In a previous life I was a buyer at a place that bought enough to require interfacing with police quite a bit on the property report forms. I talked about open carry in Eugene with them (it's legal in Oregon). They said you could carry a loaded AR15 down the street legally, but you'd better budget extra time for your walk because you'd be getting a lot of police attention.
I never tried it.
I've open-carried quite a bit in Oregon, but not in urban areas. Seems silly to scare the sheeples (wow, you never see that word anymore!)... I got my CCW partly so I wouldn't need to open carry.
Concealed carry was always considered something nefarious that mainly bad guys did, until recently. Prior to Florida's concealed carry law, it had a bad rap. After enough data evolved to the point that the public could see there was no huge body count, concealed carry started showing up everywhere.
It's ironic that so many people talk of the "old west" or "Dodge City" when they want to run guns down. There were three sources that I can identify, from whence the gun laws of today sprang. New York's Sullivan Law was one. The laws prohibiting the carrying of weapons by negros was another and lastly the laws in the boomtowns of the old west, prohibiting the bearing of arms while in the city limits.
While all three had their salient points, they all were incursions against the law of the land and paved the way for the draconian laws we suffer today.
Back to the point though, specifically in the old west, it was thought that if you were carrying a sidearm, it should be displayed openly and for all to see. The only time you were barred from doing so was in town, which was thought to be a civilized place where there was no need of such items. Of course, it probably cut down on fatalities in saloons, but what of the little guy being beaten down by some big monster? It was back to the law of the jungle with no recourse for the weaker folks or those less schooled in the martial arts. Witness the beatdown the law gave to William Munney for carrying concealed in an area where guns were banned during the movie
Unforgiven. He even lied about it. In a sense, carrying concealed was seen as a figurative lie.
Most areas of the west allowed open carry up until the concealed carry laws came about. Anyway, this is my sense of it and is how it was in Kansas. The thought was the same, no need of guns in town. And the towns without the prohibitions on carrying of weapons saw them dwindle as the real need for guns diminished with the demise of the outlaw gangs, buffalo herds and various sundry dangerous animals that were nearly wiped out by the 1930's and really saw little comeback until probably the 1970's. Plus there was the fact that Law Enforcement had more leeway for better or worse and there was little nonsensical jailing of people for carrying guns in places they needed them just because technically, there was a law against it. LE got more jammed up though because the higher ups wanted greater and greater control and that doesn't come with somebody way down the food chain having the ability to make a decision as to charging somebody or not. You also had society in general moving away from guns and LE officers mirroring that change. Lastly you had the average citizen sick of seeing preferential treatment given to politicians and the like. So you had/have less leeway for a cop to make a decision about charging somebody even if they think the person should be able to carry a gun in the location and situation they are in.
Then the perception that crime was rampant and that our rights were being systematically incurred upon gave rise to the CCW laws. Concealed carry was no longer seen as bad and the advantages of it were touted. The whole country doesn't change at once and things that weren't advantages fifty years ago became advantages in say, 1995. People not used to seeing guns weren't frightened if they still couldn't see them even though they were present. This allowed a certain "stealth" to the laws' implementations. The downside was that many laws forced compliance with concealment itself. You can't make people keep their weapons out of sight unless you have brandishment laws, etc. You can't have them unless you do away with open carry and sadly, that was what was done. That was what happened to open carry in Kansas anyway. It was legal until recently when we finally got our right to carry concealed recognized by the state government. Open carry was abolished.
Now you have the trend towards "constitutional carry" or the like where if you can legally own the gun you can carry it in the manner you like. I like this even though we don't enjoy that recognizance in Kansas. This reinstates open carry.
Open carry is needed and a right. People should get used to it and those who abuse it should pay the penalty. Murder is illegal nearly everywhere except Chicago and Washington DC. There is no need for anything but statutes against bad things happening. Carrying a gun isn't a bad thing.
