Loading ...
My primary goal when I’m out and about (besides whatever I went out and about to do) is to go about peaceably and not be the victim of a violent crime. To that end I carry a firearm whenever I go out as well as follow all the other standard safety practices like maintaining situational awareness, staying out of high crime areas, and avoiding confrontation. I also have a larger overall goal of making it through my life without shooting anyone. Simply put, I don’t want to be responsible, legally or morally, for another’s death. Those two goals might appear at first blush to be mutually exclusive, and with concealed carry it would be a difficult set of goals to realize.
Read more…Carrying a concealed firearm presents to a criminal that I am unarmed. Every study I’ve ever read, not most but every study, says that criminals will avoid an armed person or home when selecting a victim. That only makes sense, right? Robbers, rapists, or carjackers might be dumb and opportunistic, but they have the same instinctual sense of self preservation we all have. Hyenas don’t attack lions to steal the gazelle the lions have just killed. It’s all about risk management; are the potential gains (a tasty gazelle dinner) worth the potential pain and damage the lion’s teeth will cause, and does the hyena really need to test the lion to figure out the answer? No, the hyena can see the lion’s teeth and knows to stay well clear.
Deterrent Value:
When I’m carrying concealed I feel like my ‘teeth’ are hidden, and thus of no real deterrent value. If I appear unarmed then I am unarmed in the eyes of the robber, I appear as easy a target as almost anyone else out on the street. My probability of being a victim of a crime, violent or otherwise, is completely unchanged by the fact that I have hidden beneath my shirt the means to defend myself. My goal, however, is not to be a victim in the first place, remember?
Please link to this website, the most current version of my essay is here: http://www.usacarry.com/forums/open-carry-discussion/7230-open-carry-argument.html
The hyena analogy is a false analogy because the lion is always armed.
A person who is LEGALLY open carrying isn’t as armed as a criminal.
A criminal is going to have a loaded weapon. Someone who is LEGALLY
open carrying DOES NOT have a loaded weapon. Therefore the criminal
is at the advantage. All it takes is the criminals to learn who is legally
open carrying and who isn’t.
Since legal open carriers like to be well dressed because they are making
a political statement, it’s not hard to pick off who is carrying the criminals
next free gun.
What if they’re carrying an unloaded weapon in their visible holster, hoping some jerkwad punk will try to take it from them?
And when it happens, they pull a LOADED CONCEALED weapon and blow the badguys face clean off?
Then all they’d do is yank the empty clip from their unloaded weapon, and insert a loaded mag, while the gun is in the badguys grip?
dontreadonme…
Obviously you’re joking, because if not, you have no idea how much trouble and in how may ways you would get into trouble. At the very least, there would be tampering with evidence charges. A good DA might even be able to get depraved mind 1st degree murder. Then there would be the civil suit(s).