If you talk to a lot of law enforcement about things like how criminals carry firearms, they'll tell you that they carry concealed. They tend to also carry stupid, meaning they don't use a holster, which just invites them to shoot their junk off--if only--but they don't carry openly, even where the law permits it.
Giffords, however, is losing its mind over a couple of things. It started with open carry finally coming to Florida. Then Publix said they weren't going to do jack squat to prevent customers from carrying openly.
And, as Bill Cawthon notes over at Ammoland, they engage in some hilarious behavior in their freakout.
The-Group-Known-This-Week-As-Giffords quickly posted on its Facebook page:
Publix—Florida’s largest grocery store chain—will now allow shoppers to openly carry guns in their stores. This comes less than a month after a court struck down Florida’s ban on open carry.
“We should all be able to go on a grocery run without worrying about if we’ll make it home. But now anyone can openly carry a gun without a background check or training—no questions asked. It makes it harder for police to do their jobs and is proven to undermine public safety. This is a major threat to all Floridians.”
A shorter version of the Facebook post, upgrading the ‘major threat’ to a ‘massive threat’, appeared on X.
Somebody let Burger King know Giffords is the new “Home of the Whopper.”
Currently, thirty-eight, or 76%, of the 50 states allow permitless open carry of some sort. There doesn’t appear to be any pattern of shootouts in the dairy aisles in those states. Some of those states have allowed open carry since they became states and joined the Union.
Yep.
Once upon a time, concealed carry was restricted because it was considered the way a criminal would carry. A law-abiding person would display their weapons openly, while the criminal would want to lull their victim into a false sense of security before drawing their firearm.
Some things really haven't changed in that regard, though now most of us carry concealed, even if open carry is an option.
The hilarity with Giffords' fearmongering is that, as Cawthon notes, this is common throughout the nation, and there's never been an issue as a result of open carry. The only potential threat to open carry, really, is some whacked-out anti-gunner following through on their social media threats to try and incapacitate someone carrying openly, then take their guns until the police arrive.
Of course, they'd promptly be arrested for aggravated assault, but some have claimed that's what they'd do.
None have, so far as I know, which tells you an awful lot about them and their big talk.
Still, the truth is that open carry hasn't been an issue anywhere. The biggest problem with it is that some people absolutely freak out over the sight of a firearm. They can't comprehend that this is the United States of America, and yes, we can carry guns. In many places, it's easier to carry openly than concealed, as no permit is needed.
Then we have more than half of the states that have constitutional carry, where anyone of legal age who can lawfully own a firearm can carry one without any kind of permit.
Of course, Giffords went all doom-and-gloom about that, just as anti-gunners have for decades. It's kind of funny how often they claim the sky is falling, only for it not to fall. They keep crying wolf, and no wolf appears, but unlike the little boy's community, the media keeps buying their cries.
Once again, anti-gunners are losing their minds over a non-issue.
They forget that concealed carry was already legal in Florida, and people could do it without a permit. If a lack of training requirement was going to be a problem in the Sunshine State, we'd have already seen it.
