Your Gun Was Made To Comfort — Not for Comfort

by Greg Perry by Greg Perry

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Not everybody reading this carries a gun. Several reasons exist for most freedom-loving Americans to still be disarmed.

Reason for Not Carrying a Gun #1: Your Locale

You live in a state where carrying a weapon is not permitted.

Why do you still live there?

You’re almost complicit in whatever danger comes your way. Move. Let your state fend for itself and it will die out. Once you leave, only the bad guys will have guns and they’ll shoot each other; the liberals won’t marry or have babies so they’ll die out; no productive citizens will be left to steal money from to give to non-workers so illegals and freeloaders will die out; eventually it will become a barren wasteland that good citizens can reclaim some day.

Fantasy? Yes but only because the good people still living there would rather acquiesce in the loss of their freedoms than move to a safer state. If you remain in a state where carrying a weapon is not permitted, but you fear the government more than you love your family, you’ll remain unarmed and you keep living there.

Reason for Not Carrying a Gun #2: Your Knowledge

You approve of the right to carry weapons but you don’t know anything about them. Perhaps they frighten you some. This is understandable and it’s good you don’t want the liability since you’re ignorant about guns.

So learn something! Gun classes are all around you and world-class gun-training schools are far less costly for a week of training than you think. If you convince yourself you cannot attend a gun class, you can still read or you wouldn’t be right here now so get Boston’s Gun Bible and begin your education.

Reason for Not Carrying a Gun #3: You’re a Hypocrite

You love to quote R&R (Rothbard and Rand) but you don’t put into practice what you preach because you’re not willing to defend your liberties or self when the time comes. (You’re worst of all by the way.)

Reason for Not Carrying a Gun #4: You Want to But Can’t

You understand weapons and know how to use them but carrying one concealed is difficult or virtually impossible given the way you must dress for your profession (such as physician or beautician perhaps).

I have no statistic to back this up, but I bet many reading this are in this fourth group. Carrying a weapon all day in all situations is extremely cumbersome, takes too much time to get used to, takes effort to locate a well-fitting holstering system, and gets costly trying several methods until you find one that works best. For the majority of us who’d rather slouch on a couch than jog in the fog, that extra tire under our ever-widening belt considerably increases the difficulty in carrying a weapon.

Too Many Carry Methods Simply Won’t Work

It’s true that lots of books and magazine articles have been written describing innumerable carry clothing and concealment methods but in general, for most of us, most ways stink.

I carry outside the pants, under a shirt, holstered at my right, strong side’s 3-o’clock position. I’ve done this for years. I love that carry position but I hate trying to conceal that position. I’ve been doing a lot of study lately on a better position and I’m beginning to believe that an appendix inside-the-waist carry is better. Inertia keeps me from wanting to switch but people whose wisdom I’m beginning to appreciate are starting to convince me that the appendix carry offers the most benefits. It conceals well and is far easier to draw from concealment than one might first think. I’ll keep you posted on what I decide.

By the way, tactical strategy dictates that in general, if you live in a state such as Arizona where you can legally carry an unconcealed gun (called open carry), you shouldn’t carry openly. When I attended what is considered the world’s finest training school, Gunsite Academy located in Arizona, I just had to walk into the local Safeway supermarket carrying openly. Just once. It was the most surreal feeling. The only one who cared that I had a Government Model 1911 strapped to my side was me — everybody else was used to it.

Once I got that out of my system, I won’t do it again. See, I don’t want the bad guys taking me out before they commence the ceremonies of murder, rape, pillage, and plunder. I want to be inconspicuous. I don’t want to wear a sportsman’s/photographer’s vest because those are known as "Shoot Me First Vests" and the bad guys know it. A fanny pack on a man who’s not an obvious tourist is another giveaway that the baddies had better take you out just in case.

Given a few missing fingers (seven at last count) and deformity of the ones I have left, I personally have a tremendous advantage if a situation breaks out. I’m the last person they think will be able to shoot a gun and I am the first person they will feel confident enough to turn their backs on. For you normal people, I’m sorry that you have to go through life in such a severely unsafe condition. If you’re a woman or smaller man, you have a similar advantage as I because bad guys won’t perceive you as a threat as much as they will the cop on duty, or as much as the cop off duty wearing the vest that announces to the world he’s armed.

So it’s a tactical advantage to look as unarmed as you can be while still being armed.

