So far I haven't had anyone seem nervous around me when I am carrying open, or if they did, they never did or said anything obvious to indicate it.
As far as being a target for bad guys wanting to steal one, they stand just as good of a chance of stealing one from a police officer as they do any other individual that is carrying open. I say this because the difficulty of getting someone's pistol out of their holster depends a lot on how it's carried, and what its carried in.
Personally I've got two pistols that I open carry. One is a Ruger P95. I carry it in a Blackhawk kydex holster that has a positive retention device. In other words it can't be pulled out without hitting the button. The other is a Steyr M40. Right now I carry it in a Fobus holster because it's the only one I can find to fit it. I plan to have one for it custom made as soon as I get a chance. It doesn't have the positive retention like the Blackhawk does, instead relying on tension from the material to keep it in.
In my case I also carry cross draw because my body style makes it near impossible to draw onside without the gun being in my armpit before it clears the holster. That being the case, it puts the gun on my left side, canted to the front, and with the grip facing front. This being the case it makes the chance of someone coming up straight behind you and simply reaching under your arm and grabbing the gun very improbable. I say this because with most folks beign right handed, it puts the gun on the wrong side for them to just grab it, it cants it forward so they have to move even more forward to clear the holster, and it will be backwards in their hand if they were able to get that far before you caught them. In my case the M40 has a unconventional safety that takes a while to figure out so that would give me at least a few precious seconds to retrieve my gun before it could be used against me should anything ever happen.
Finally, when you carry, you tend to develop a little bit more situational awareness to things and people around you. With this 'extra' insight, you simply try a little harder not to put yourself in a bad situation. Part of that too is things like watching how you stand and present yourself to others. For instance if your leaning on a counter, you keep the gun on the counter side, so your body is between the gun and any potential criminal.
The way I see it, if your responsible enough to own a gun in the first place, you should be responsible enough to carry it, and do so properly and safetly, whether open or concealed, be it in public or in private.
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Today's Featured Article - Talk of the Town: How to Remove a Broken Bolt - by Staff. Another neat discussion from the Tractor Talk Discussion Forum. The discussion started out with the following post: "I have an aluminum steering gear housing with a bolt broken off in it. The bolt is about a 3/8" x 1 1/2" bolt. I've already drilled the center of the bolt out with about 7/64" drill bit the entire length of the bolt. Only one end of the bolt is visible. I tried to use an easy out but it wasn't budging and I didn't want t
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