Concealed Carry Fashion Part 2

Last weekend I talked about the various methods of carrying concealed with their advantages and disadvantages.  I start with the framework of wanting to be able to defend myself effectively and efficiently with a firearm, which means I have to carry a gun in a way I can get to it easily and present (draw and point) it for engagement efficiently.  This mentality is thinking from the gunfight backwards to the way you carry, rather than starting with a method of concealed carry, a concealable gun and then thinking your way forward to a gunfight, as the concealed carry accessory industry would prefer.  The conclusions I reach are that, while there are a lot of ways to carry concealed, only a few are useful for a gunfight.  Best to worst: Three O’clock Carry, Four O’clock Carry, Appendix Carry, Shoulder Holster Carry (vertical) and Small of the Back Carry.  It is inefficient to carry in a pocket holster or an ankle holster.  Lastly, it is flat out dangerous to carry in a cross-draw holster, a horizontal shoulder holster or in a purse/satchel off the body.

The second aspect is carrying an effective tool.  This is very tricky, because a .22 caliber Derringer is more effective than nothing, and a Desert Eagle .50 caliber is highly effective but not very easy to carry concealed.  So, it is always a compromise between firepower and concealment, and if you add in the other variable of capacity, you have a three dimensional scale.  So, to simplify, there is a general rule: carry the most powerful, highest capacity weapon you can effectively conceal.  That is a basic principle of a gunfight, which is contradictory to what the firearms accessory business is trying to sell you.  They are trying to sell you products that compete on concealment rather than firepower.  That is amateur thinking; that is a victim with a gun, not a gunfighter.  A gunfighter wants to get to the gun as quickly and efficiently as possible; the “concealed carry fashion industry” sells things that completely ignore those goals.  The products they sell either have no retention, and you have a gun rattling around in the lining of your jacket/bag/fishing vest, or they have multiple straps that you need two hands to undo in order to get access to the firearm.  Both of these reduce the efficiency of drawing and engaging with the weapon.

Worse, they look like exactly what they are.  Here is a general rule of thumb in life, if you are walking around town wearing an NRA hat and a khaki fishing vest, you are not carrying concealed!  You have a spotlight on you with a little cartoon bubble saying, “Look at me, I have a gun and a Concealed Carry Permit!”  Trust me, I know ten guys that dress that way and I just shake my head.  It is extra ridiculous because these are the guys that practice the least with their firearms.  These are the guys that take the gun to the range once every other year.  These are victims, in other words.  If I was a bad guy with a knife and I wanted a gun, then that is where I would be getting one.

Therefore, the two biggest mistakes you can make when carrying a concealed carry handgun are: to cover up a pistol with a bunch of “I have a gun” clothing, or cover it up with clothing designed to conceal a gun so effectively that you can’t get it out if you need it.  So, like with the firepower vs. concealment spectrum, you have to find a compromise in how you dress between concealing the gun and using the gun.  Sometimes, as I’ve said, I am required to wear things that make concealment very difficult.  In that case, I consciously choose to violate my own rule and stick my little .380 ACP in a pocket holster in my pants pocket, because gunfights are percentages games, and having the little pocket pistol is better than not having anything.  But, at those times, I am uncomfortably aware that six rounds of .380 ACP in a pocket holster is far less firepower than nine rounds of 10mm or eight rounds of .45 ACP, but sometimes the requirement for concealment overrides the benefit of a higher caliber pistol, and you have to compromise.

I want to make the point here, though, that such occasions are the exception not the rule.  It is knowingly taking a greater risk than carrying a .45 at the three o’clock under my jacket.  There might be good reason to take that increased risk, but I do not get into the habit of doing so.  I recognize that I am temporarily putting myself at a disadvantage by doing it, for the sake of going to a wedding in a tuxedo or going to a luau on a beach in shorts and a t-shirt.  I do not compromise firepower and capacity on a daily basis, even though there is a greater risk of exposing the firearm.

Which brings me to my second tangential paragraph: exposing a firearm is not the end of the world.  The gun fashion industry would have you believe it is the worst faux pas imaginable.  It is not.  But, even if it was, who cares?  Carrying a gun concealed is considered by most liberal idiots to be a massive faux pas already; exposing it inadvertently is not going to offend anybody who isn’t already offended.  If some liberal idiot who knows nothing about guns for some reason sees a gun and has a panic attack, you cannot control that.  If you take self-protection and protection of your loved ones seriously—which is true of everybody who carries a gun—then that priority overrides considerations of breaching etiquette.  These gun magazines that say exposing a gun is the absolutely worst thing you can do, ever, are staffed with people who have obviously never been…you know, shot at!  I have inadvertently exposed a firearm on numerous occasions; nobody has peed themselves and had a nervous breakdown.  I have deliberately walked around open-carrying on thousands of occasions and, except a few sideways glances, no negative consequences have ever occurred.  Worrying about not offending some anti-gun idiot should not cause you to reduce your ability to win a gunfight; remember, the life you save may be that anti-gun idiot’s.

