Most bad guys don’t want a gunfight. If they see a gun on your hip they will either shoot you before you figure out what’s happening (yes, there is that) or avoid you altogether. If there are two or more people open carrying the odds of a criminal attack decrease exponentially. OK, that’s a scientific term for a wild-ass guess. Life is a crap shoot (so to speak). Open carry isn’t exactly common practice. How do the bad guys know if someone is or isn’t likely to be carrying concealed (unless they live in a gun-free paradise)? And what if it’s a drive-by shooting like the one that killed a bus driver in Baltimore? Would that craven scumbag have hesitated if he’d thought that Craig Ray might have been armed? John Lott will tell you all day long: more guns, less crime. But what’s your personal take? Does deterrence work? [h/t DB]