4 states, among last holdouts, eye open-carry gun laws
Updated 2/11/2009 11:52 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print



By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY
Four Southern states — Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas — are considering legislation that would allow people to carry handguns openly in a holster.
These generally Second Amendment-friendly states are among the last six holdouts against open carrying of guns. Openly carrying handguns is legal in most states, even those that ban concealed firearms. New York and Florida also bar openly carrying handguns.

The four other states that ban so-called open carry "are extremely gun-friendly. They understand the individual-rights aspect. Yet for whatever reason, the carry laws in these states are restrictive," says John Pierce, a co-founder of OpenCarry.org, which promotes gun rights.

Most states have strict laws governing concealed weapons. Illinois and Wisconsin ban carrying them entirely, according to the National Rifle Association. Concealing a weapon "was seen in the early days of our nation as something of an unwholesome act. People would bear arms openly," Pierce says.

Says Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which opposes open-carry laws: "We don't want more people carrying guns either openly or concealed because the more guns you have in a situation, the more likely you are to get gun violence."

Grass-roots movements supporting open carry have emerged via Internet and e-mail campaigns, Pierce says. The online Texas petition now has more than 55,000 signatures. OpenCarry.org raised $25,000 through online donations to pay for advertising in Texas, says OpenCarry.org co-founder Mike Stollenwerk.

Legislation is getting varying degrees of traction:

• In South Carolina, Republican Rep. Dan Cooper sponsored a bill endorsed by 36 other legislators to allow anyone who legally owns a handgun to carry it openly.

• In Oklahoma, Republican Rep. Mike Ritze is the sole sponsor of a bill filed Feb. 2 that would allow open carry.

• In Arkansas, a legislator is moving forward with a similar bill, Stollenwerk says.

• In Texas, Ian McCarthy, a student who chairs the Texas Open Carry Work Group, started the online petition in late 2007. He says a concealed gun is uncomfortable during hot Texas summers, takes longer to draw in self-defense and won't deter a criminal.

"If a criminal sees you're armed, he's not going to mess with you," McCarthy says.

Texas Republican Rep. Debbie Riddle has asked the state's legislative council to draft an open-carry bill. She wants to see how other gun-rights bills fare, particularly one to allow concealed weapons on college campuses."

Republican state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, who sponsored the college campus bill, opposes open carry. "I think that's harkening too far back to the Wild West," he says.

That's a bad thing??????? He been watching too many movies, there was lees violent crime then than there is today.

Funny. Anybody that tries to mug a guy who is using open carry deserves to get shot at.

Darn right there will be less crime.

You can open carry here in WI, but LEO's have been issuing tickets for things like disturbing the peace...even for people on thier own land. I think there is a court case in Beaver Dam or something like that coming up for that.

Yeah, there was a police chief in some burg (Appleton? Neenah? Menomonie Falls?) who publicly stated he'll run in anyone he sees carrying openly, even though it's legal here. Disturbing the peace, my azz.. Supposedly (if I was carrying) I'm disturbing the peace for a legal act? It's SUCH Pelosi.. If so, please update us on the outcome.. I hope whoever the carrier is, he wins BIG..

Actually, you may windup being the first one shot. Some one walks into an area, sees you carrying, pops you first, then moves on.

I think we should have the right, but I think I would still carry concealed 95% of the time.

It's certainly a fundamental right to carry a firearm openly, and our laws should be required to reflect this reality.

Of course. Liberals are, generally speaking, ignoramuses.

Better that he loses and eventually appeals it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Me too, but I think you overstate the likelihood of your scenario. Generally speaking, criminals look for the avenue of least resistance. Shooting an armed person increases the likelihood of the criminal himself being shot vs taking his intended crime to another location, or waiting for a different time when he doesn't see any armed citizens around.

Like RyanTX I think we should have the right to open carry, but carry concealed most of the time simply because Surprises are like Gifts, it's better to give than to receive...
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