by Hickok45
(00:00):
Hickok 45 here. Welcome to the Hickok 45 Talks Channel. Yep. I'm over here on the well range two again. Yep. Range two. Got something else to talk to you about. Somebody asked me if I would talk about the pros and cons of open carry. Okay. Well first of all, it just occurred to me, I don't know of any cons, ex-cons or current cons who are carrying openly. Maybe they are and I don't know any professionals. Okay. I was funny how pros and cons of open carry. Well, first of all, I'm not going to judge people and some people are extremely opinionated about this one way or the other. I'm pretty opinionated about in some ways, about whether I would open carry. Okay. I mean I do around the place, but I dunno if I've ever open carried out in public and by open carry, if you're brand new to the world, firearms, that means wearing a firearm to where people can see it.
(01:18):
A handgun generally where people, it could be a rifle, but it's where people can see it. It's on the outside of your belt and there's no garment to cover it. So if you're at Walmart or wherever and Walgreens and you see somebody, they've got a gun on their belt and they're not hiding it or they're exercising their right to open and carry it. And a lot of people do that. I see them around occasionally. Some regular person. They're not a cop or anything, a detective. They just carry theirs on a holster on their belt. And in some states it's probably more common than others. I would say somewhere, I don't know, Alaska or somewhere there's a lot of hunting going on, or you have threat of bears in certain communities or whatever. Some people probably just get up in those areas and you can name states, I don't know, Montana or Michigan or wherever it might be, where you're in a community where it's just everybody hunts and there's maybe a threat to some extent from big game. And so you're always strapping on your guns, so you just leave it on maybe. So depends on where you live.
(02:35):
But just in general, if you're walking around, you're living in Tennessee or Virginia or Texas or Arkansas, I don't think you can open carry. And we all know the states where you do well to have a gun, right, to begin with. But generally speaking, I follow the philosophy that it is better to be concealed. We're caring for defense just like we carry a fire extinguisher in our car or whatever. Yes, for defensive purposes, I would rather I adhere to the philosophy rather. Nobody knows I have one. You might suspect it, but you don't know that I have a firearm and I'm somewhere and something develops very quickly. Nobody's going to look to shoot me first necessarily. Right. And that's one of the arguments against opening carry. Of course, if you regularly open carry or you're open carry anytime, and some evil person is choosing the day that you are in Walgreens or the local drugstore to rob that drugstore or to run in there and shoot up their ex or some crazy thing, they see your gun or they know you carry a gun because you have it on your belt, they see your gun, then you're the first target.
(04:07):
So that's one of the arguments against it. People know you've got a gun, they got to get rid of you first.
(04:16):
I guess another con is it could more likely be snatched away from you somebody. It is a several hundred dollars usually item on your belt. Someone might try to just get it or someone who can't have a gun. Maybe they are an evil person and they don't have a gun having trouble finding one illegally because they want to commit a crime or whatever it is. They might try to snatch it off your belt. They know you have one. They might follow you after your car and no one's around try to get you or your more private situation and take it away from you. Yeah. I don't know what else you all share with me on this. I'm just going to give you some of my thoughts on it. Someone asked me to expound on it. Those are a couple of, I guess, primary cons, right?
(05:09):
I guess another con might be, it might be that I don't know if people would look at you in a negative way. I don't know. That would depend on what state you're in. In Tennessee. Nobody's going to look at you as a weirdo. I don't think if I see someone open carry, I don't think anything about it other than in a way I like to see it. It's cool. Which is a pro I'll talk about in a second, but I don't like, oh, what a weirdo wearing his gun outside the belt and not covering it up. I don't have that kind of opinion. But some people might, the soccer mom, sorry, moms with kids, you play soccer. That's the best phrase I can think of. Description that are appalled that people carry guns around. Then they're going to look at you, another one of those idiots.
(06:09):
Well, you probably don't care, right? I wouldn't either. But on a positive side, I think it's great that those soccer moms I'm talking about who are anti-gun, okay, anybody who is more or less or they just assume people didn't have firearms. Whoever they're, whether they're very outspoken about it or not, partly because of ignorance, they don't realize that Tennessee, half the people they meet, they see in McDonald's or the steakhouse or anywhere they have a gun, male and female, probably more than half. They don't realize that. Why? Because what we're talking about, they're concealed. They're in their purse, they're concealed in their pants or wherever they are. They just don't realize it. So it is not a visible thing. And so they don't get that reinforcement of seeing regular good people walking around having dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse or whatever with a gun. They don't realize those people have guns in there.
