5whiskey said:I have long thought this. Honestly, I've seen a video of a cop interacting with a kooky "I can carry this FAL slung up front with a three point sling while I walk by a busy street to stir crap if I want." The cop was very knowledgeable, professional, and courteous. At the end of the day, the guy looked like a clown and didn't even realize it (he was the one that filmed and uploaded the video).
Indeed. Those videos seem much less common than a few years ago. The best ones show POs who are diplomatic but do respond with some sort of inquiry. It's a job they can do without any violation of rights.
Snyper said:It's largely a matter of luck that none of the "open carry" advocates were shot.
Well trained POs correctly identified the threat and didn't wrongly identify people as a threat merely because they were armed. I would call that good order, not luck.
DPris said:And those who carry openly "just 'cause I can & it's my right" do more harm than good to responsible gun owners.
There's already talk among Tejas government of new legislation to restrict certain aspects of open carry.
So the harm of OC is that people talk about restricting it? What's the actual harm? You would avoid that harm how? People are going to talk about restrictions independent of these events.
DPris said:In the current environment, thinking that "If more of us do it more often, it'll get the public more used to it & we'll get more support" is a major mis-reading of life today.
It ain't gonna happen that way.
It already has happened that way.
You sidestepped the honor guard example as "not the same thing at all", but identified no pertinent difference.
Seeing armed POs and honor guard are an ordinary part of life. Few people are alarmed by it. As more people carry, it becomes more routine and fewer people are genuinely alarmed by it. That's how people work. Remember when Segway's first appeared? People gawked.
As the events that inspired this protest indicate, one need not even have a firearm to be shot by a nervous or alarmed PO. I would associate the risk of actually being shot with provocative behavior more than the mere appearance of a weapon. As in all matters, courtesy and foresight have a lot of value.