My first instinct is to say that this whole incident is stupid. However I relate it to what may happen in Hawaii. Young v Hawaii may determine that open carry is constitutional but CCW is not. People here would freak out just the same if there was a mass shooting with a handgun here and see people open carrying which they are not used to. Then would the proper thing be not to open carry?
A great number of people here will "freak out" if they see a "civilian" open carrying (even just a handgun) even without there being any "mass shooting". Of course they will actually be in greater "danger" from people carrying concealed, because the percentage of criminals who open carry is zero, and the percentage of criminals who carry concealed is 100%. So they are in greater danger, but they are too stupid to know that they are actually in greater danger. If someday only open carry is legal, I'm betting most criminals will still carry concealed, in order to have the "secret advantage" over people who will not know they are armed, just like now.
If the argument is along the lines of the articles as I posted above, that "perceived threat", in the form of open carrying even when completely legal, is a crime... then the only, and obvious, answer to preventing those crimes is to ban open carry... because then no one will be able to "perceive a threat" (even though there is an equal or greater threat from people carrying concealed). If SCOTUS practices
stare decisis and continues to conclude that concealed carry is not a right and may be banned (see: Heller, MacDonald, Kavanaugh testimony at his confirmation hearing, etc.), then there will be "no carry", which is what we have here now (well, except for the criminals who carry everywhere every day, as evidence by multiple events in the past week). So, whatever you do, don't get perceived as a threat, for whatever reason, or you're going to jail and you'll ruin everything for everyone else who shares whatever characteristic and/or action that got you arrested and charged as a "perceived threat" (e.g. large black man in white neighborhood at night, etc.).