getting serious for a moment, why the obsession with concealed carrying? It seems to me that hiding the weapon is a bad idea.... I think holster carrying, like the old west is a GREAT idea. I do NOT think any moron being able to carry around a Saturday Night Special in his pocket is a great idea...... not that it matters, because the idiots who DO carry them into clubs, etc and use them generally carry them illegally anyway.... so I'd guess that legal concealed carry WOULD equalize that, eh?

There is nothing wrong with carrying openly, except that it tends to alarm people. I hear that in places like Vermont, which restricts neither open nor concealed carry, open carry is quite common. Basically, concealed carry is better than open carry for both the individual and society as a group.

For the individual, it means that you don't have to worry about giving away your means of defense. For instance, I once saw a girl standing on the sidewalk with a small can of pepper spray dangling from a chain around her neck. Now, if I was a mugger, the first thing I'd do is grab that pepper spray so that she cannot use it on me. If she'd keep it hidden somewhere on her person, she'd be much better off if she ever needed to use it. I guess you could argue that as a mugger I'd pick an easier target, however with her pepper spray dangling like that, she seems like an easy enough target to me.

For society, a sporadically armed populace is a nightmare to a criminal. A mugger has no idea who is armed and who isn't. Now muggers rarely pick a fight with a uniformed police officer. However, you quite often hear about a hapless attacker that picks a fight with an undercover or off-duty cop. On the muggers part, its just luck of the draw.

When a society or group of people are completely unarmed, muggers have a much better chance. For instance, even in a concealed carry state, mugging people coming out of the airport, who you know are going to be unarmed, is much safer (for the mugger) than mugging random people around town.