Rob Pincus doesn’t think that anyone should open carry.
I think Open Carry is a poor choice in populated areas when you have other options (CCW) to be armed for personal protection. I vehemently believe that you should NOT carry a gun for political reasons, but solely as a means of defense.
Besides being full of shit on open carry, Rob runs a mall ninja training school. His website is chock full of “elite operator training”. Trainers have a vested interest in more people needing to get trained so I tend to question their motives when I hear bullshit like this from them.
So Rob, if I’m not supposed to open carry for political purposes am I also not supposed to write for political purposes? Or have a meeting for political purposes? Do you think Rosa Parks got on that bus just to take a ride home?
I’ll carry for any reason I want to, Rob Pincus and you’ll kindly shut up about it and quit handing ammo to the other side.
Screw you, Rob Pincus.
I think saying, for instance, “no-one should carry a firearm” would be more wrong. The idea that we should not OC just to make a political statement is a common one among many folks I respect, especially since many (correctly, I feel) are concerned about making yourself an obvious target in a crowded environment.
It almost seems like you’re discouraging getting quality training. I am making no kind of statement about the quality of Rob’s teaching- though I can attest that he’s a highly skilled shooter- but if you’re suggesting that learning how to perform a skill from an expert is a bad idea, that is self-evidently incorrect.
Regards,
John
There is no empirical evidence that shows open carry makes you a target any more than concealed carry. Most states allow open carry and if targeting of open carriers was a big problem I’m sure we’d have heard about it. The fact that cops open carry every day makes that idea suspect. “OC makes you a target” is the other side of the coin from the “blood in the streets” fears of the anti-gun folks. It’s a scary notion with no basis in fact.
There are some things training is good for. If you compete in a gun game like IDPA with explicit rules then training combined with regular practice can be an advantage in that game. There is no empirical evidence that “training” offers any advantage in a self defense situation. You can’t train for an unknown situation and the overwhelming majority of people that use a gun in self defense have no training at all. I like to think that basic gun handling and trigger control practice might be of some use, but that may be a conceit as well.
I used the word “empirical” a couple of times and that’s because a lot of what we use for evidence in in the gun world is just anecdote and theory. Not much is put to the test and when it is we often find that “common sense” and “self evident” are wrong.
Alan is right. It seems to me that there is as much “everybody knows” on the pro- side as the anti- side. Lots of conjecture repeated as fact, not a lot of data.
The uncomfortable truth for lots of folks is that once you accept the idea that something is a fundamental right, it means that individuals can exercise that right in ways that you don’t like. The whole idea of “it’s a right but you shouldn’t exercise it” is a bunch of crap. It’s one step removed from “if we let them take those nasty assault weapons then they will leave our hunting rifles alone.”
Divided we fail, Rob.
Okay? I see you haven’t actually researched the subject. I’ve seen figures of from 8% (FBI stats) to almost 20% of officers shot to death were killed with their own sidearms. Almost all of these officers would have been using retention holsters, too.
You haven’t thought that practice in things like how to present (draw) your sidearm, acquire your target, and actually hit it MIGHT be of value to the lawful handgun carrier? Especially when you urge citizens to strap on their roscoes and sally forth with open carry? Wow.
With many years of martial arts training and ‘”a few” real-world experiences, I can tell you one really does fight like you train. This is no less true when speaking of firearms and defense. If you can’t safely and quickly draw and use your handgun, carrying it – especially openly- is a liability. Training will help with these things. If you’re going to suggest a course of action, please at least consider it carefully before you criticize others who might have already put a little more thought into it.
John
Not a terribly relevant data point, John. Apples and oranges. Police officers have to get into very close quarters, and in many cases get in to physical altercations with, the badniks. An armed citizen should be moving in the other direction, away from the danger. I’d me more interested in numbers of armed citizens killed with their own guns.
Yes, sometimes a cop is killed with his own gun. That’s unfortunate but they still open carry.
Tens of thousands of people are killed in traffic accidents each year but we all still drive.
