I ran across this newsletter piece recently, from Maj. Norm Belson (Ret) who now teaches self-defense in Florida. He makes some good arguments but, as with most things, there's always the other side. Since the newsletter's epilogue encourages sharing I see no copyright harm in excerpting from it here.
" I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that guarantees our right 'To Keep and Bear Arms". However, I am not a proponent of the recent effort to approve 'Open Carry' in Florida by those almost 800,000 persons with Concealed Weapon Permits (CWP). Of course, I also strongly believe that those who favor Open Carry have the absolute right to do so and should share that viewpoint with their friends and neighbors. If interested, my reasons are:
1. Florida is a major tourist attraction and a large portion of our tourist revenue comes from overseas and out of state visitors who may reside in countries and states where firearms are considered exceedingly dangerous and unsavory. I remember the reaction in the local and national as well as overseas media when SB 436, Protection of Persons & Property Law, commonly referred as "Stand Your Ground' rule, was enacted October 1, 2005. How many of you saw signs on the interstate highways warning travelers of the need to be polite to Floridians because you may be shot if you were not?
Hogwash and horse-hockey! If tourists are so easily frightened by the mere sight of an American walking around with an openly carried handgun, then think of how they must feel when seeing other Americans wearing baggy/droopy jeans and their underwear showing, or other Americans wearing heavily ironed/starched untucked sports shirts with only the top two buttons buttoned, or other Americans walking, driving, eating, picking their noses with a cell phone glued to their ear. All of those things are indicators of possible dangers to life and limb. The only thing different between OCing and those other things is that one can easily observe when the person OCing goes from law-abiding and peaceable to overtly dangerous.
As for the signs on the road - most folks found them highly amusing, as opposed to being true indicators of danger. And at best they did in fact make tourists a bit more polite and less demanding than they had been previously.
2. Open carry may provide a ready source of firearms for criminals. In my opinion, most citizens are probably not well read into procedures and techniques regarding firearm retention and may lack the physical ability and situational and environmental awareness to avoid loss of their firearm.
We have had this discussion before, and it ends up the same way every time. Nobody has ever been able to produce a verifiable account of an OC-er being specifically targeted for the purpose of taking awau=y their OC handgun, let alone a sucessful case of such.
3. I am concerned that open carry may lead to greater risk of confrontations between those who have CWP's and those who do not. In my experience, many citizens are so deeply against firearms ownership that they will clash with those who are supporters of the Second Amendment. I will never forget the confrontations that I had with Viet Nam war protestors who absolutely espoused that all vets were baby killers, mercenaries and murderers but were not reluctant to attack those same vets with vigor, invective and physical attacks. Those types of people still exist my friends!
Blood in the streets!!111eleventy11!! - again. Didn't happen when they warned of this before, so why is it going to happen now?
4. Open carry will make it more difficult for law enforcement to determine who may be legally carrying and who may be carrying illegally. I am positive that the criminal element will take advantage of open carry rules and proliferation of firearms in public. In addition, the efforts of law enforcement to verify legal open carry may result in confrontations with CWP holders who resent being treated and questioned like a 'common criminal' -- wish I had a dime for every time that I heard that as a cop!
So how, today, do the cops know who is carrying concealed legally and who is not?
And shouldn't the default response be to cops intervening only when an actual, bad, mean, crime is actually being committed, or there is some artictlatable suspicion that the person who has drawn the cop's undivided interest has committed or is about to commit a crime that is not merely openly carrying a handgun?
Otherwise, cops should be pulling over diabetics who are driving because they could go into a diabetic coma at any moment, or folks with licence plates identifying them as handicapped because they could do something dangerous based on whatever their handicap is. Or what about the folks driving to or from an AA meeting? They could] fall off the wagon and drive drunk, for goodness sakes!
5. There will be a proliferation of signs in retail establishments such as malls, supermarkets, restaurants, etc. banning firearms in their businesses with a possible increase in law enforcement service and intervention.
Just because a business posts a No Guns sign does not mean there will be any increase in calls for cops to come there - unless they want to fill out a complaint about the business they have lost because gun owners now refuse to patronize them.
6. In my opinion, advertising that you are armed is 'giving aid, comfort and intelligence to your enemy' and not a great idea! If your attacker knows that you have the means of defending yourself, he may either change the nature of the attack or hopefully seek another victim. Don't forget the old Infantry rules -- if your attack is going really well, it is probably an ambush!"
So he's saying that having BGs decide not to pick you as their next victim is a bad thing? Or is he again trying to make the argument that the OCer will be targetted because of the handgun? Which is it?
Or maybe he's trying for the other argument - that OCers have an unfair advantage because the BGs will not pick them as victims, thus increasing te chances that everybody else will be picked as a victim? Because those other folks who are not OCing could never possibly be carrying concealed and thus have a means of protecting/defending themselves, could they?