That makes deciding how you will carry a gun even more difficult. The easiest way is to just carry openly but you can’t in most states and you shouldn’t anyway. The next easiest way is to cover your gun with a vest but that make it far easier for the bad guys to separate you from the living before the fight even begins. The difficulty in carrying gets more and more difficult the more effectively you hide a weapon that is big enough to handle a threat that might come your way.

How Caliber Plays Into Things

The more effective the gun, the more magnified the problem becomes. A one-shot Derringer .22 is far easier to carry and less obvious than a full-sized Springfield 1911 in .45 caliber but which do you need in your hands most when a drug-crazed madman runs at you with a machete?

Well, the .22 Derringer is better if you have only it because you left the.45 in your bedside dresser since it was too cumbersome to carry. The gun you have with you when you need it is the best one to carry, not the biggest that you own, necessarily. Add to that, the gun you know best and shoot the best is better than the largest caliber weapon on earth.

So size isn’t everything when it comes to the weapon you carry.

Guess what the smallest caliber on earth is? It’s the caliber you have in your hands when the bad guy is shooting at you!

Guess what the largest caliber on earth is? It’s the caliber the bad guy has in his hands when he’s shooting at you!

So no matter what you do, you will always want and need something better when the fan gets hit. The perfect self-defense firearm will always be in dispute.

There is one thing never in dispute: having a gun is the first rule of a gun fight. (This also makes an excellent rule for a knife fight too.)

I Have the Answer

For those of you in group #4, the people who know how to use a gun and who want to carry but haven’t found a way that works for your situation, I recently discovered an answer. This answer works well and although I still prefer a gun on my person, I use this concealed carry method when I don’t want to carry on my person for whatever reason.

The answer is to carry your self-defense firearm in a purse or an appointment book that contains an easily accessible concealed pouch for your firearm. Neither of these is a new carry method. I take them a step further, however, to eliminate their primary disadvantage.

The number one reason why you should — before now — never consider carrying a firearm outside your person in a case like a purse or day planner is due to loss. There’s something about the human condition that the more valuable something is we’re carrying, the more likely we are to lose it. You’ll invariably walk out of the stall with the appointment book left on the back of the toilet. You’ll leave your purse in the seat beside you. It happens too much. For ladies whose purse is like an appendage on their bodies, stick a gun in there and all of a sudden the purse will be left where you shouldn’t leave it. You know it will happen, and it’s far worse to lose your money, credit cards, keys, and personal information when a loaded weapon is there too.

The disadvantage of carrying in such a way is you’ll be slower to draw your weapon when you need it. The fact that you have your weapon with you, whereas you may not have had to otherwise, certainly helps make up for your slow draw. Also, it’s incumbent upon you to be more aware of your immediate situation so you’ll react sooner than later if need be. The advantage of carrying concealed off your person in such a carrying case means that you’re free to wear whatever clothing you want to wear and your weapon will still be with you. This is a huge advantage and I’ve often carried this way when I would not be able to conceal a gun on my person. In the hot summer, you may want to go out in shorts and a T-shirt; how will you hide that Glock then?

Well, hide it in a purse (for ladies) or in that gun-ready appointment book but make sure you don’t leave it somewhere!

Obviously that is the answer but until now, that was unrealistic.

A while back, I heard of a tiny device that parents can pull apart and put one half in their pocket and hang the other half around a small child’s neck on a lanyard. The device, extremely inexpensive, is adjustable from 6 to 30 feet. Here’s what happens when you pull the device apart: nothing. Nothing happens until your child wanders further than the distance limit you’ve set. If you’ve set it for 10 feet and your child wanders 11 feet from you your device begins beeping! You’ll know right away if your child is getting away from you too far.

I love this device, the Child Guard Transmitter, for its intended use. Parents of toddlers in busy malls and elsewhere can finally glance away from their child and still know the child is close at hand.

I love this device for its unintended use too! It’s obvious where I’m going with this. Put one half in your gun-friendly purse or appointment book and wear the other half around your neck or in your pocket. You can go about your day without a care because the thing won’t beep. It won’t beep until you walk 6 feet from the bathroom stall where you left your gun!

Seriously, I cannot believe that others have not thought of this. If they have, I’ve never heard of it being used this way. I think gun owners all over the country should consider getting this device but especially you if you don’t carry now because you just haven’t found a way to carry and still wear your spandex aerobics pants.

Your Gun’s Intentions

Your gun was made to be comforting. Your gun was never made to be comfortable.

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