A Week in Oklahoma City

[pedalman]

My family and I spent last week at a national convention for the American Choral Directors Association, in Oklahoma City. Our younger daughter was performing in the Junior High/Middle School choir (287 kids strong).

Since concealment was of prime importance, I took my Taurus 85 Ultralite, stoked with Buffalo Bore's version of the 38Spl +P FBI load. It rode IWB with me everywhere, except in the hotel room. I did take it off in there.

All through the week, my wife and I walked through downtown OKC. I was particularly surprised at how clean it was, and not a homeless person in sight. I guess they bus them to Austin and San Antonio.

I only saw one gunbuster sign at the AMC theater in Quail Springs Mall. Unfortunately, Oklahoma does not have a test case on the books regarding the legitimacy of such signs. The OK Self-Defense Act is a bit vague on this, and has nothing specific like our 30.06 signage requirements. The OKC police officers that I passed were none the wiser that I was carrying. I happened to have one officer walking behind us at one time. He never gave any indication that he knew my carry status. None of the kids or the soccer moms had a clue. No printing, no screams of "He's got a gun!!!"

I had no BG encounters there, but I still felt better being able to be legally armed in a strange town in another state.

All in all, a good trip. But I still felt just a little better when I crossed the state line back into Texas.

Not to disparage the tradition of the Wally Walk, but I think that this trip more than surpassed Texas Wally Walk requirements. Particularly since I had more than one LEO in close proximity to me.

[tfrazier]

Well, that's pretty good, but the Wally Walk with all it's various qualification tasks is still the gold standard! I assume that the Ok LEO behind you wasn't a state highway patrol officer, since you didn't get ticketed for walking too fast.

No offense, my Ok state trooper brethren...I'm just still a little miffed for that feather-legged 53 in a 50 ticket I got back in 1998 up in Ardmore. But I was guilty of going a whole three miles per hour over the limit, and they did have NO TOLERANCE signs posted, so I sucked it up and paid it.