Slightly bent, but on topic since I just got done with this call in my office here in Lynchburg: Just had an awesome opportunity to share the OC message to one of the managers who I work with on a major project. Said manager lives in Charlotte, NC and he and I have managed to get on the topic of guns during work calls over the course of the past couple months or so. Well on today's phone call we get to talking about guns again and I happen to ask if he is a concealed weapon permittee (he just bought multiple handguns, so I was thinking he probably was), but he mentioned that he had taken the course to get the permit, but the Sheriff's office was backed up and he was still considering whether he wanted to carry or not (which is a good thing to do BEFORE carrying).
After a bit more chit chat I mention to him that he can legally carry his pistol openly without a permitin most of the same places that he could carry the pistol concealed with a permit. He responded that he thought it might scare people and with some of the same thoughts that many of us probably had when we started, but I let him know that I've now been carrying openly for about 5 years now in several states with almost no issue whatsoever to my carrying. I explained that the biggest obstacle to my carrying openly was getting over my own discomfort with carrying. I further explained that when I was in Arizona OC was a fairly normal practice in general and that our own laws here in Virginia force a person into OCing if they want to dine out in many places. I furthersharedwith him the opportunities that I'd had to talk about firearm laws with various people who would have been otherwise clueless on firearm law. Although I don't know that he's convinced about OCing for himself, I have at least put the kernel of knowledge and acceptance in his mind and I can only hope that it may change his thinking about how OC is perceived. Some days I'm actually glad I answered the phone at work!
