I have rarely seen a hard working mechanic, farmer, roughneck, lumber worker, etc, that looked like a homeless person, right? First, they are going to normallywear intact clothing, right? dirty and torn sometimes, worn, and old, but they won't be wearing hand me down junk. A blue collar worker will show signs of his work, right? oil stains on the clothes and hands, sawdust, mud, so forth? A working man won't normally be filthy with ground in dirt, covered with various garbage, covered with various stains, and clothing that not only doesn't fit together, but also seems to have at least three different markers. Oil, mud, paint, maybe even clean. A working man will look unkempt and used, but the guy will eventually go home and shower, do something with his hair, wash his clothes, buy new ones, ted kazinski never did those things. There is also a physical and psychological set of tells. Who in heck hasn't been in a bar or anywhere and seen a troublemaker? As you said. A man who lives in a box can be discriminated from a man who makes 50,000 or above replacing transmissions or laying pipe. it's not that hard. if you can't tell the difference between a street dweller and a mechanic most of the time, you either aren't trying or you are just no good at it.
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September 27, 2018, 08:54 AM | #30 |
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The math here is pretty simple:
1) Drawing from an open holster is faster than reaching inside a garment by _____milliseconds. 2) The chance of a bad guy knowing you have a concealed carry weapon is _____%. 3) The chance of a bad guy knowing you have an open carry weapon is ______%. 4) The chance of you upsetting (with secondary effects) a bystander or business owner with concealed carry is 0%. 5) The chance of you upsetting (with secondary effects) a bystander or business owner with open carry is ______%. 6) The chance of a bad guy taking your open carry weapon or shooting you first in an incident is _____%. Fill in the blanks. The calculation is obvious and left to the reader for your specific situation.
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September 27, 2018, 09:32 AM | #31 | |
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None-the-less, there are times when you can fairly accurately summarize one's intentions in part from their appearance. Couple that with behavioral indicators, and you can usually predict certain things about people with a high degree of accuracy with practice.
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September 27, 2018, 10:58 AM | #32 | |
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If your experience is something comparable to the 20 years "dealing with criminals" as mentioned in the quote, please share it with us so that we can weigh your views vs that of the person quoted.
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September 27, 2018, 11:19 AM | #33 | |
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You want to stand out to some degree. You want to be the person who has his or her head up, eyes moving, and aware of the surroundings and those around you. Ideally you are in reasonable physical shape. These things do make you stand out and mark you as a harder target. Add an open carry handgun to this and it probably does not matter. Your still a "hardened" target. However add an open carry handgun to someone who is on their phone, in poor physical condition, walking around "looking defeated" with your shoulders slumped, and an open carry handgun on your hip? You have just presented incentive to any criminal who wants an "untraceable", at least to the criminal, handgun or, perhaps worse, rifle if you decided wandering around with one slung of your shoulder is a good idea. If you are not aware of your surroundings that gun, be it open or concealed, does little to aid in your defense. If you look defeated already you mark yourself as an easy target with or without a gun. Don't stand out in an obnoxious manner but don't be stupid either. Don't be afraid to make eye contact in a manner that speaks to "I see you" and don't be afraid to avert eye contact down in a respectful manner. Your body language should point out that you are not an easy target but you also mean no harm or disrespect to anyone. To me carrying a gun openly without presenting yourself as capable can create too much incentive. Either from the person who wants to prove that a gun doesn't make you tough or from someone who wants a gun. Why do I bother to type this? I see a lot of guns carried openly where I doubt the person would see an attack coming let alone be able to stop it. On the other side of the coin the same can be said for many concealed gun carriers I "see" and no doubt many I don't see. Concealed in the handgun world is a relative term. Most people who really want to know if you are carrying concealed probably know if you are or if it is likely you are. |
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September 27, 2018, 12:27 PM | #34 | |||
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September 27, 2018, 12:33 PM | #35 |
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To me there's a difference between observation and judgement. Some might call me pedantic, and that's fair. I have no problem with the whole person, hands, demeanor method of situational awareness. It does seem to me that some people here believe they can tell an entire person's life story from a glance. Certainly many people are more trained and experienced than I in this regard. I grew up in a town where without subsidized lunch many kids wouldn't have eaten. A lot of the people you'd meet on the street had worn clothes and not the best hygiene. This didn't make them all threats. Every year I also spent a week at Motorcycle Week. I met some interesting folks, some that would make people turn the other way on the street. Most of them were harmless, though certainly some weren't. Physical appearance is only part of threat assessment, but it is a part. What I will say is that in an age of mass shootings where the shooters don't often look much different than the norm, be careful of relying too heavily on stereotypes, and don't let those stereotypes lock you into watching one person at the cost of not evaluating the evolving threats around you. Also recognize that there is a difference between a potential threat and an active threat.