Okay, back to concealing clothing.  If you start from the concept I described first, which is dressing for a gunfight rather than trying to gunfight in how you choose to dress, then there is yet another basic compromise you have to make and still be fairly fashionable: length versus fit.  You can always conceal a gun if you wear long and loose clothing like fatigue pants and a fishing vest, but you look either like Henry Blake from MASH or you look like some wannabe Blackwater mercenary.  Either way, it is hardly fashionable, and in the case of the latter it is hardly concealed carry if your whole outfit is broadcasting “I have a gun on me.”  Wearing “concealed carry clothing” like the vests with the sewn-in holsters, is also not very fashionable, nor is such clothing efficient for getting into a gunfight.  But, you can still conceal a pistol with decent firepower if you compromise either on shortness of clothing or tightness of clothing.  As a general rule, you cannot wear short and tight clothing and also conceal a—powerful, high capacity—handgun in a manner that is gunfight-efficient.  Basically, ladies and "gentle" men, while you can wear skinny jeans and carry a gun concealed, you can’t do it while also wearing a halter top!  In other words you will have to make a compromise on your fashion for your personal defense.  Basically, you can sacrifice one of the two: you can wear tight clothes, but they have to be long (think Trinity in The Matrix), or you can wear short clothes, but they have to be loose (think baggy cargo shorts).

So, after much compromising between carry methods and concealment, between firepower and concealment, and between fashion and concealment, I realized the best solution to all of these compromises for what I like to carry (.40, .45 or 10mm) and how I like to carry (3 o'clock or vertical shoulder holster) dictates how I dress.  I have to wear a hip-length coat.  That can be a car coat, a pea coat, a suit coat or a blazer.  They can be fitted, but they have to be long.  They don't have to be overly formal, either.  While I have suits, wool blazers and sport coats, I also have a couple of western leather blazers, a couple light-weight cotton summer blazers, and I have several car-coat length jackets.  That fits how I carry, which is determined not by style or concealment, but by effectiveness in a gunfight.  I don't recommend going out and buying clothing that is specifically designed with holsters built into the panels like some super-spy jacket.  Or, dressing like Henry Blake from MASH.

Nope.  Just wear a blazer.  You can wear a blazer with jeans and a t-shirt.  You can wear a blazer with slacks and a dress shirt and tie.  You can wear a blazer with a turtleneck and a shoulder holster à la Steve McQueen in Bullitt.  Or, like me, you can wear a blazer with jeans, cowboy boots and a button-up.  You can wear them to almost any occasion without looking over-dressed.  I’ve even worn light-weight linen blazers to beach parties in Hawaii and still looked appropriate.

In the alternative, if you are a person who does not want to wear long clothes, then you have to wear loose clothes.  You have to wear loose clothing if you want to carry an effective weapon.  I can conceal my little .380 ACP in a short, tight suit vest, that is true, and I used to do that.  Then I got to thinking that if I am really worried about self-protection, and I own a bunch of higher caliber pistols, why am I trusting my life to a little pocket pea shooter?  Instead, if I want to carry the guns I want to carry, I had to start dressing in less fitted clothing.  That is the short but loose theory.  I know a lot of guys in Colorado that walk around all summer (and some even in the winter) wearing nothing but cargo shorts and T-shirts.  That can work, if you dress loosely enough to conceal a gun.  But, you can't dress in clothing that is both short and tighter fitting.  I have worn cargo shorts, a loose t-shirt and an open button-up over top of it in the summer, and that works fairly well for concealing three and four o'clock carry.  A summer-weight button-up doesn't work with a shoulder holster, Crocket, so don't even try.

So, my shopping trip to find a vest that was long or loose enough for me to carry concealed, was a failure.  It was not a failure because there were no vests that could conceal a gun, it was a failure because they would not conceal any gun I would want in a gunfight.  I realized that that is the difference between the mentalities.  One is self-defense thinking (i.e. dressing for a gunfight), and the other is fashion, or prioritizing concealment over everything else (i.e. dressing like a victim with a gun).  I also realized that if I ever have to get into a gunfight again, then I want a tool that has the capacity and firepower to give me the greatest opportunity to win that gunfight, which honestly is a rifle.  But, since I won't be concealed carrying a rifle, then I want a pistol that is powerful enough, carried efficiently enough (i.e. I can rapidly get it into the fight with one hand from concealment), and that has a high enough capacity to give me the best chance of winning that gunfight.  Therefore, as often as I am allowed by circumstance, I am going to carry a full-sized automatic on my hip or—if it’s longer than four inches—in a vertical shoulder holster.  This results in three methods of dressing, two of which don't make you look like a wannabe mercenary or Henry Blake: fitted clothing that is long enough to conceal a gun, or short clothing that is loose enough to conceal the gun.

Ladies, this includes you too.  How did Agent Scully carry her sidearm in The X-Files?  She carried in a belt-holster, under a blazer, on her body.  I know women’s clothing tends to be more tailored and form-fitting, but female detectives and female FBI agents manage to carry concealed on their person every bit as easily as their male counterparts.  Don’t buy the little blazers that end at your belly-button, though.  Remember, clothes can be tight or short, but they can’t be both.

Last thing: speaking of tailoring, find a tailor who is not an anti-gun idiot and will tailor the garment with you wearing a firearm.  A friend of mine used to manage a men’s store and two of his customers were in the executive protection business; they trusted my friend to tailor their clothes around their guns, radios and telescoping batons.  My friend was not an anti-gun idiot and did not have a nervous breakdown when these two came to get measured for suits wearing their "Batman Belts."  By the same token, if you are buying off the rack, wear your gun into the fitting room and make sure that the jacket you’re buying fits not only you, but also the concealed carrying you.

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