If there's a man with a gun over there? Well, shoot, I'll just turn around!

ROCHESTER - Picture this: You're walking south on Columbus Avenue on a Tuesday afternoon headed for KFC for a bucket of chicken.

Suddenly you look down the street and see a guy headed your way walking toward town ... carrying a rifle.

You don't recognize him. He's not wearing blaze orange, and you haven't seen much deer passing through recently.

Well, what do you do?

Last Tuesday a couple of callers saw just that and decided they'd let the police know. They called dispatch and a couple of officers showed up to check it out.

Come to find out: no issues. The guy was carrying the gun properly, with one officer commenting to dispatch the guy "appears to be doing it for attention."

Well, it would get my attention, too, to the point I think I'd feign having to cross the street and reverse direction!

But as you know New Hampshire is an open carry state, so "as long as they are legally allowed to possess the firearm, no laws broken," said Rochester Police Capt. Todd Pinkham.

Pinkham acknowledges that the sight of someone carrying a rifle down a city street can cause some folks alarm, "but we can't tell people to not cause alarm because what alarms one person may not alarm another," he added.

He said if someone doesn't like the way the gun owner is carrying a pistol or rifle "we can suggest better ways to carry so to not alarm someone, and we also let them know someone was alarmed, so maybe they will carry it differently on their own in the future."

He advised anybody who is frightened or concerned that they can call police if a situation like this occurs.

"We will check it out and determine the best course of action from there," Pinkham noted. "New Hampshire is an open carry state so unless they are committing any crimes, they are allowed to open carry. The mere presence of a gun is not enough for us to tell someone not to do it because we would be violating their right to open carry."

All I can think is if I was headed for KFC, I'd probably end up at China Palace.