It has never, in this country, been "normal" to OC a long gun for self-defense. Even on the frontier they stayed in the closet or on your horse (trunk of car equivalent) unless the Indians were known to be rising. It wasn't "The Rifleman", you left the damn thing at home in *town*.
Thus the very concept of "normalizing" rifle OC is nonsense and needs at best to be back-burnered for an imaginary future where it isn't puerile on its face.
And the excuse, "but, but Texas" doesn't justify it. The goal in Texas, that many of these maroons seem to forget, is to get legal *pistol* OC, as that is what is currently illegal. Texans already have rifle OC, all they can do with *that* right is *lose* it by exercising it stupidly.
So, the point we have to had successfully made to the "squares" (who we need positive at best, neutral at worst, when pistol OC comes up to vote) is that all gun owners want is to not have to wear a vest, or worry about their coat flying open, when they carry the exact same pistols they are carrying concealed now, in the exact same safe and non-controversial way. Full Stop. Sell it to the soccer moms as convenience and fairness and logic, not ramming rights down their throats.
The best way to do that is probably to drop the "well we have to OC *something* angle (or people won't pay attention to us) and go to an empty (for G-d's sake not thigh rig or military) holster protest while carrying concealed. If you *must* have rifles, play up how silly the law is by carrying non-scary squirrel guns and such and point out you'd rather just be carrying a pistol. Don't deliberately distract from your actual point by handing the anti's, scaredy-cats, and media their optics on a plate by looking and acting like you are patrolling for Tangoes in the Galleria.
Certainly don't walk around with ready-slung rifles into private property unannounced and uninvited talking about normalizing, which makes the undecided fear that is your preferred end-state, as opposed to just adding a pistol OC option.
Present yourself to the rest of the populace as their friends and neighbors, who are already carrying handguns around them safely and responsibly, who just are tired of untucked shirts. Quit playing wanna-be commando "look-at-me" games.
