09 Jun Concealed Carry: Do’s and Don’ts
Concealed Carry Do’s and Don’ts
The other day we put a question out on our on our Facebook Page asking our followers to give us a few topics to blog about. One of our followers, Ed, brought up the discussion point of Concealed Carry Do’s and Don’ts and we felt that it was a good starting point for a few posts. We will focus the topics down a bit as we go along but this post is dedicated to the obvious. The majority of these are common sense but as we know… common sense isn’t all that common and some folks need a little reminder every now and then. That being said… away we go!
DO:
Carry consistently! You may never have to use your firearm but you sure as hell do not want to get caught in a situation where you needed your gun but left it at home. Murphy’s Law dictates that you will be caught with your pants down (more figuratively than literally, but you never know…) in that 1% of 1% scenario. Remember: we don’t choose the moment, it chooses us.
DO:
Bring a reload or two, or three. Although in most gunfights, whether in the law enforcement or civilian realm, very few rounds are fired you do not want to run out of ammo if you end up in a prolonged fight or your primary magazine decides to start double feeding. At that point you’re probably hoping you attended our Defensive Handgun I course and learned how to deal with such a problem. If you didn’t… Here’s to learning on the fly! Lesson: Its better to have and not need, than need and not have.
DON’T:
Keep checking to see if your gun is still where you left it. Trust us. It is still there. As police officers we are trained to look for signs of telegraphing that someone is carrying a gun such as constantly adjusting a specific area on a belt line, tapping an elbow on either the left or right side, etc. You may not be “printing” but you are definitely screaming out “I HAVE A GUN.” If you have to worry about your firearm falling out of a holster, your holster sucks. Get a good one.
DON’T:
Open carry. I know, I know… its your right were legal. I get it. However please consider this: Not only does everybody see how proud you are of the Constitution and exercising your Second Amendment rights, they also see that you have a firearm on you. At that point, consider your tactical advantage gone sir, gone. You stand a better chance of responding to a threat from concealment as you have options. You drive the bus and choose the moment to engage… or not. Sometimes the best shots we take are the ones we don’t have to.
Additionally, you also could draw unwanted attention from law enforcement. The unfortunate reality is that the majority of citizens are afraid and intimidated by someone carrying a firearm openly and they will most likely call the police. Some officers will respond differently than others but be prepared to at least have an interaction. Now you may have wanted to do just this, to which I refer you to the previous paragraph as to why you’re being an idiot. At this point I’m sure that I will get flamed by all of the open carry advocates so bring it on.
DO:
Practice drawing from concealment with an unloaded firearm pointed in a safe direction. It takes thousands of repetitions to form muscle memory… go practice please.
I will be adding more to this series as we go here so stay tuned! Be sure to follow, share, and like this post on Facebook!
More to come….
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