| Updated: 11/02/2012 9:04 am |
Published: 11/01/2012 10:58 pm
|
The sun has set on the first full day of open carry in Oklahoma and some people across Green Country chose to show their guns and some did not.
"I've been on duty now for 9 hours,” said Bixby Police Officer Michael Konshak. “I haven't seen anyone carrying a gun out in the open."
The nearly 22-year-old veteran officer says that is just what he expected Thursday.
FOX23 rode along with him for nearly an hour as Konshak patrolled the streets.
"I'm not looking as a law enforcer, I’m just curious as a person, "how many people are out here carrying guns?" he asked.
The Bixby Police department says they just won’t walk up asking people for their gun carry permits but if police receive a call, they say an officer will check. Konshak believes those first calls might be coming from city parks.
"Even though they're city owned, people can carry their guns," he said. "A lot of little league sports are in city owned parks, it's exempt so they can carry guns out there."
Gun carriers will also have to make sure they keep their license on them. However, Konshak doesn't believe we'll see too many open carriers yet simply because it'll draw too much attention.
"The increased scrutiny, having the police called potentially," Konshak told FOX23.
But we found a few that on the web site opencarry.org that carried their weapons openly Thursday and shared their experience.
Gary S. from broken arrow said:
"Just open carried to QuickTrip, nothing happened, had some double takes but that's all. The SWAT team didn't even show."
OkieBryan said
"I stopped at Belle Isle Walmart on my way home from Beverly's. Nobody even noticed."
Konshak said with time maybe we will see more people carrying openly.
"Maybe once it becomes more a common place to see open carry you might see more, sure you might see an increase in open carry," he said.
If you are concerned about someone carrying openly you can call police and they will come and check it out.