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September 27, 2018, 02:16 PM | #36 | ||
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Homeless isn't the real or only issue, but everyone has to admit that a homeless street person who looks every bit the part of a guy who sleeps under a bridge has problems that might include no steady income, no steady food, and/or jealousy and envy of the guy in the suit. He may be a greedy thief already who uses any opportunity to score anything from an unattended taco bell bag to a rolex that the besotted businessman is wearing. He may be crazy as a bullfrog that snorted gasoline; serious, dangerous mental illness is statistically more prevalent among the box dwellers than among the working, home dwelling person. Maybe the homeless dude will be an angry, aggressive type who is homeless because he has been driven away from normal society. Maybe the homeless guy is tanked on some drug, for example the bath salts tweaked face eater in florida. But, set all of that aside as just normal thoughts of "you should be aware and take care" and go back to the question. Should you trust a person who has a gun showing, or for that matter, a bat, a sword, a knife, cock,or other device that doubles as a weapon and walk with your back wide open? I don't know why anyone would blindly walk past an armed person who exhibits misfit behavior that may be an indication that safety is an issue. There are a lot of seriously bent people in america, and I don't believe that even a fraction of the crazies that live in the lower to the middle class can be detected as being dangerous at first glance. The worst of all, the predatory repeat offenders like the serial rapists and killers, you will never see it coming. They are the gray men. Quote:
I have read or heard the same thing thousands of times in my life. Be like the tiger, walk the jungle with your eyes moving, use good posture, give the appearance of being an alley cat and not a mouse. This has never been said in context of walk along like you're the king of the jungle, an apex predator, and that everyone should fear you and tremble. It means simply to know what is going on and let that show. Wearing a gun on a belt doesn't make one look like a badass. It may deter a petty pickpocket or robber, but haven't we seen enough people get the hell beaten out of them just because they were in the wrong place? A tough guy is a challenge to some people. If we have a large movement to carrying openly through places where crime is a problem, we will start seeing those carriers being beaten and disarmed. You can't possibly keep every human being at a ten foot distance, nor can you keep them all in front of you. A guy can go down from a rock to the back of the head, it happens all of the time. Want a gun? whack the guy who just stepped out of the pool hall after a few beers. But, aside from the obvious dangers to the carrier, dangers that mostly don't exist for concealed carriers, public perception is the biggest issue I see. Who wants to go to jail on a zero tolerance charge because he walked past a school with a gun? The last thing we need to do, as responsible owners, is to alienate the soccer moms and so forth. The million mom march will swell to the ten million mom march if scary looking guys start sitting in the bleachers next to their children. Part of the problem, like it or not, is the media. Why are so many people terrified of camping? because they watched the chainsaw massacre and other movies that involved people being dragged out of their tents by psychos with weedeaters. Three girl scouts were raped and murdered at camp in oklahoma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklaho..._Scout_murders that's real life. Scout groups changed. People reacted. When enough people who open carry show themselves to be troublesome, People will react.
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September 27, 2018, 02:21 PM | #37 |
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btw, I've done plenty of stupid things dealing with homeless people. You don't hunker down on your haunches to count out a few bucks for the guy on the bench.
You don't offer the poor, crazy looking woman a trip to the ER. Saying "that's all that I have" when you hand over a five is just as stupid as telling the bear that you have been feeding "no more marshmallows for you, big guy, all gone" That bear isn't so stupid that he didn't see you hide the bag behind you. Everyone does some dumb things. people will drive past a dozen signs saying "don't feed the bears" and still get out of the car with a picnic basket.
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September 27, 2018, 02:25 PM | #38 | |
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Do any of you walk up to a dog and stick out your hand unless you have seen his tail wag?
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September 27, 2018, 02:40 PM | #39 | |
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September 27, 2018, 02:54 PM | #40 |
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In the book "On Killing" by Dave Grossman (which is on the Commandant's list for the US Marine Corps) the author describes how the notion that there are only two responses to conflict, fight or flight, is false. He argues, as do others, that there are four: fight, flight, posture, and submit. He argues that the latter two are essential to the survival of many animals, and the exclusion of them from recent consideration has been a disservice (apologies if I got some terminology wrong, I don't have the book handy currently).
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September 27, 2018, 03:01 PM | #41 | |
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September 27, 2018, 03:12 PM | #42 |
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If the meaning of posture includes negotiation, whether verbal or unspoken, I agree. When two entities present a mutual threat, there are in fact many, many times that conflict ends in a stalemate and temporary, if not permanent cessation of hostility.
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September 27, 2018, 03:18 PM | #43 | |
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September 27, 2018, 08:58 PM | #44 | ||
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September 28, 2018, 07:50 AM | #45 |
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Fixed it... “I support the right, but generally, not the practice.”
If OC is legal in your neck of the woods, then by all means go for it as long as it makes sense. For me, I would have no problems OC'ing in sparsely populated areas in AZ, NM, or TX. In fact, I do, whenever I'm on or near my land in NM.
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October 25, 2018, 09:43 AM | #46 | |
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Think this sums it up..in the republic, it's legal but 'frowned upon'..somebody will call 911, a LEO will respond and mention that altho legal, not a great idea..
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October 25, 2018, 12:35 PM | #47 |
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In my state your weapon must be concealed as to not scare bystanders whatever that means. However I do think concealed is best for everyone. Here in New York state they will find any reason to take your permit. Deep concealed is the law except target or hunting. I use a pocket holster for my glock 43. No imprint and fast drawing
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October 25, 2018, 03:43 PM | #48 |
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For whatever it is worth, I don't object to people exercising their rights to open carry but I do believe concealed carry is the wiser option for several reasons.
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October 25, 2018, 03:59 PM | #49 |
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OC would be nice at times not having to worry about what to wear to conceal a side arm. I do prefer the element of surprise.
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October 25, 2018, 04:09 PM | #50 | |
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