ASHBURN, Va. – A hundred and fifty years ago, few people would have raised an eyebrow about someone with a gun on his or her hip walking into a public building.

But now in an era with gun accidents, injuries and deaths in the tens of thousands and mass shootings grabbing headlines, such a sight is often jarring for Americans going about their business.

However, a small but vocal segment of the powerful gun-rights movement that engages in what they call “open carry” – visibly toting a gun in a holster at restaurants, farmer’s markets, Starbucks, Walmarts and and other public places – is trying to make American society more accepting of visible and concealed firearms.

"I would say [I'm] pretty much armed 24/7," explained Ed Levine. "Because right now as I sit in this home, someone could kick in the door. I'd have probably five seconds of warning from my alarm system going off. You never know when that's going to happen. So you always kind of have to be at the ready."

Levine is one of the most outspoken proponents of Virginia's 'open carry" movement. A small sliver of the commonwealth’s more than 280,000 concealed carry permit holders act, in effect, as the citizen advocacy arm of the gun-rights movement.

Open-carry proponents try to change public attitudes by openly carrying loaded guns every day. The movement first attracted broad attention in the summer of 2009, when gun owners carried weapons openly outside President Barack Obama’s health care town-hall meetings across the country. And since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the movement has generated more attention, and both gun rights and gun control advocates say it's becoming more popular.

And judging by the change in the nation's gun laws over time, the overall strategy is working.