🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <sehix-2608990905190001@192.168.1.5>,
Steve Hix <sehix@macol.net> wrote:
>In article <7q22ns$lfi$1@agate-ether.berkeley.edu>,
>dim@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (D. Gerasimatos) wrote:
>
>> My question is...
>> 
>> 
>> Why are concealed weapons necessary? Why not just carry your firearms
>> visibly on your person?
>
>Done in some states (with no apparent problems).
>
>> That's probably a more effective deterrent,
>> don't you think? 
>
>Not at all:
>
> - A would-be assailant is able to determine who is armed,
>   thus who would be a threat to him.
>
> - Concealed carry means that he has no way to know who
>   *might* be armed, affecting his calculus of personal
>   risk. (He *might* choose to shoot everyone in sight
>   in a pre-emptive strike...but this does not seem to
>   actually happen, well, unless he's pretty sure that
>   nobody is going to be armed, at schools and similar
>   venues.)



If I have good reason to believe that a person *might* be armed, then I'm
going to assault him as if he was armed. It's that simple. As someone else
alluded to, this leads to a "shoot first" mentality. At least if you're
carrying your firearms openly *you* can be the one shot at. The reason
concealed carry works well right now has to do with the element of
surprise. If *everyone* (or even a majority of the populace) carried a 
concealed weapon then it would limit the effectiveness of carrying a
weapon. This is why gun owners need peaceniks like myself. It's also
why gun owners oppose carrying their weapons visibly.


Dimitri