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It's perhaps valuable because it's one of those things that typically gets discovered "incident" to contact... That is, it can be discovered in the process of investigating a situation where perhaps no other crime has occurred. It's also valuable because the permissibility of "Terry" stops - it's a pretty low bar that allows a search for weapons. It'd pretty much create a crime that you could discover without probable cause.

That's why it's different. That's not to say that I support it.. :-)


If you're more curious - check out the state laws of Michigan. In Michigan it's legal to open carry.. That is, there are no laws that make the open carry of firearms illegal. However, it IS illegal to concealed carry a firearm without a license. One oddity of the MI laws is that you can OC, but you can't OC in a car.. You've got to box it up or get the MI equivalent of a CHL.

Then we open the whole can of worms that your unlicensed OC firearm wasn't flashy enough or got concealed behind your jacket...

Charles L. Cotton wrote: The licensed open-carry bill will be fine and it will be supported by NRA, TSRA and TFC.

Does the bill contain verbiage that makes it clear that licensed OC is not in and of itself justification for stop by law enforcement? I looked at Oklahoma's law - it's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but it does make clear under what circumstances LEO can ask to see a license. The current state of the union in Texas, LEOs have a pretty good success as at being able to initiate a stop (and force ID) simply based on carrying a firearm in a public place.

Oklahoma's verbiage for reference:

...It shall be unlawful for any person to fail or refuse to identify
the fact that the person is in actual possession of a concealed
handgun pursuant to the authority of the Oklahoma Self-Defense Act
when the person first comes into contact with any law enforcement
officer of this state or its political subdivisions or a federal law
enforcement officer during the course of any arrest, detainment, or
routine traffic stop."

I

The crux seems to point out that the way this HB195 was written, 30.06 may be applied to both OC and CHL scenarios. As such, this means that property owners who are concerned about OC in their establishments, they have a single tool that applies to both licensed (concealed) and unlicenced (OC) situations.

I agree with that concern - it would need to be clarified or we risk OC causing significant restriction on CHL through increased risk of 30.06.