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03Lightningrocks wrote:I saw one like that in my Utah CHL class. Instead of a guy in a guerrilla costume, it was a guy dressed up like the grim reaper. LOL...I sort of got it, but from a different angle. I thought the purpose of the video was to point out how distracted you can get while passing a basket ball back and forth. I kept wondering why none of those folks noticed the grim reaper walking amongst them. I know it distracted me from counting the number of times they passed that basketball.

You guys just couldn't wait to give it away before folks who handn't seen it could experience it for themselves. Sigh.....

Actually the video was created to show that you can easily miss something blatantly obvious while you're concentrating on or thinking about something else.

From a perceptual standpoint, it's not possible to focus on everything going on around you. That takes too much "processing power." You end up actually seeing a "model" of the expected parts of what you see, and focus on much smaller parts that are important to you. This causes you to miss things that are obvious to a fresh observer, and is part of the reason why witnesses to crimes frequently can't give an accurate description of persons or vehicles even though they had a clear line of sight on them. It's also why situational awareness is so challenging to maintain.

The point for this thread: Most people wouldn't notice for quite a while even if you open carried as long as you dressed in a manner that didn't create a lot of contrast between your gun / holster and your clothes. In other words, if you wore a blued gun with a black holster with dark jeans and a dark green flannel shirt, only a small minority of people would pick up on it right away. Plainclothes and off duty law enforcement officers are quite familiar with this phenomenon.

If you carry concealed, not one person in 500 non LEO / CHL holders will notice a bit of a bulge under your clothes, or a half inch of exposed holster when you reach for something. On the other hand, if you wore the same gun / holster exposed with white jeans and a white shirt, even the slow starters would tend to notice pretty quickly.

marksiwel wrote:

samobius wrote:

seamusTX wrote: The main thing to remember is you have every right to carry a concealed handgun (in places that are not prohibited). Even if your shirt blows up or something, it's not a crime.

I think the shirt blowing up thing is overemphasized. It has never happened to me.

I've been carrying less than a week and I'm still wondering what I would say if I were "made". "It's ok, I have a license"?

The sad thing is, if you see someone open carrying, you assume they're law enforcement. It's almost more calming to see someone open carry.
But with most people, if you have a gun under your shirt, you must have something to hide, ergo you must be a bad guy.

So it seems like the only difference between us and the bad guys is a thin piece of plastic that protects us from going directly to jail if a LEO learns we're concealing.

Just doesn't seem right.

What to say if someone makes you? Depends on what they say I guess?

Screams "HE's GOT A GUN!"
I wouldnt know what to say

The best answer I've heard is: "Lady, you're in Texas. Get over it."

For a better understanding of why you don't need to worry about being made unless you're doing something pretty unusual, watch this very short video just once while counting the number of times a basketball is passed from one subject to another. Write down your answer so you won't forget it. I'll explain the relevance this evening.