Massad Ayoob - Gun Digests Open Carry vs. Concealed eShort

In days of old, Americans often carried handguns openly in public. Not because they were police or anything, but because (a) it was their right, and (b) in certain parts of a young frontier nation, it was expected of them.

Among those of us who are advocates for the civil rights of gun owners, there are some who think the time is ripe for a return to this conceptand there are those who not only dont feel a need to resurrect the old paradigm, but believe it might actually be counter-productive to our side of the Second Amendment battle.

As with most intense debates, there are sound arguments on both sides of the issue.

The arguments in favor of private citizens carrying loaded handguns exposed to plain sight in public seem to break down as follows:

Crime deterrence. This philosophy holds that criminals who were thinking of robbing this convenience store or that bank will abort their mission when they see a gun on the hip of a citizen. On a more personal level, they argue, it will tend to deter criminals who have targeted specific individuals for crimes against the person, such as mugging or rape, in lonely places deliberately selected by the predator for being remote from police assistance.

Good public relations for gun owners. The theory advanced by advocates of open carry is that when the public gets used to seeing their neighbors and other good people carrying guns in plain sight, theyll lose their fear of firearms and become more amenable to supporting gun owners rights.

Convenience. Particularly in warm places, it is often uncomfortable to wear a concealing garment. The plain hip holster worn exposed is simply more comfortable and convenient than a belly-band, a shoulder rig, or an inside the waistband holster, before you even consider the potential discomfort of an additional piece of clothing to hide a gun.

The exercise of rights. This argument comes with a powerful sound bite: A right that is not exercised will wither away.

These arguments come, not from anti-gun groups or other opponents of civil rights, but from armed American citizens who are neither uniformed security professionals nor police officers, but simply dont like the idea of carrying their guns out in the open before the eyes of the general public.

Open carry invites disarming. Those who prefer to carry their guns concealed point to all the police officers who have been killed with their own weapons. They prefer to keep their guns hidden on their person, where only they know where they are.

Open carry sacrifices the advantage of surprise. Concealed carry advocates point out that the decades-old archives of the Armed Citizen columns in the National Rifle Associations American Rifleman magazine show countless cases of armed citizens who only won their armed encounters because they were able to draw from concealment and take their criminal opponents by surprise, an advantage that would have been lost if the assailants could have seen beforehand that they were armed.

Open carry makes enemies for the pro-gun movement, instead of friends. The vast majority of the American public does not carry guns openly on city streets and do not see others that they know to be law-abiding private citizens do so. Therefore, says this argument, they are frightened when they observe guns worn openly by people not readily identified as those they are socialized to seeing armed, such as armed guards and police officers, and are therefore frightened when they see ordinary folks with guns on their hips.

Open carry advocates are just show-offs crying for attention. This is probably the least effective argument for concealed as opposed to open carry.

For those of us who go armed, open versus concealed carry is an intensely personal issue. It is only fair to the reader that they know the personal experiences of anyone addressing that issue, since such personal experiences can create preconditioned bias or prejudice. Any opinion must be seen in the light of the person doing the opining.

This writer has been carrying concealed since the age of 12. In a time and place where a permit was only required to carry a concealed and loaded handgun in public, and in which the chief of police of the city in question had told my father and me that it was perfectly legal for my young self to carry loaded and concealed inside our family-owned place of business so long as I didnt step out on the sidewalk so armed, it gave me an early start on the concept. I have open-carried as a sworn, part-time police officer for thirty-some years, which doesnt really count except for the deterrence argument on one side and the exposed to disarming attempts argument on the other, but have also open-carried in plainclothes from Arizona to North Carolina on city streets.

And, in those capacities, I have seen things that support both sides.

In Arizona, a friend and I were in a convenience store between Prescott and Paulden on the way to Gunsite Training Center. My friend came from a state that then had no provision for private citizens to carry a handgun in any fashion, and was luxuriating in his ability under Arizona law to carry his custom Colt 45 auto in an exposed holster. I was a few steps away when I saw a man walk in, do a double take when he spotted the gun, and deliver a target stare to the loaded pistol. Almost in exaggerated pantomime, he mugged an expression of outrage and pointed at the pistol, making eye contact with others in the store that indicated his outrage. And then, that man moved in behind my friend, reaching out for the holstered pistol.

I stepped between them, glaring at the interloper. He stopped, looked at me, obviously decided that whatever was going to happen wasnt worth it, and walked away with an angry look on his face. I dont think he was going to try to shoot anyone with my friends gun, but he was obviously going to grab it and do some show-off thing, which could have led to a struggle for a loaded gun in a crowded convenience store, with an obviously high potential for tragedy. Score one for the case against wearing an exposed handgun in public.