Sometimes bad things happen. I’ll quote an article from 2005 on the subject:
“You do not write policies to deal with the extreme,” said Michael Brady, an expert in police procedures in the Administration of Justice department at Salve Regina University in Newport. “The one thing the incidents do have in common is that they are a reminder of how dangerous police work is.”,
Policy based on outliers is always bad. Whether anyone open carries or not is up to the individual (Where legal) but deciding not to based on rare outlier events is foolish.
It would be like deciding not to fly because once in a while an airplane crashes.
As for training, what has that to do with concealed vs open carry?
I think the same training or lack of training would apply equally in either case.
Personally, I like the idea of practicing to the point that I can use my tools competently but I’m in the minority. The reality is most people buy a gun and never take a class or practice with it beyond MAYBE a trip or two to the range.
I would never, under any circumstances, support a training requirement for owning or carrying a gun openly or concealed.
John, comparing police officers getting assaulted over their firearms to average citizens getting assaulted over their firearms is misleading and erroneous – the former are paid and sworn to seek out high-risk environments and individuals, and engage them. The latter are not. Naturally, the former tend to have more bad things happen to them – in general – than the latter.
I challenge you to find a single news article wherein an open carrier was targeted because he was openly carrying and was shot with his own firearm. I know of a single, solitary instance of targeting, but no such examples of “being shot with his own gun”. And, honestly, I would be very interested to see what you could dig up.
As for Robb, he can kiss my hairy white ass. The same exact argument can be – and has been – used for civilian disarmament in heavily-populated areas, which should have been his first indication that he was taking the wrong tack.
However, by the same token, he has as much of a right to verbally prove himself an idiot as we do to verbally point out that failing to him, so I, for one, would almost encourage him to continue being an idiot – I would be curious what it does to his bottom line, if nothing else (I, for one, know I will never be taking a class from him, and I am just getting into shopping…).
I’d give Rob Pincus the benefit of the doubt by asking him if the position he’s taking in regards to open carry would benefit him.
What does Pincus get out of making those comments??? That is the REAL question…
I’m having flashbacks again…
I won’t carry as a means of “expression” for any purpose…
I also cannot carry concealed… I prefer certain types of gun with certain finish and certain caliber choices…
I was raised wearing tucked in shirts and belts since I was 6 years old.
To change now to loose untucked shirts would just be ODD to say the least.
I also tend to be in climates conducive to heavy sweating and this would ruin the polished blue finish and and discolor the fine walnut grips.
I am also prone to pull off my shirt and go bare back often.
I prefer full size semi auto in at least a .40 cal with .45acp being even more ideal.
I will immediately begin to carry for self defense as soon as I can legally open crry in Florida…
Brent aka:hogdogs
If you live in a blue state, OC is often difficult and problematic. The potential of being targeted by criminals is only one of the many valid reasons to decline the open-carry option. To restrict the debate to that factor alone is disingenuous at best.
For example, “Not wanting to get hassled by the police” is a perfectly valid reason to choose concealed-carry. The same goes for “not wanting to draw attention to oneself in public”.
Making political statements is just dandy, as long as you are the one who has to cash the check you are writing.
No argument, Gunnutmegger. But there is world of difference between “I don’t want to open carry” and “You shouldn’t open carry.”
QFTMFW.
One would think firearm owners would know better than to arbitrarily tell other firearm owners what to do or not do, given how much we fight “gun control” extremists who are trying to arbitrarily tell us what to do or not do…
From reading the comments on that facebook thread, I’m trying to figure out if the badguys have x-ray vision or some kind of radar that let’s them know who in a room is open carrying, or do open carriers in his neck of the woods wear a flashing blue light in addition to their sidearm? I mean, it’s on your hip, or thereabouts, if your arm is down it’s not going to be terribly obvious. If your arm is up or swinging as your walking, it’s not going to be terribly obvious unless you’re doing something to draw attention to it. I just don’t get it.
Pingback: SayUncle » Fighting in the war room
Forest, meet tree.
I haven’t seen the stats, but if you take NON-gun owners, and poll them scientifically, what percentage of them are (searching for the best word here), let’s say “revulsed” by the sight of openly-armed citizens?
Think it’s more than 50%? I do. I haven’t done that scientific poll, but I think the results would probably show at least 75% “revulsed”.
