99% of the time I open carried no one said anything - then again, no one notices, either. Had numerous conversations with people who didn't notice I was carrying until 5+ minutes in..


That 1% though...

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Illegally detained by PCSO - threatened with arrest by cop who couldn't properly clear a Glock (racked slide, THEN ejected mag), then tried to tell me he 'knew guns' and to be quiet when I told him it was still loaded. Female deputy he handed the firearm to just gave him a 'you fucking idiot' look and then properly cleared it. He also told me I couldn't carry in a bank, or at Walmart, that 'laws are different between the country and the city', that if I had a concealed carry permit that I HAD TO conceal, and he fucked up by admitting the stop was unlawful and then backtracking and trying to cover for himself. Every time I corrected him, he just got madder. Finally he went with the 'You wanna play these games?! I'll win' BS, and I told him if he could have arrested me, he would have already... then he threatened to take my gun for 'safekeeping' and when I told him he couldn't he had to get pulled away by another deputy.. A complaint to SO determined dude was a lateral from *drumroll* California.... still doesn't explain the other 3 or 4 deputies who were there and allowed the illegal stop in the first place.

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Safeway in Olympia - manager yelled at me from halfway across the store and DEMANDED I show her some sort of badge or ID that 'allowed' me to carry in her store. An email from corporate saying they follow state law and acquiescing to a dumb request to 'show me your permit' in an attempt to defuse the situation was to no avail. Finally after just listening to her yell at me for long enough I asked her if she wanted me to leave, because up until that point, there was no mention of me being trespassed or asked to leave. I asked a couple more times and she finally got the hint and said yes, she wanted me to leave if I was gonna have 'one of those things on your hip'. So I told her to have a good night, and walked out.

One of her employees followed me out to my car and started to follow me in his car as I drove home while he called the police and was reporting my location. He changed his mind after I intentionally went down a dead end road and flipped around on him essentially forcing a head on if he continued towards me. He got the message and backed up and turned around. Cops eventually cleared the call after telling her no law was broken. I complained to corporate and they said they'd investigate. She outright lied and said I was loud, boisterous, threatening etc when SHE was the one that yelled at me from halfway across the store and kept yelling at me even when she was 3 ft away, while I was maintaining a normal speaking voice. I was cool, calm, collected, and continued, 'yes ma'am..... no ma'am.......I understand'. etc and I had it all recorded but it was lost a long time ago. Corporate at first was backing up their manager and essentially said I was a POS for treating her like that. The recording flipped the tables real quick and their regional asset protection manager or some crap like that ended up calling me and heard the recording and started apologizing profusely and sounded pissed then ended up putting me on hold for a couple minutes and came back and said it wouldn't be an issue and when I pressed further how it wasn't gonna be an issue in the future he said he wasn't allowed to discuss personnel matters, including terminations, but assured me that it would never be an issue again at that store, then gave me his cellphone #, email address, etc and said if anything like that ever happens to call IMMEDIATELY, doesn't matter what time it was. Dunno what happened to the dude that followed me, but clearly he wasn't the smartest of the bunch. If you thought some dude was illegally carrying a gun, why would you follow him?

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Walking in Olympia had some old hag start yelling at me for open carrying. A hippy.. yes, dreads, smelling of pachouli oil and wearing a wool poncho or whatever the hell it is, basically told the lady that I wasn't hurting anyone and to leave me alone.. It was surreal. I never thought I'd ever hear an Olympia hippy say people have a right to defend themselves.. I thought someone was playing a joke on me for a second.

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Walking in Olympia, had a gay guy/couple behind me talk very loudly about how I must have a very small penis if I needed to carry a gun.

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Safeway in Lacey - Lady was not at all obvious as she was creeping around corners watching me as I shopped.... Then I saw her on her phone... and started listening....and it went something like this...

