Asklemmy

I think things become much more chaotic and prone to quickly escalating to lethal applications of violence if there is the constant threat that anybody could be concealed carrying and more importantly that if someone felt the need to carry a firearm that they would likely conceal it.

Bringing a large visible rifle into a situation still escalates the threat of violence, but at least it does it in a clear and unambiguous way. There is no excuse to shoot the teenager dressed in basketball shorts and a wifebeater with absolutely no where to hide a rifle because you saw somebody else nearby with a rifle and you think the unarmed teenager might be concealing one. (There really is almost never an excuse to shoot anybody unless they are holding a gun and aiming it at you, and maybe even not then if you are on the one antagonizing them).

The US is a country where police not unregularly shoot innocent people, often unarmed black men or other minorities, and handwave away any responsibility for the needless violence by suggesting there might have been a handgun...

With a hunting rifle or shotgun there is no ambiguity about your intentions in a space or how you will potentially react to lethal threats of violence. There is no conveniently conflating other innocent and unarmed people with the people holding rifles or shotguns and easily getting away with it. On the other hand there is no surprising people by entering a space under false pretexts about your capacity or intentions around violence with a rifle or shotgun, since carrying a large weapon immediately identifies you as someone carrying a large weapon.

My point is, concealed carry is only effectively a right or privilege if society gives you the permission to arbitrarily carry around the means to end many peoples' lives in your pocket, which is something really only extended willingly and consistently to white, christian conservative men. Carrying around a hunting rifle or a shotgun is a different story.

Look at the way handguns are used in US media, they are treated as status symbols of power and righteosness. Shows and movies constantly rely on the revealing, obtaining and losing of handguns to portray changes in the power of characters (lazy fucking writing but that is another rant...). To US culture the handgun is the ultimate object of empowerment and of personally distributed justice and that says everything you need to know about handguns really.

(also, if you are someone who actually needs to protect yourself with a handgun, you already know who you are, this conversation is irrelevant)