Next, we get to, “Okay, how do we deal with that revulsion”, because, obviously, we 2A people aren’t going to have our way until we end that revulsion. Let’s look at all the suggested solutions so far:
Pick one:
1. Ignore it, the law’s on our side. Sue the bastards into submission.
2. I don’t care, they’re just the hoi-palloi and they don’t count for doodly squat.
3. Let’s educate them by all wearing guns (the “political” solution). They’ll eventually learn to swallow that revulsion.
4. Let’s do all of the above, and while we’re at it, run this ship of 2A aground and threaten ALL our freedoms.
Isn’t this about all this argument ever amounts to? And amounting to that impressive stack of zilch, it has gotten exactly WHAT positive results? Negative results, of course, abound.
There’s plenty of smarts on this comment thread. How about putting our BRAINS to work instead of our glands?
1. State the problem.
2. List ALL proposed solutions.
3. Vote for a solution (it has to, at least in theory, BE a solution).
4. All pull together to implement the solution.
When you use any process other than the above, you are wasting your time and all of the rest of ours as well.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Here in California neither option is readily available. I would prefer Open Carry to still be legal here since CCWs are “shall issue” and mainly prohibited – but the Stupidslature has caved in to the Weenies and take away our last visible right – so what am I going to be forced to do in the aftermath of an Earthquake or other local natural disaster – Illegal CCW…? Is my Bug-Out-Bag the same as my “Home” under those considerations? Or can it be searched and can I be arrested for “concealed” carry in my backpack?
Pingback: Another Open Carry Dust-up | Snowflakes in Hell
Rob Pincus lost any chance of my respect when I received an unsolicited training dvd in the mail and then a bill for said dvd. The bill did contain a post paid envelope to send the dvd back.
I put it all in the trash and made a phone call to the company. I don’t think they liked my suggestions.
It is part of the American experience to have people invent a desperate need to sell projects. Gun training schools are one of the latest manifestation of this. The training being sold is vastly overrated. I follow as many self defense stories as I can find from a personal interest. I have yet to find a successful defense report that has required any of the “high speed low drag” type of training. Mostly it is average citizens with some small familiarity with a gun running off or shooting some miscreant. If extensive training was required to achieve personal safety, Gary Kleck’s numbers wouldn’t work. Would a trip or multiple trips to some top end training facility be fun and perhaps somewhat useful? Of course it would, but the cost in cash and time is out of the reach of most of the gun owning population.
Now by out of reach, I mean that it would take an extraordinary strain on family finances to accomplish. I don’t see the cost benefit ratio working out.
The one time I needed a gun in my adult life was over 4 years ago. I negotiated an attempted home invasion by simply having a gun at hand and the willingness to use it. Bad guys remember a previous important appointment, no one got shot and I didn’t have to clear the house.
” I have yet to find a successful defense report that has required any of the “high speed low drag” type of training. ”
I know of at least two: a competitor present at a gun-store robbery (he shot the robber 3x with a 10mm, IIRC), and a “security consultant” who was the would-be victim of a robbery. And I don’t really pay that much attention to these type things.
You are right, Rivrdog, there are a lot of smart people on the pro-rights side of the fence, and one of the smarter I know once said, “Let’s not be so stupid as to think the same solution is appropriate for every situation.”
You go on employing the tactics of the anti-rights cultists (specifically, fabricating “statistics” out of whole cloth); we will go on doing things that do demonstrably work.
Pingback: yesterday, at sharkey’s | walls of the city
Linoge, you’ve been blogging long and well, so of all people, you should know that we bloggers sometimes live in cocoons.
To address the issues of the wider world, one has to be IN the wider world. I was a Patrol Deputy for 25 years, and as such, O/C’d every day I worked. I also TRAINED and was EQUIPPED for the retention of my firearm.
How many of you pro-O/C folks have considered what effect your SUCCESS would have on the society? The “revulsed” would still be in that sad condition, but those needing an easy source of firearms would then have them, as I simply can’t imagine the average O/C person going to the lengths of retention training and equipment that I did. So, Linoge, look up gun-grab crime statistics, and see how many times the grab victim is shot with their own weapon. Those stats are horrifying, and will increase if O/C becomes widespread.
