“Don’t know why Texas hasn’t gone open carry, but also don’t know why anyone feels the need to.”
Texas has had some real issues on gun stuff and I really don’t understand it. It took the Luby shooting for them to get concealed carry. Their permit is one of the more expensive and more difficult to obtain, and then there is the intransigence on open carry. I like Texas in general: good people. But I just don’t get it on the gun stuff.
Any way, as for open carry, I can think of several reasons for doing so. First and most selfish is that it’s more comfortable and you don’t have to fool with all sorts of concealment hardware. Second and I think most important is the deterrent effect it has on potential perps. Concealed carry has less of a deterrent effect because by definition no one knows. We want to reinforce the idea that there are a lot of people out there with guns. OC does that. Third, if you think about it most perps are opportunists. The most successful gunfight in my view is the one that is completely avoided because the perp walks the other way. Fourth is the innoculation effect on the non-gun folks. Finally, there is something to be said for tweaking the grabbers a bit. I could go on but that gives you a start.
RE Open Carry:
We have OC in Pennsylvania. I’ve carried openly a few times, and the local mounties give it a glance and leave it at that. Not so in Philadelphia; ThugRamsey’s boys in blue harassed the hell out of a guy doing open carry a few years ago - and the guy actually schooled them on it as they threatened to shoot him (!!!), got them to call Ramsey himself, who reluctantly agreed that yes, it IS legal. You could just hear Ramsey grinding his teeth over it, because he is a REAL POS.
But I prefer to carry concealed. No reason to mark yourself. That’s just my preference. Got it if I need it, that’s all that matters.
Part of being a Sheepdog is not freaking out the sheep.
Their permit is one of the more expensive and more difficult to obtain,
It’s a must issue state, it’s not difficult at all.