I do think that people are more polite if they know that the people they, without sidearms present, are offending, are being offended.
I think that the sight of a sidearm on someone's hip reminds them not to be asses.
I'm not torn. Look at the original post. CJ was looking for a fight. His defense is he was outnumbered and they were young (it won't work, they were not trying to accost him or anyone else in the diner). Their offense, they were loud.
The young ones were at a table, they were not harassing other patrons and it was 4:30 in the morning.
If you are showing your side arm to enforce your own sensibilities, don't be surprised if someone gets frightened and uses theirs. "Only a psycho would circle our table showing his gun over noise and I thought it was Kaleen TX all over again!"
Guns are not toys, they are not to be taken lightly, nor are they a solution to minor deportment problems. If the kids had been hard core jerks, they would have made fun of CJ's antics.
"What you gonna do, shoot us while we're eating?"
He made a point of scaring some kids. Who's the jerk?
DK