Yes, there will be casualties on the gun-grabber side too, but don’t be so naive as to think that will stop even ONE gun-grab attempt. Crooks are dummies.
Hey, you carry YOUR gun any way you can legally do so, Linoge, but when YOU face that grab attempt, wouldn’t it be nice to have a CCW nearby to come to your assistance as you struggle to maintain retention?
Rivrdog
Cops have more issues because they go toward trouble and wear a uniform that makes them stand out. Maybe in a REALLY crowded environment like a sporting event or concert I could see the potential issue in OC, but for normal day to day activities, no. I also believe there is a deterrent aspect that is overlooked.
rivr, Today as I was waiting to order my double cheeseburger at the mickey-d counter, the man in front of me had a Glock on hs right hip and a small radio with 6 inch antennae on the left… Undercover… Polo shirt and slacks.
No one was “revulsed” at his presence. Nor were they hunkering in fear… So I looked for the belted badge and he had none… No way anyone would think he were a cop except a radio on hs left hip that looks markedly like my huntin’ 2 way radios.
The main “lady” even had to tell the cash taker that he was a cop so he gets a discount.
So why would my open carry cause anymore revulsion?
As for training… draw and retention training is the responsibility of the gun toter.
Same as cars… Retention is not something everyone handles the same way or we wouldn’t have car jackings.
I bet there are far more cars stolen than carried arms in EVERY SINGLE PLACE that allows open carry…
Brent aka:hogdogs
*headdesk*
And yet another concealed-carry-only advocate fails miserably at making his or her point.
As a Patrol Deputy for 25 years, of all people, you should know that the statistics for “police” and “non-police” civilians are markedly different, primarily because one of those bodies of people is sworn and paid to actively search out and engage criminals, while the other body if people is not. I will leave it to you to figure out the two.
So, here, let us turn this on its nose a bit – Rivrdog, look up gun grab crime statistics for non-LEO civilians, and see how many times the grab victim is shot with their own weapon.
Go ahead. I will wait. It will not take long.
Why? Because in about two years of digging, I have not found a single instance of a non-LEO open carrier having a gun taken away from him and being shot with that selfsame gun. There is one instance wherein an OCer had his gun stolen from him, but that is all I am aware of, and I have looked. I am, however, always open to what you would find.
“Police” and “non-police” statistics are not comparable due to all manner of differences in the sample body (intent, attire, attitude, environment, situation, etc.), and continuing to do so only weakens the positions of those who would dictate other people’s actions… not that I have any problems with that, of course, but I wonder if you all are aware of how badly you are perforating your own feet.
If you do not want to openly carry, shiny, go right ahead not doing that. But if you honestly expect your arguments to be received with anything more than polite dismissal, you are going to have to do better than abusing statistics, making assumptions, and falling back on “because I do not like it”.
Oh, and by the by, good duck-and-weave on the whole “fabricated statistics out of whole cloth” thing by diverting to other statistics. Guess we cannot really own up to hysteria for hysteria’s sake, can we?
Heya Rob: Let me buy you a clue. It’s political activist gun owners who got you your right to carry a concealed weapon thanks to their hard work, dedication and in many cases, willingness to push the envelope of what was legal.
While I respect Mr. Pincus’ accomplishments, he’s way out of his lane on this one.
Thank you Linoge, it is ridiculous to compare police gun-grabs to civilian gun grabs. The role of an LEO in society is completely different than that of your average LEO. Hell, I’m running away from criminals and potentially violent, volatile situations. The police, by virtue of their job, are actively interjecting themselves in such situations.
How many LEO gun grabs happen while the LEO is
1. investigating a crime
2. attempting to arrest / subdue a suspect
Now tell me how often I, as an OC’er, am going to be doing either of those things.
Note that I didn’t say I was revulsed, or even that the revulsion that some feel is a normal emotion. I just noted that they feel that way around armed people to a degree, and the issue has to be dealt with, because when the matter (unconstitutionally) comes up for a vote, say in the CA legislature, that emotion of revulsion will be a large part of the argument.
