Tactical but not practical?

I posted the following question over at “The highroad.org” a forum I used to visit quite frequently. The forum used to be a great place where new shooters could come and glean information on CCW, rifles, shotguns, tactics and more. It promoted 2nd Amendment rights and served as a good way to get people who were novices about firearms into the sport. When I was younger, much of what I learned about shooting, carrying a gun, and defending 2nd Amendment rights, I learned from THR.

Nowadays my presence there has diminished as the site has lessened in its usefulness. Many of the members and moderators are condescending to new shooters or people looking to broaden their knowledge base who invariably ask “silly questions” in their efforts to seek out knowledge. I will no longer be recommending THR as a resource to brand new gunners until their attitude changes. Running down people who don’t know any better is a bad way to teach.

Anyway.

The question I proposed was this: “In a citywide Katrina or Joplin style disaster emergency, where tensions are high, normal daily services are interrupted, and emergency personnel and services are stretched thin, but in which calm can be restored within a month. Which of the following rigs would be viewed by responding government emergency personnel as "prepared and practical" or "way too tactical" for someone to be carrying in defense of their property and would thus draw unfavorable attention? Why?”

I then posted the following pictures and asked the members to describe which they thought would draw the most attention. The vest? The satchel? Or doesn't it matter?







I posted it at THR because I had a hypothesis that I wanted either confirmed or denied and the smattering of Gunnies from all walks of life that frequent the forum made it look like the ideal place to post it. Due to some poor wording on my part and some uncooperative members I didn’t get very much useful information so I decided to take the question, edit it, and post it to the blog in hopes of finding an answer.

My hypothesis is this: In today’s modern society tensions are heightened, people are nervous, and we’ve seeing an uprising in the number of gunnies who are moving their defensive setups from looking tactical to looking discrete. On other blogs and forums, I’ve seen posts where owners of rifles and shotguns have taken their firearms, stripped them of their “tactical accessories”, and have purposefully replaced them with dulled finishes and banged up wood stocks in an effort to make them look less “evil”. The idea here is, that should they use them in a defensive situation, this urban cammo will make them look less like a “wanna be ranger” whom the authorities should check out and more like an “innocent but well prepared home owner,” who is just trying to keep his/her house safe.

To me there are both pros and cons to camouflaging your equipment. On the one hand the question arises, if we are trying to hide ours guns, then what kind of society are we living in? Not looking like someone whose home you would want to break into just for the gear is a prudent mindset. Not wanting to draw the attention of the authorities during a temporary breakdown of society like the one I described above is also a good plan. And, so is not looking like someone your anti-gun neighbor might want to report to the FBI as suspected terrorist.

Still we shouldn’t have to live in that kind of fear should we? And should we handicap ourselves in an effort to remain low profile? Or, does a full load out vest like the one above still have a place in today’s disaster setup? Has it ever had a place? Or is a satchel and a low profile rifle case the wave of the future.
Discuss.