Have you ever seen a photo or read a description of someone’s everyday-carry loadout and thought, “That’s a bit excessive, isn’t it?”

Two pistols, backup magazines, lock pick tools, a flashlight, a rifle?? and assorted other implements may see you though some supposed zombie apocalypse, but that’s not likely to happen, now, is it?

After all, we’re mostly just regular folks going through our day at work and at lunch and in traffic and at the grocery store, at the restaurant, and at home. Day after day after day, nothing extraordinary happens to us. We’re not thrust into danger. Our lives are not threatened. People are not dying around us. In fact, the people around us are doing what we’re doing: living safe, normal, uneventful lives.

Except when they’re not.

“Masked gunmen armed with AK-47s and shouting "Allahu Akbar" stormed the offices of a French satirical news magazine Wednesday in a terror attack that left 12 people dead, including the editor and two police officers…” More

For normal, everyday men living normal, uneventful lives, the reasonable everyday carry loadout as imagined by most reasonable men might include the following:

Wallet

Keys

Phone

Utility pen knife

These are the things a reasonable, modern man is pretty sure he may use during the day. The wallet holds legal ID and the means to pay for lunch; keys for home and automobile; phone because he has an unhealthy fetish for continual distraction by messages and trivia that give his life the illusion of meaning. The pocket knife is a good tool for opening boxes, trimming a loose thread on a shirt, etc. This man is well prepared for what is likely to happen to him during the day.

More to the point, this man is well prepared for what he wants to happen to him during the day.

But what about what he does not want to happen to him during the day? The aforementioned EDC loadout is perfectly appropriate so long as everyone on earth does exactly what they did the day before and the day before that, free from hostility, irresponsibility, and violence. But that’s not really a reasonable expectation, is it? As such, assembling your EDC for what is likely to happen to you today or what you want to happen to you today, based on what has happened to you most other days before, is a highly irresponsible approach.

Responsible EDC and concealed carry have nothing at all to do with what you want to happen or what is likely to happen. The entire basis for carrying concealed is to be responsibly prepared for what is highly unlikely to ever happen. The purpose of carrying concealed is to allow you to prevail when you’re confronted by unthinkable violence or otherwise life-threatening circumstances that you can’t imagine ever happening to you. Despite what your mundane life experience would seem to demonstrate, these horrible things happen to regular folks every day.

“Twenty-nine people were killed and 130 were injured Saturday night when 10 men armed with long knives stormed the station in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming, the state news agency Xinhua reported…” More

Will your EDC be useful in the worst of proven-possible circumstances?

You’ve likely not been involved in any murderous rampages perpetrated by people who are hell bent on dealing as much death and destruction as possible before they (shortly) leave this life. Even so, these evil or deranged people are there in your community right now. Your daily activities may take you to the very public place where they decide to strike: the mall, a restaurant, your office, a train station, a public park, or your own home.

One may do well to remember that whether you're attacked by international terrorists or local thugs, your law enforcement professionals have no legal obligation to protect or defend you from harm. And law enforcement officers are never going to be at hand to intervene when evil men decide to prey upon you or your family. In such situations, your survival depends entirely on you; on your actions and preparations.

Evil and violence is directed at ordinary people every day. Are you prepared for when it happens to you? What do you carry with you on a daily basis that will help make any difference when unthinkable violence, mayhem, and destruction are brought down upon you?

Any chance something more than wallet, keys, phone, and pocket knife could prove useful when your life depends on what you have with you at that unthinkably horrible moment?

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Hero image: Westgate Mall, Nairobi: Guns of the Responders