The Can, May, Should and Must of Open Carry

Next month, I’m doing a presentation for the Cape Coral branch of the Armed Women of America on open carry, and that forced me to revisit this often-touchy topic once again. It seemed to me that for some reason, I wrote about this a lot in 2010 or so, back in the glory days of the gun blog, and for some strange reason (maybe because I moved from Arizona, where it is permitted, to Florida, where up until recently, it wasn’t), or maybe it’s because gun blogs no longer lead the conversation in the online gun world. Either way, now that It’s legal here in Florida, it’s become a thing again.

Which got me thinking: Steven Harris of Modern Service Weapons came up with the “Can, May, Should, Must” paradigm of self defense, and it’s good way of thinking about what is possible to do and what is the best way to minimize what Claude Werner calls “negative outcomes.”

Can is whether you possess the: mindset (technical/tactical knowledge and skills to succeed,

May is the question actually being asked, that is: If I can, may I employ those skills?

Should is if I can and may, and have a choice, should I perform this action?

Must is, well, you must. All other options have been exhausted.

Okay, now pick up all of those items and drop them on top of open carry. CAN you open carry in Florida? Yes. MAY you do so? Also yes.

Now, SHOULD you?

And that is where things get interesting. For the life of me, aside from open insurrection, I cannot come up with a scenario where I MUST open carry in public. At a match or at the range? Sure. Outside of those two areas? I just don’t see it. And no, open carry is NOT a crime deterrent. Spend a few moments reading the stuff from Dr. William Aprill or Ross Hick and you’ll soon find out that crooks are not that afraid of guns.