Open carry in Carjack City (AKA Detroit).

There are certainly places where concealment of a firearms is a the more polite option -- Chipotle's Grill for example -- but, whenever the open carry versus concealed carry argument comes up, the Internet commandos will always claim a concealed firearm is a "tactical advantage". This is preferred because the bad guy doesn't know you're armed until it is too late. I've always found that argument a little dubious and my inclination is that open carry is a deterrent to an attack happening in the first place.

I know it is not an argument that will be settled anytime soon. Largely, I think, because there are a lot of unspoken assumptions on both sides. However, Greg Champion, a security guard in Detroit where violent carjacking has skyrocketed, offers his own reason for carrying openly.

To avoid becoming a victim, security guard Greg Champion wears a handgun on his hip whenever he's pumping gas.

"I don't want to surprise you," Champion said. "I want you to know I'm armed, and I want you to know I can defend myself, and I want you to go somewhere else."

A man after my own heart: I may not be able to make crime go away but I will try to make it go somewhere else.

What if there is a fire?

From The West Seattle Herald

It is a fine thing to have a watchdog monitoring our constitutional rights. Bob Warden is to be commended for ensuring that our right to carry our concealed weapons everywhere is protected. The audacity of Mayor Nickels in trying to keep guns out of city parks and recreational areas has to be condemned and overturned.

How can our children and grandchildren’s safety be guaranteed on the playfields and in the swimming areas in the city unless anyone who chooses to carry a gun there has that right. No one should have their Second Amendment rights infringed at any time. It would be like limiting someone’s freedom speech to yell “fire” in a crowded theater as a joke.

Oh, right. You can limit the right of free speech in cases like that. Well, thank goodness the state doesn’t allow such limitations on guns. Way to go Bob.

Bruce Colwell
1220 SW 132nd Lane
Burien

If there is a fire I can choose to warn others by shouting "fire!"   When there is a threat to life and limb I can choose to use a firearm to stop it.   What the idiot above is really advocating (admittedly, he may not be smart enough to understand this) is to deprive citizens of the right to make those choices.  That is not a limitation on a right it is the complete abrogation of it.