This is the first time I have read comments on this website, and am suprised to see the amount of open carry comments. I have always been a proponent for the open carry of firearms. I believe that it makes everyone just a bit more honest. 

      It is plain that the politacal left, with the help of the media, has made many people in our society scared of firearms in general and of the handgun in particular. It is clear that the statistical amount of violent crime has gone down across the nation where concealed carry laws have been inacted. I just wonder how many confrontations between the law abiding and the lawless could have been avoided if it had been evident from the start that the targeted "victim" was not intending to be one. If everyone could carry a firearm as they deemed most convenient at the time, VERY few violent crimes would even take place. The possession of a carry permit does not change ones nature. If a person uses a gun in an unlawful way, then they should be punished appropiately. No citizen of this country should be made a criminal without commiting a criminal act. People who drive cars don't get pulled over to see if they have been liscensed to drive one. They get pulled over or pursued once they do something illegal with it. If a person passed the background check to purchase a firearm, they should be able to possess that firearm where ever they go. Until they wave it in anothers face to threaten or coerce them or shoot them outside of defending theirselves, a loved one or an innocent bystander, the lawabiding citizen has the right and the responsibility to carry whatever self defense they deem necessary.