Open Carry

January 15, 2016

Texas is now allowing people who have the proper permits to carry guns openly instead of hiding them.

I never understood the concept of making people hide them in the first place. If you've got a permit for a gun, why can't you carry it openly; and if you're not allowed to carry it openly, why do you need another permit to have it concealed? It never made sense to me.

Besides, I'd rather know somebody was packing than find it out the hard way.

I could only ever think of 2 reasons why a gun had to be concealed:

1. Maybe if the gun wasn't handy, it would make it harder to whip it out and shoot somebody on the spur of the moment; or

2. Maybe a miscreant or suspected lawbreaker could be charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit when there was nothing else to bust him for. 

Anyway, I'll be watching to see if allowing open carry affects the crime rate. Might increased availability lead to more shootings? Or might the increased visibility encourage people to use more circumspection in their dealings with each other?