rationale for concealed carry

L

luke1249

Inactive
I'm going to be getting my CHL here in Texas pretty soon, and I was wondering: what's the rationale behind concealing?

If someone catches a glimpse by accident, is it like, "Aw crap, game over, gotta go put my piece in the glove compartment"?

Can I tell someone I'm carrying?

Is it specifically a response to anti-open carry people?
 
If you're asking about the legislative end, Tom's answer is good.

If you're asking about the personal choice of OC v CC well... there are numerous threads on that... Not sure if troll...

If someone glimpses the pistol it's usually OK unless TX has a law about it... some might argue that if the pistol becomes partially uncovered that you're technically OCing and that has repercussions. Incidentally, it is NOT brandishing if the weapon is accidentally unconcealed. You usually don't have to put the weapon away if someone sees it.

You can tell whoever you want that you're carrying. I wouldn't walk up to a LEO and say "Yo I'm packing" cuz that might elicit a very... interesting reaction.

CCing is not at all a response to anyone other than criminals who might attempt to do us harm. It has nothing to do with "anti-OC" or anything like this.
 
Is it specifically a response to anti-open carry people?
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Specifically in response to anti-gun people. Out of sight, out of mind. They are scared to death of guns because of the anti-gun propacrapa that the Brady Bunch hands out - and yet, if they can't see the gun, they are all of a sudden all better - even though you might be Charles Manson for all they know.
 
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Tom Servo said:
I get the feeling we're being felt out, to see if we're a bunch of "Fudds."
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Yeah so do I. That's why I said not sure if troll, getting my prediction in there early.

Thankfully we have VERY good mods that usually put and end to this stuff pretty quick :)

The above is not brown nosing, it is a warning to OP.
 
what's the rationale behind concealing
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If you mean what are the advantages and disadvantages of concealing, then that is a "Tactics" question, not a "Law & Civil Rights" question.

If you mean why did the law require that the gun be concealed then the answer is that it required it because it is a concealed handgun law. ;)
If someone catches a glimpse by accident, is it like, "Aw crap, game over, gotta go put my piece in the glove compartment"?
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No. Your gun must be concealed from normal observation but if it is accidentally exposed it shouldn't be a problem.

On the other hand, if it seems to get "accidentally exposed" a lot then you could find yourself in trouble.
Can I tell someone I'm carrying?
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There is no law requiring that you keep the fact that you have a CHL or that you are carrying confidential.

On the other hand, if you go around telling everyone you meet that you are carrying a gun then you will probably get some decidedly negative responses and results.
Is it specifically a response to anti-open carry people?
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No, it has nothing to do with open carry. It was specifically a response to the concealed carry laws that were successful in other states.
Specifically in response to anti-gun people.
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If you have some evidence for this I would be interested to see it. I followed the entire process of the passage of the TX CHL laws very closely and with a considerable amount of interest. I do not remember open carry coming up at all. The law was modeled after other successful concealed carry laws passed in other states.
 
If you have some evidence for this I would be interested to see it.
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Gun bans and gun restrictions were not the norm in America until the 1930's. Gun control laws and bans are spawned by anti-gun groups and legislators. If it isn't an anti-gun person or group that creates restrictions on the right to own and to carry guns, than who is it? The pro-gun people? Licensed concealed carry is a compromise to keep the anti-gun groups placated, it doesn't matter what state they are in.
 
TX "gun control" laws started cropping up shortly after the civil war and appear to have had a lot less to do with anti-gun legislators than they did with racist legislators worried about freed slaves carrying firearms.

It's likely that in the beginning the laws were applied selectively but that became impossible as time marched on. From what I can tell this sort of thing wasn't at all uncommon in the southern states and certainly wasn't specific to TX.

Getting back to the point; if you have any evidence that the TX CHL laws were affected by anti-gunners trying to keep open carry illegal or pro-gunners trying to appease anti-gunners by making concealment a legal requirement, I'd like to see it.
 
If only the whole country adopted the Alaska doctrine..

It really stuck in my craw; watching the show "Alaska State Troopers"... The narrator would often say something to the effect of: "In Alaska, there are no permits required to buy or carry a handgun. This could cause even the simplest of traffic stops to turn deadly in seconds." As if no traffic stops are deadly in Illinois, California, or New York...

Really ticked me off. All of the LEO's I know in Kodiak range from neutral to heavily in favor of Alaska's carry laws.

I wish all the states had good sense enough to pass similar legislation.
 
I wish all the states had good sense enough to pass similar legislation.
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It's the job of those states' citizens to convince them that such legislation is necessary and justified. At the time, the current set of laws was the best that Texans could get passed. It took a very tragic shooting, and the herculean efforts of one of the victims, just to get carry legalized at all.
 
OP here, sorry if I worded my question trollish-ly. I'm genuinely curious about the rationale behind making people conceal their guns. In my mind, all it does is make you wonder who's carrying and who's not, since you already know someone is, because of the existence of the CHL law.

On a side note, the new metal detectors at the Capitol seem to have had the unexpected effect of making a bunch of people get CHLs who wouldn't have otherwise (journalists and lobbyists, mainly), because if you have a CHL you can bypass the line for the metal detectors.

Hopefully another consequence will be maybe that if all these liberal journalists get CHLs, the scales will fall from their eyes (at least a little bit) w/r/t guns, and we'll get some more honest reporting about the issues.
 
IMHO, the only people whom the requirement to conceal protects is those afraid of guns. The requirement to conceal severely restricts the second amendment right to keep and BEAR arms, if a permit is also required in order to conceal.

Notice the word requirement and not option above.
 
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