Reply #132: Thus, at worst, armed private citizens don't worsen the situation

[Euromutt]

In the past twenty years, more and more states have adopted "shall issue" laws, removing from the executive branch of government the "discretion" to arbitrarily refuse to issue permits, e.g. to women, ethnic minorities, recent immigrants, anyone who hasn't given a handsome contribution to the sheriff's or mayor's campaign fund, etc. and as a result, there are more CCW permit holders out there in both absolute and relative terms. During the same period, violent crime (including that committed with firearms) has dropped to around half of what it was in 1991, and remained roughly at that level for almost a decade. The increasing popularity of open carry hasn't affected the violent crime rate either.

So while the open carrying of firearms may be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the maintenance or improvement of public order, neither does it seem to be a sufficient condition to reduce a functioning society into a failed state like Somalia. Which was rather what you appeared to be implying in your post #14.

And your carping about people carrying while getting a coffee, or "even to take a dump," seems to suffer from not being fully thought through. If we take it as a given for a moment that a person may have legitimate reason to carry a firearm as he goes about his daily routine, are you suggesting that it would be preferable if that person left the firearm unattended while he stopped to get a latte or went to the lavatory? From my perspective, once a firearm is taken out in public, the carrier assumes the responsibility to not let it fall into unauthorized hands, and the best way to achieve that is to keep it on your person.

Besides, it's not as if there haven't been a few instances of shootings occurring in Starbucks by armed robbers, and in one case (in Atlanta/Fulton County two years ago) in an apparent assassination attempt on a former public prosecutor.