It’s wrong, but it has to be dealt with nonetheless, and what I see in O/C advocates is their refusal, in one form or another, do deal with that negative emotion about their practice of bearing arms. If O/C people invested the time to try to understand the psychology of the emotion involved, perhaps they would see their way clear to addressing the issue in some other way than “the public can bloody well get used to it.” See how well that attitude worked for the homosexuals: “We’re here and we’re queer, so too farging bad if you don’t like it.”
All I’ve tried to say here is address all the opposition’s questions, and you have a better chance of achieving your goal with less angst all around.
Hello Everyone!
Snarky,
Thanks for posting your thoughts here on your blog and to those who took the time to comment… my thoughts on this topic (again) have gotten a lot of play.
It has been disappointing to see the wild conclusions people have drawn about my positions on everything from the bill of rights to assisted suicide that were never mentioned in any of my references to open carry. Even here in this thread, someone is talking about keeping guns locked up and unloaded until needed… Certainly not part of the OC vs. CC debate.
At any rate, while this blog and the thread is largely negative towards me and my opinion, there are other perspectives on the point that I am trying to make (http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_files/dd165d86ba5c261e7b5315f1ee492f6c-899.html, is one)… wearing a gun on your hip just to elicit a response from others I think is in poor form, will lead to further restrictions and, quite possibly, get more people hurt and/or arrested when they don’t need to be. That has nothing to do with the First Amendment… Speak your mind, hand out pamphlets.. where a T-shirt that says ” I may be legally carrying a gun, if this concerns you, ask me why!” … do whatever you want…
Meanwhile, I contend that you should carry a gun for reasons of safety, if at all and I will continue to advise people primarily concerned with their safety to carry concealed when under the circumstances that most of us face in our daily lives.
-RJP
John B,
Actually, I’ve been in the lane of political activism for RKBA for quite some time in quite a number of ways. From lobbying on Capitol Hill with LEAA to appearing on the Daily Show to get exposure for firearms training in front of people who NEVER watch the Outdoor Channel to getting a Second Amendment Tat before I was old enough to purchase a handgun.
I appreciate that we disagree, which is probably who we all get evolve our ideas eventually, but there is room for more than one opinion on the Pro-Gun Side.
Respectfully, RJP
Rob,
Where you are wrong is conflating the act of walking with chewing gum. I carry a gun for self defense. Always. When I OC, I also do it for political reasons. It’s not like all of a sudden, because the gun in on my hip, it ceases to have any self defense properties.
As an Open Carry advocate, I hold monthly OC events here in Florida where OC isn’t legal unless you are fishing, hunting or camping. We’ve been doing this for over a year across the entire state and had our first ‘issue’ this last week. It was uneducated police who had the problem, not the populace in general. And as for activism, it turned out to be very effective as we ended up having the police department educated on our rights.
As for popular revulsion – tough. My parents had two different skin colors back in the deep south. People experienced revulsion seeing them holding hands or showing each other affection. When did other people’s bigotry become a de facto reason to avoid fighting for rights?
It’s not going to be easy. It sure as hell is a lot harder having people ostensibly on our side making the same arguments the anti’s do. Remember how hunters argued against the AR platform because they were afraid their Bambi-zappers were next?
If merely legally displaying, not brandishing or being unsafe, will get you hurt or arrested, then things need to change anyway. If you are not breaking the law, why should anyone live in fear?
I’d like to point out that Rob Pincus writes things like this:
I don’t believe that it is likely to take only one shot to stop your next threat.
My next threat? Who is his audience? I’ve carried a gun for decades and NEVER had to use it in self defense. Heck, most cops never have to use their guns either. That statement whiffs of mall ninja.
At any rate, while this blog and the thread is largely negative towards me and my opinion, there are other perspectives on the point that I am trying to make
Rob, your “opinions” and “perspectives” about my right to bear arms are meaningless and I wholly disapprove of them. However, feel free to exercise your right to free speech the way you see fit. (see how that works?)
And, by the way? Next time you decide to address an author of a blog, you might want to get their name right.