(07:23):
And so they still think of someone with a gun as a bad guy. They don't see good guys with guns. I know that's kind of basic, but that's always occurred to me as a positive. And I've even suggested, I think that maybe one day a year, everybody who packs a gun should just open carry or in protest of crazy gun laws or whatever, just for a week out of the year or somewhere in a certain state, city or whatever across the country. Everybody just opened carry. Now, it depends on whether it's legal or not, but most states it is now, right? So everybody's just packing their gun and maybe it's whatever you can carry legally. Maybe in one state you go and carry long guns in open carry or some states only handguns or only revolver, whatever it might be.
(08:20):
It is just everybody carrying. And just as a reminder to people, again, those anti-gun soccer moms or whoever, it's soccer dads. Wow. You realize all these people have guns. Wow. Some of 'em seem normal. They don't seem like wackos. Maybe on that day we make sure we're dressed well. Unlike me on those days, maybe I'll wear a collared shirt on that day, but not just be ourselves and let people realize that the whole world packing, I guess it's not just weirdos, whatever that means. So that would be a positive. So it is a positive when I see it in that sense. Somebody at Walmart or around you got a gun and just people seeing it, kids, even guys wearing a gun and no badge or anything. It is just a normal thing. So it's a hidden, I've said that too for years. That one reason.
(09:29):
The same point really. So many people think that guns are kind of an extremist thing. Carrying a gun is unreal or not that many people go shooting. How many times do you see that? Unless it's a movie about that, but on sitcoms or your average TV show. Obviously coming out of Hollywood, no one's ever coming home. Maybe it's a comedy, a situation, comedy or whatever, or the Seinfeld, whatever the heck it is. Are they ever coming back from dinner and they're going to stop by the shooting range or someone just in conversation? Yeah, I was at the shooting range. I ran late and that's why I'm sorry. I got into traffic. I was over at the shooting range. It just doesn't come up. It's like it doesn't exist where someone might mention they were bowling or they're doing something else. So it's like this sport, this endeavor that is, it's hidden and you don't just drive down the road when you're driving down the road, you don't see shooting ranges.
(10:31):
You see golf courses, baseball fields and all these other things, but you don't just see every few mile. There's another shooting ranger. You see gun shops, lots of those now, but outdoor ranges. So it's sort of out of sight and out of mine for a lot of people and all. Unless it's a news story where somebody shot up something or where the people that were killed last night or something, that's the only time they see guns discussed. So back to the topic. So in that sense, I like it because if we have good people walking around, law abiding people with a firearm that's exposed, that's a positive. I'm not saying I would never do it either. I've joked about how I might just, in my old age, if I ever get old, I might just put on my nickel plated colt. Single actions in a beautiful holster. You just wear it everywhere I go. That's my carry gun. It's legal in Tennessee, right?
(11:35):
So I don't have a problem with it. I still, from a tactical standpoint, I guess I have a little problem. I think you're better protected. I believe if something comes up, the balloon goes up. I just feel like you're better protected if that firearm is concealed, but you can access it quickly and no one really knows you have it with you. I feel like that's a better place to be. So I don't know, does that answer anything? So what do you think? What do you, you live in a state where it's legal. Do you do it? Do you open carry? Is it legal? But yet you don't do it, or you just feel like that's the only way to go and let's not get into a major fight over it. Okay. We have enough disagreement within the farms community and hate going around over various things. But just what do you think about it? Do you never entertain that notion? Do you ever do it?
(12:43):
I just round the place here. I don't think anything about it, but I, I'll put a holster on and pack a gun of course, mainly because I'm going to go out and she most often, but generally in public, I don't even, when I was a reserve deputy, most of the time, the 10 years or so, I was helping as a reserve deputy. We reserve deputies. Were supposed to carry conceal. We weren't, well, we could actually, we could wear something on our belt if we wanted to, but I wore a vest and I hid my gun even then because we were involved in resting and different things and I felt like that was my, because I was in plain clothes and I just assumed he did not know whoever it was we were having to arrest or something, he'd know that I even have a gun. I just felt that might've served me in that sense. So anyway. What do you think about it? What Hoping carry versus concealed carry. Glad you came by. I'm done. Life is good.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI7YBkIFDg0
Credit: Hickok45