For our look at policy evaluation in the section on public policy: the consequences of open carry in crime scenes.
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When rifle shots rang out in downtown Dallas during Thursday night's protest, some of the demonstrators were also carrying rifles.
In the ensuing chaos, one of them was labeled a "person of interest" after police released a photo of him carrying an AR-15 rifle. Others were stopped and questioned by police.
It was not immediately clear Saturday whether any of those who were legally armed delayed or hampered the police response to the shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite. Dallas police did not respond to questions.
But Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said: "It's logical to say that in a shooting situation, open carry can be detrimental to the safety of individuals."
Johnson, a former Army soldier, was killed early Friday when police used a robot to detonate a bomb near him. That was after he killed five police officers in a rampage through downtown.
It is legal in Texas to openly carry rifles and has been for decades. People with rifles have been spotted at recent public protests across the state.
Rawlings said Dallas police Chief David Brown told him that people running through the shooting scene with rifles and body armor required officers to track them down and bring them to the police department. Whether that was time that could have been spent trying to find and stop the shooter is something police will have to comment on, Rawlings said.
. . . But C.J. Grisham, president of Open Carry Texas, said police should be able to separate the good guys from the bad guys in such a scenario because "the bad guys are the ones shooting."
"If you can't identify a threat, you shouldn't be wearing a uniform," he said.
Grisham said some in law enforcement look at law-abiding gun owners as a threat.
"It's not that difficult to tell the difference between a bad actor and a good actor," he said. "The good guys are going to obey commands, the bad guys are not."
Law enforcement organizations such as the Dallas Police Association have generally opposed the state's new open carry law regarding handguns, which went into effect this year.
