That's a tricky call, I'm sure. I just don't want the issue to come up if I have to get out of the car for any reason and take the cop by surprise. If he gets nervous when he's informed verbally, I figure he could get dangerously nervous if he saw it and overreacted. None of us has any guarantees that whatever approach we take will be the one that keeps us from being shot, I suppose.
True, but if he is going to arrest me then the usual question is, "Do you have any weapons on you?", so he gets a chance not to be surprised.
Due to my social life I meets a number of cops and they really don't care who is armed. They seem to only care when it is during a traffic stop or incident where they were called out.