You raise some excellent points, richbuff. A bit over nine years ago, I moved to Colorado Springs.
- In the first month I lived here, I watched two bobcat traverse my parent's property withing fifty feet of where I was standing.
- In the second month, two thugs attacked myself at my apartment complex pool when I caught them stealing people's towels, sunglasses and smart phones. I dispatched one into the pool. The other hit me in the face and broke his hand (I think). Thankfully, not my face.
- In the third month, some nut made a veiled but credible threat, and he knew where I lived.
- In the fourth month, while having dinner at an outdoor restaurant near I-25, my friends and I watched a bear waltz on by and head towards a nearby creek.
- In August, I bought my own firearm and applied for a CC permit.
- In January 2010, I found this site and began thinking about OC. About a month or two later, I began OC. This brings us to your first comment:
I have been thinking a long time about open carry, but am still undecided due to elevated unsupportive social pressure.
My primary concern involved legal issues, not social pressure. However, my secondary concern involved law enforcement attitudes. I certainly didn't want any issues with the cops, regardless of whether or not OC was legal.
So, I asked them. More specifically, I asked my Neighborhood Watch point of contact. We met and discussed the issues for a few minutes. He gave me some pointers on how to avoid trouble/issues and while he did encourage me to CC, he understood the reasons behind OC.
My problem is threats that are much more commonly encountered than two legged. Four legged dangerous animals at large on the street; that is the issue for me. I walk 1,000 miles every 5.5 months in single family residential neighborhoods in a nice medium size town in Arizona. That is the average time/distance that I have an unpredictable, uncontrolled four legged dangerous threat targeting me at high velocity invading my very small/short personal defense space/time. Yes, it is very very scary.
IN 2011, around 11:30 pm, I came face to face with a cougar sniffing through the dumpster in our apartment's parking lot. I was carrying a small bag of shrimp. I left the encounter intact, but without the shrimp.
In 2013, around 1:30 AM, two wolves cruised through my parking lot at a gallop. I was OC at the time, reached, and was ready to draw. Fortunately, they loped right on by. It happened again a year later.
So, yes, I live in a location that abounds with deer, bear, bobcat, and the occasional wolf and cougar.
Concealed carry: I need a certain amount of time to get my hand on my self defense firearm. That amount of time directly translates to critical time/distance that the high velocity threat can completely close in on me before I can successfully level my defense at it.
Open carry: Smaller amounts of precious tenths of a second are needed to get ready to discharge immediately. I know that an ambush threat at much faster speed than I can evade presents a not very favorable chance of successfully defending against, even with a hand held firearm. Every tenth of a second counts when personal defense space is invaded at high velocity.
Generally speaking, if you keep your situational awareness up, four-legged animals will either give you plenty of time to draw and assess the situation, or you won't know what hit you, in which case OC won't give you much advantage. The vast majority of the time, it's the former, not the latter.
Unsupportive social pressure levels: Extremely elevated.
That may be true. I discovered, however, that I vastly overestimated the negativity by the general public. After I began OCing, I discovered that the vast majority of people just didn't care. I got about 10x to 30x the number of complements and "attaboys" as I got dirty looks. In fact, in 7 years of OC, I only received five negative comments of disapproval.
How much should I care about what family, friends and local organizations think of me if I decide to open carry?
- Family: You'll have to make that decision soley on your own.
- Friends: I think friends that are worth being friends will understand. You may still wish to keep friends who don't understand, though, as good friends are hard to find, even if you don't agree on everything.
- Local Organizations: You mean like the Police? Or the Rotary Club? As for the police, just ask them. Speak to several officers. I would
not, however, attempt to convince them of anything. Keep it very simple: "I've considered open carry due to rapidity of access and deterrence and want to know how the department views people who open carry." When I asked that question, two of the five law enforcement officers I asked tried dissuading open carry, both with the old adage, "It's far more risky; you don't ever want to advertise that you have a firearm or the bad guys will take you out." Well, we know that's not true. Two officers were supportive, though not openly encouraging. One said something like, "Sure. A lot of people open carry. You're within your rights to do so, and you're not going to get flack from anyone on the force. Just be careful. Don't flaunt it." Two of them were pretty much, "Meh," probably thinking, "Oh, another one of those." I can't help you with the Rotary Club.
