 Once again, the concealed carry supremacists are pointing out another open carry robbery. Here is the exact text of the original article: Silent Witness is looking to the public for help identifying a man who stole a gun from a man in line at a Phoenix McDonalds, officials said. Guns.com has good video footage of the incident, where the suspect, while talking on a cell phone, brazenly walks up to the victim and easily lifts the pistol from the victim’s back pocket before leisurely jogging from the store. From the video, the victim can be seen wearing a baggy shirt, and one could make the argument that this was an example of poor concealed carry rather than open carry. There is no middle ground between the two methods except Dumbass Carry (see below). This incident spurred Bob Owens of Bearingarms.com to rail on open carry once again. As a general rule, criminals are not intimidated by handgun open carriers in the slightest. They see the $300-$800 gun on your hip the same as they would a fat wallet, ripe for taking. Uh, no Bob, they don’t. If this assertion was true, then carry gun robberies would be regular thing. Instead, they are very rare. Criminals see a gun and are deterred. It is far more the demeanor of the carrier rather than open carry itself that allows emboldened thugs to attempt and succeed at this kind of thing.
Do you ever notice that there is a dearth of stories with headlines like “Man Attempts Robbery of Open Carrier—Suspect Shot and Killed”? There is one recent story in Louisiana I’d like to coin this half-assed not openly carried, but poorly concealed and unsecured method of carry ‘Dumbass Carry.’ Why dumbass carry? Because people who carry with a gun exposed in a pocket, improperly concealed, or without a holster are dumbasses. Wasn’t he worried about it potentially falling out? Quite frankly, if you take no steps to properly secure your gun and rely on half assed concealment, you probably deserve to get robbed. Retention holders are unofficially mandatory for open carry. At the very minimum, a friction holster should be used, if not one with a thumb or finger activated latch locking the firearm in place. Citizens are at less risk for having their weapon snatched than police officers so a full Level 3 retention system with a locking hood is probably overkill. Once again, this proves that the open carry myths of gun snatchings are the exceptions to the rule and have everything to do with the individual carrying, not the method used. |