"I'm at Safeway in Lacey.........the one on Marvin...... yes....... there's a man with a gun.... I dunno... (peeks around corner) I dunno.... khaki pants.. blue shirt.... maybe 6 foot.... bigger.. maybe 300 lbs... .... no....white guy.... no... it's on his waist....... (peeks back around corner again) yeah, in a cover or something.... . yeah a holster.... no..... no..... I dunno..... I mean, it looks like he's shopping......... but he has a gun.... WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE CAN DO THAT?!....... BUT HE HAS A GUN!... .... So, there's a man with a gun here and you're not gonna send anyone here to help?! No, he hasn't done..... but he has a gun!.......................... What do you mean you're not gonna send an officer?!'...

I just stopped paying attention at that point because I was about to bust out laughing.. Head peeking around the corner, not at all obvious she's talking about me...calltaker clearly telling her 'ma'am, open carry isn't illegal' and refusing to buy into her BS.

Eventually I just walked straight towards her and her eyes bugged out and I asked her 'How are you doing today Ma'am? Enjoying the weather? (or some other nonsensical BS conversation filler) and she made a 180* turn and all but ran away while pushing her cart. I did have an employee come up a couple minutes later and ask if I was finding everything OK, and could sense there was something else behind the question, so I asked if someone had complained about anything and he admitted that yes, someone had complained I had a gun, but it wasn't against store policy and everything was fine... just wanted to make sure I wasn't there to rob the place or anything. I joked with him (probably not the smartest thing to do) and said 'If I was, probably not a good idea to try and find me'.. which got a nervous laugh from him... when I realized what I said probably didn't come off as something most people would find funny I told him I appreciated him checking on me and following up on a customer's complaint even if it was BS, and that was it.


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But, the few negatives are outweighed, by far, the education opportunities and 'good-will ambassador' work... I can't count how many times I had people who wanted to know more, struck up a conversation about how to get a CPL, or were fence-sitters and wanted to know why I felt the need to carry.

I very quickly learned who the honestly interested people were and who the shit-talkers were. My routine response to people attacking me and asking me why I needed to carry 'That thing' (Seriously, dunno WTF is up with them, but they almost always called it 'That Thing'), I just told them I use it to keep the lions away. When they go off and start spouting BS I just say 'You can't tell me it doesn't work; Do you see any lions? They're all gone, it works!' or some variation thereof. They got the hint. Couple times I had store personnel come up to me and say some lady complained and said I was 'carrying a gun to shoot lions with' and got a good chuckle with it. Once I explained why I open carried and I was fucking with them because they didn't want an honest conversation and just wanted to be a Karen, every time the employee would basically say the person was being a Karen and that nothing was wrong but wanted to follow up on a complaint about a person with a gun and clearly wouldn't be approaching me if he thought I was going to be a problem.


I don't open carry much anymore, but when I do, not really an issue.

Just hanging out with my homie DGM33 3D printing teeth. LoL

Well, it made my day I went to Ace hardware and remembered to bring one of my 5 dollars off coupons before they expired! I practically spiked that thing on the counter at the register, the cashier said she was proud of me for remembering.

did you buy your char logs there?

I Did. I was just going to get briquettes and I saw those and figured, why not?

Nah, I just said, "No, why? Do you need one?" And he just sputtered and walked off. We were coming back from a range day, and I had a double mag carrier for my single stack 9. I guess yes thought it was too much power.

Rode the hog (Scooter) down to the storage and got the Nova out for some cruising. Car show tomorrow down at the New Life Church on Maple Valley hwy and 152nd starting at 1:00 pm, I'll be checking that out.

The Nova came to my house today, twice.

I don't even need a doorbell anymore, I can hear him coming from 1/4 mile away even with my headphones on....

Good to hear that you are having some fun during this nice weather John.

I was able to get out for a range day at the pit and test my recent wadcutter loads, this was my first attempt at this. 276 more to go.
They all fired flawlessly and were damn accurate!

It's actually pretty quiet after the new mufflers and exhaust were installed and it was never over 1500 rpm until it was 3 blocks away accelerating onto the 40 mph road.



I still have a couple things to iron out before you get behind the wheel Jim, but it's getting closer.

Well done Jim! Wadcutter loads can be a bit tricky.

Hell yeah, those look nice.

Thanks John. I do love a challenge, I did DuckDuckGo the subject but I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn Express.