'Open Carry' Law Would Be Boon to Crime Deterrence
COMMENTARY | The Texas House is considering a provision that would take the word concealed out of the law that allows people to carrytransport: move while supporting, either in a vehicle or in one's hands or on one's body; You must carry your camping gear; carry the suitcases to the car; This train is carrying nuclear waste; These pipes carry waste water into the riverhttp://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=carry concealed handguns if they pass a background check and undergo firearms training.
In effect, this would allow people who are licensed to carry concealed handguns to now do so openly from a holster on their hip, just like a Wild West gunslinger. The theory is that if there are people about having been proved to be responsible by passing the checks required to get a license to carry, then crime would be deterred.
Opponents suggest that allowing people to openly carry hand guns would --create a dangerous and intimidating climate in densely populated cities.
One is tempted to respond: sort of like the one that exists already in densely populated cities.
Considering the horror stories that gun opponents were telling when the concealed carry law was first introduced, one has to take the new ones about what would happen if it were expanded to open carry with a grain of salt. Studies indicate that a rise in handgun ownership almost invariably coincides with a drop in violent crime.
Would an open carry law result in a similar drop in violent crime? There does not seem to be any studies similar to the ones concerning concealed carry. However, just as a thought experiment, one should imagine two attractive women walking down a street at night. One is obviously unarmed. The other is carrying a Glock on her hip. Who is more likely to be attacked? And wouldn't the first woman be rather thankful if the second showed up on the scene as she is being dragged into an alley?
The very presence of a firearm in open possession of a responsible citizen would tend to discourage someone who is contemplating committing a crime.
Of course, the open carry law, if passed in Texas, would have the same rules and restrictions attached to it as the current concealed carry law, including who is allowed to carry and certain prohibitions on where a hand gun can be carried, such as federal property or a private business where the owner forbids the carrying of fire arms.
Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo Contributor Network
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110428/tr_ac/8385439_open_carry_law_would_be_boon_to_crime_deterrence_1