Cops and armed guards don't carry their main firearm concealed (many carry a backup gun and it is concealed) because they are already a target just because of what they do for a living. People hate them and target them just because of their badge or because of the cash. Therefore, the weapon they carry serves as a deterrent.
I'm a nobody. I don't wear a badge. I don't carry large amounts of money. I dress in boring attire. I drive an older car. I'm polite. I wait in line. I drive conservatively. Not too tall and not too short. No purple hair. Not loud. No political bumper stickers. No flashy jewelry. If I were behind you in line at the grocery store, you wouldn't remember me. All the while, I'm carrying 22 rounds of 9mm Federal HydraShok in a Glock 26 with an extra +2 magazine in my pocket. I likely wouldn't be a criminal's first choice, so if it takes me an extra 1.2 seconds to draw, that's fine with me, but nobody expects me to draw. Nobody is aware I'm armed. It's as if I were slightly invisible, and my gun didn't even exist.
If I were a cop in a pressed, easily-recognizable uniform with a flashy badge, a duty belt loaded with gear and had the power and authority to deny a badguy of his freedom or his life, I would need to be able to draw very quickly. Cops expect to be hated because of their job. Cops expect to be targeted just because they stop badguys. Cops are remembered. Cops are intimidating. Cops have to carry open because that's the fastest way for them to retrieve their firearm.
As for your argument, why don't they drive plain cars and dress in plain clothes? Because the intimidation-factor of cops and the mere presence of a cop prevents crimes. It is beneficial to see cops out in the open in their starched uniforms and black-and-white cars.
I hope that cleared things up.
For me, what cops do or why they do it has nothing to do with why I decided to start OC'ing. For three decades I had virtually the same ideas as you do, that concealing somehow gave me an element of surprise. Add to that that I just simply didn't want to draw attention to myself by anyone, cop or other citizens, and I thought I had it all figured out what was really the "best" way to carry.
Then at the beginning of this year it became apparent that a new law was going to pass that would clarify the laws about OC such that cops couldn't use OC as the only "justification" for an involuntary contact with an otherwise law-abiding citizen. They were going to be precluded from charging the OC'er with disturbing the peace and/or demanding ID and other info just because of a MWAG call. So I started visiting this sub-forum just to see if there were rationales being bandied about that I hadn't previously considered. Turns out there were.
First, I have never carried because I want to surprise anyone in any way. I neither desire a situation where I'd have to surprise someone trying to victimize me that I have a gun, nor would I feel that it was the "element of surprise" that got me out of that situation alive should I prevail. I carry for one reason only; to be prepared to defend my and/or my wife's lives in the rare instance where a gun has the potential to accomplish that goal. For 35 years since getting my first CWP (in Wa. State 1978) I have developed most of the same habits as you mention above - remain law-abiding, don't purposely draw attention to myself, drive like a granny, no political stickers on my vehicles etc. etc. Not much I can do about being 6' - 6" and around 250 lbs. (or more) for most of that time, and up until some severe back problems caused me to find more unobtrusive forms of transportation, I always had high-end customized Harleys, and so did my wife, so we definitely turned some heads and drew attention to ourselves in that regard, but I digress.....
What I found in the OC sub-forum was the rationale for OC that appealed to me more than anything else: being a deterrent to potential victimizers. There are those who will swear that OC is just a reason for street-thugs to shoot the OC'er first, but none of those people, generally-speaking, can cite a single documented case of that actually happening. You can find story after story about a CC'er drawing his/her weapon from concealment to defend his/her life though. The very fact that so few (actually, none that I've ever seen) documented cases of OC'ers being victimized simply because they were OC'ing suggests to me that there is an undeniable deterrent effect to OC.
In '05 I took my first armed security job and we OC'ed there at a huge apartment complex that, itself, was pretty much a ghetto, but which was also surrounded on three sides by the projects that were even worse ghettos. That was eight years before the law changed making OC fully sanctioned here, but I thought, meh, whatever, I still didn't want to draw attention to myself away from the job, so CC was still my preference.
In '08 I started driving an armored truck and two years into that job, I became a messenger (the guy/girl that goes in and out of the stops). As a driver I had a 12 ga. and my S&W M&P40 full size in plain view at all times. As a messenger, I only had the .40 cal sidearm, but between it and the body armor that I (and most of the other guys) chose to wear, it was quite obvious that we were serious about protecting ourselves and each other. Oh, and yeah, we were committed to protecting other people's money, but just like that is a secondary consideration to protecting your own life as a CC'er, so it was with us on the armored trucks.
Now, I gotta ask you - Why on Earth would the deterrent value of being visibly heavily armed while getting paid to protect other people's property and money be any more (or less) important than being visibly heavily armed to protect me and mine from common street-thugs? The question pretty much answers itself, doesn't it?
So the new law went into effect here in August of this year. I've been OC'ing ever since. I still don't want to draw any attention to myself, and so far, so good on that score, no one's said a word to me about it, but the probability certainly is that sooner or later someone will give me a hard time, or a cop will demand ID because of it and I'll have to argue the finer points of the law with him/them much more than I am comfortable having to do. But the bottom line is, what's more important? Always maintaining my comfort zone, or deterring criminals who are known for choosing their victims on the basis of their perceptions of who makes the easiest targets? I'll take the deterrent value over your "element of surprise" from now on. If the cops hassle me too much, I'll spank 'em with a denial of civil rights lawsuit. If people who question my decision won't accept my willingness to explain the reasons why I made it, I'll tell 'em the conversation is over and ignore their b!tchin' and moanin' about how I go about making myself and my wife as safe as I/we can be.
You should reevaluate that "element of surprise" thing. It is proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that the only time a criminal is surprised by a concealed carried weapon is after they have chosen their victim, which puts the CC'er behind the curve since he/she is presumably the intended victim. Would you rather your attacker was surprised by you having a gun before or after he evaluated you as a good or bad choice to be his victim? Think about it.
Blues
