Is open carry responsible? (VIDEO)

I wrote an article a while back after I saw some guy who I believe was trying to conceal his handgun, but wasn’t doing a very good job of it, titled “If you’re gonna concealed carry…CONCEALED CARRY“.  From that article, a lot of commenters and Guns.com fans asked me about my position on open carry, so I penned the opinion piece, “I support open carry…sort of.”

In my article, I mentioned four points of contention I have with open carry as it relates to both self-defense tactics and gun rights.  Paraphrased, these were:

1. Open carry gives away the element of surprise.
2. Open carriers could be targets.
3. Open carry often turns into a police encounter; and
4. There are some people in this world who just want attention.

Though most people understood my reasoning even if they didn’t agree with everything I had to say, I caught some flak from hardline supporters of open carry.  This isn’t something I put too much emotion into, but with a slew of anti-gun victories recently surrounding carry rights, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of concern over what open carry protestors were doing for gun rights and the image of gun-owners.

Well, at the NRA show recently, retired Delta Force operator Kyle Lamb gave his opinion about open carry and I’m mentioning it on this publication because he pretty much hit every point I brought up in my article and added a really good one of his own, one that I think a lot of young gun owners interested in protecting and exercising the 2nd Amendment could take to heart, because it could be a really positive move in their life.  Here’s what he said after posing the question, “Is open carry responsible?”:

“I understand, some folks want to open carry to prove a point, but I’m going to tell you something right now.  If I’m sitting at the local Dairy Queen and some dude in Bermuda shorts and a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ t-shirt walks in with an AK slung around his neck, there’s going to be frickin’ problems because

“First of all, I perceive that as a threat.

“Second of all, the business people perceive that as a threat.

“Third, they don’t want to see that and

“[Fourth] now you’ve told everyone that you’re carrying a gun.

“Dog gone folks, please, you’re killing me. If you’re one of those people that does that, God bless you, but man! Now we’ve lost our right to carry at several of those establishments. I don’t feel that’s being responsible. That’s me.”

“If you want to carry in the open, there’s plenty of places overseas you can go. They’ll let you carry your guns in the open. You might have to wear an American flag and a uniform, and a little target on your back, but they’ll let you carry a gun in the open.”

I couldn’t agree more—but you already knew that.  Though the US military is currently trying to reduce troop numbers, they still need to be constantly recruiting, and with high standards keeping seven out of 10 young people ineligible to become soldiers, we are in need of more people, passionate about protecting the Constitution, making the commitment to serve.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Guns.com.