kf7mjf wrote:
I think it's less the gun and how you carry it and current public perception. When I first started OCing, hardly anyone was doing it and few knew about it's legality. I got detained with a Ruger P 89 while walking down the street drinking tea. Fast forward to this last June and I'm sporting a MAC 11 with 10 round mag and no cops at all. It's not just what and how you carry it but when and where. I think in the right setting you could carry a Draco and have no problems, but do it wrong and a J22 will get you treated poorly.
There are two issues here:
1. How the public perceives the OC situation depends greatly on who the unarmed citizen is and where they fall on the gun issue. If the reporting party is either a staunch anti-gunner, and perhaps willing to paint a picture that suggests you are a bad guy. What if the anti-gunner says he saw you put your hand on your gun? You may have a big problem. Or the someone that is extremely fearful of guns, then the fact that what you are doing is 100% legal means nothing to them. They perceive guns are bad and you have a gun, so you are a bad guy. Period, end of discussion. Now, if that fearful so happens to be able to articulate something about your behavior (beyond mere OC) that they felt was threatening, then the situation may get complicated.
2. How you will be treated when legally OCing. That depends on both how well you behave in the eyes of the LEO and where that LEO is coming from.
[list=]If the citizen that called it in believes that you were acting in a threatening manner and can articulate that to the responding LEO, then you may well have a problem.[*]If the LEO finds your behavior offensive, arrogant or uncooperative, then you will likely be treated as a problem.[*]If the LEO is 'unenlightened' or works for an unenlightened agency, then you will likely be treated as a problem and have an opportunity to experience the consequences.[/list]
It is likely true that in some communities, most of the public has seen someone OC and has some understanding that it is legal. It's important to remember that 'most' does not equate to 'all' of the public. Like the yahoo that went bananas a couple of weeks ago in Sequim over a guy OCing at Costco. I heard it went semi-OK, although the citizen never really accepted that OC was OK - technically legal, perhaps, but not OK.
Likewise, just because it seems to reasonably well accepted in your community does not mean that it's going to be well accepted in another community a few miles down the road.
And, there is the general public's attitude towards OC. Currently, the general public favors OC in Washington. That's a good thing, but nothing is forever. The citizens of WA are not immune to the public sentiment in the rest of the country. It's a fact that the population in WA is growing and a significant number of those folks are coming from California, where OC is essentially verboten. Are they likely to be supportive of OC? Probably not as most of the folks that I have met that came from CA arrived with their CA suburban values intact.
Lastly, is the potential to give the anti-gunners ammunition to use against OC or anything gun related. Thanks to the press, the general public has been thoroughly indoctrinated into seeing the AK-47 as a terrorist weapon, which it is. Of course, the reality is that someone with an AK-47 isn't necessarily a terrorist any more than a Muslim is. So, walking around town with an AK-47 or AR15 at sling arms may be legal, but it's likely to garner a lot more negative attention than someone with a Ruger 10/22.
We don't need negative attention.
Trying to force the issue of OC, or focusing on the 2nd Amendment rights doesn't get any traction with the general public.
Instead, what we need to do is communicate how this benefits them.
What we need is positive press - articles about how often it is an armed citizen that makes a felony stop of an armed bad guy (frequent good press that actually makes a point of how the armed citizen saved the day instead of bad press on how some weirdo shop up a mall), how much more accurate the armed citizen is compared to the police when he/she does use their gun, how much less often the armed citizen shoots an innocent person than the police, how the general public benefits from all of those sheep dogs out there.