While concealed carry can be championed ostensibly as a means of self-defense, open carry prioritizes performance over pragmatism. After all, openly carrying a firearm is an ideological statement more than a self-defense posture: It cedes the crucial element of surprise to an armed assailant. Open carry's true goal is to normalize extreme gun culture by making firearms familiar, visible and ubiquitous.
Last Thursday, more than a dozen participants in Dallas's Black Lives Matter protest came prominently armed. When shots from a sniper rang out, police officers had to discern instantly -- working in chaotic conditions, at night, under fire -- whether the armed protesters were murderous criminals or something else. Police stopped some of those carrying guns, and designated one a "person of interest." Trying to divine the intentions of the armed marchers diverted time and energy from the pursuit of the sniper.
This led Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings to observe that, "in a shooting situation, open carry can be detrimental to the safety of individuals." That's true as far it goes, which is not nearly far enough: Open carry is detrimental to public safety, period....
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-12/open-carry-failed-in-dallas
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