Thanks for the responses..here is my amateur non gun carriying(yet) opinion..if im a criminal and I see a guy OC I'm not messing with him..just like if I see a guy or girl walking a pit bull, I'm going aftr the guy with the poodle, or no dog at all..my buddy conceals and had a guy walk up on him on his passenger side and tell him to give him money..it was a very tense situation he said and he almost had to draw on him as the guy wldnt move on aftr several warnings..if he was OC and the guy walks up and sees the gun I'm pretty sure he's moving on..idk, I don't hav experience either way
You're on a CC board, so in general most of the answers will lean toward the CC side... If you asked the same question on the OC board, you'd no doubt get the majority of answers stating why OC is better...
The bottom line is, it all depends on what you are most comfortable with and what you feel is best or right for you.
For me I choose to CC, for several reasons, but the two that are most important to me are, A) I don't attract attention... I like to live in the shadows... I don't want people staring at me, wondering who or what I am or why I have a gun. I want to be every other Joe out on the street unless forced to become someone different. B) I like the tactical advantage. If something goes down around me, I want to reveal I have a weapon on my own terms. When I play poker I don't throw my cards face up on the table and play the entire hand letting everyone else know what I have... Sure I might still win, but it's a little hard to bluff.
To address your point above... You're right... SOME bad guys might see you have a weapon and choose to move off to another target. On the other hand, it could have the exact opposite effect. If I'm a bad guy who happens to NEED a gun, I might just try to take yours... Or if I was going to rob this store, and I see you have a gun too, I might just shoot you dead before you ever even see me... Now not only don't I have to worry about you with your gun, but I've also made a statement that they need to take me seriously and I probably won't have any more "trouble" out of other people...
Now here's the important point though... Notice what we're doing here? We're playing "What If...." That's sometimes a FUN game to play, but it's a pretty ridiculous one when it comes to insight. You can't pretend to know what's going on in someone else's head. Especially when they are drunk, high, insane, etc... If you like to CC like myself, you might find yourself in a situation where you were attacked and that person might have avoided you had they known you had a gun... On the other hand if you like to OC you just might be shot dead or have your weapon taken before you even know what happened. So there really is no right or wrong answer... It just comes back to what you think offers the most advantage for YOU in YOUR situation... Again for me, that means CC... But for you or others it might be different...