I had that concern while educating some Arizona officials a couple of decades ago. To mitigate the risk, I strapped on a Russian Nagant revolver, an inexpensive surplus import that I had evaluated and found to be superior to an RG-14 as a self defense pistol. It has a peculiar way of ejecting loaded rounds that can be vexing if you do not know the system. I figured that once the officials took possession, It would be gratifiying to educate them about how to operate a revolver.
They did, I did, and a good time was had by all. I got my revolver back at the end of the day, and I made my point.
So, If you decide to involve yourself in some open carry activism, It does not require that you risk your prettiest or most expensive item.
We do not open carry.
We do take all our ordnance with us to the shoot, and we have all our required paperwork in order along with our CCW permits with reciprocity for every state through which we will drive.
But if we run into some JBTs who make up a reason to search our vehicle and confiscate our guns, it’s really going to spoil the whole experience for us.
This isn’t our grandfathers’ America anymore, Mark.