You don't hide apple pie

Ironically, in his latest book “Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie”, Cramer documents the fact that the decline of the visibility of the firearm in modern life has coincided with the rise of gun control. And yet he is asking us to conceal our firearms. Come on Clayton, you don’t hide apple pie.

There is some truth to this article.

When I lived in Arizona during the sixties & seventies a holstered handgun might rate a second look but no comment. Half the pickup trucks in state had a rifle hanging in the rear window.
Texas was even more tolerant.
Today I live in So. Cal and recently had a self described lawyer lady (I couldn't vouch for either) go non-linear because I carried a 230 year old musket into the local UPS store.

(I wonder if she'd feel better if I'd wrapped it in a blanket and told her it was curtain rods.)

I'm mostly on the fence.

It's tough to relax with open carry, I always feel like I need to be ready to counter an attempted grab with retention moves and lethal force. A retention holster helps, but I see many in our area carrying Condition 1 1911's in belt slides or Uncle Mike's holsters with zero retention. Kind of an open invite to anybody seeking to prove something.

Mostly imaginary, I know the statistics don't support my paranoia, but concealed carry is simply less stressful.

Cops don't have the same problem, because they usually travel in packs, with retention training and holsters. It's different in a group.

I like to see open carry, and agree with the underlying principle, but prefer concealment in practice.

I don't have a strong opinion about concealed vs. open carry except that I'd like to see a lot of people carry concealed, because then a bad guy looking for a venue never knows who's armed. I don't think the open carriers hurt the situation any, but I'd like concealed carry to be common.

Now my problem with non-Vermont, non-Alaska CC is that it's de facto gun owner registration. You have to take classes (TAKING classes might be a reasonable requirement, but how can you enforce it anonymously?), and do other things that require you to reveal your identity. This is an obstacle to me, in both a practical sense (I don't want to be registered) and a principled one -- if something is a right, where do they get off requiring you to register your exercise of it. Anonymous publishing was a big issue in the founders days; why does the RKBA deserve any less respect? I might see the government claiming that unrestricted unregistered open carry satisfied their obligation to honor our second amendment rights if CC were somehow more dangerous than open. That seems like a ridiculous contention. If my gun can be trusted not to start a shooting rampage if stored hanging on the outside of my belt, how is it less worthy of trust in my pocket or fanny pack?

Bottom line, I see certain advantages to CC, but those advantages can't be used freely till the government stops infringing on CC.

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