Please watch this video:
What do you think?
Let me preface this by saying that I
agree with the point they are making, that purses are not for carrying
guns (or laptop bags, guys). My absolute hard and fast rule for my students about carrying a gun
is that it has to be carried on their person;
I discussed various methods of doing so in detail previously, so I will not
re-hash that here. Having said that, I
have a big problem with this video, because it is trying to teach that
concealment is critical and attainable no matter what a person wears. While that is probably true, it is an utterly stupid message to be sending to people. CONCEALMENT IS NOT THE POINT OF CARRYING!!!!! Gun fights
happen in fractions of seconds; if you have to partially undress to draw and
fire a gun to protect yourself, you are carrying a dumbbell in your underwear and have no concept of gun fighting. I challenge her to get to any of those guns in one second or less in that
video. Or try to do so with one hand while fighting off an attacker.
This
is backwards thinking when
carrying a gun. No matter what holster
companies, “concealed carry clothing” companies or ultra-compact pistol
manufacturers tell you, the most important thing in carrying a concealed
firearm is NOT how concealed it is! The
most important thing is how well it can save your life. I’ve talked
about this in terms of capacity
and caliber of a gun (i.e. “firepower”), and in terms of carry methods
(i.e. “efficiency”). Both of these principles are far more
important than the ease with which a firearm can be concealed. This is
because both of these factors have
actual impacts on fighting with the gun rather than hiding the gun.
A
gun that you cannot access, draw, aim
and fire is not really a functioning firearm.
It’s just pocket litter, or jewelry, providing the wearer a false sense
of security or an accessory designed to make the wearer feel good, but nothing more.
This is the same outcome as taking a gun
loaded with blanks out for self-protection.
The whole system has to work in order for you to defend yourself. The
gun is just one part of the system. The holster, the ammunition, the
concealing
clothing all have to work with you to get the gun out and engage a
violent
criminal in self-defense. The most
important thing in the system, though, is your training. Training is
not just how to shoot the gun, it
is not even just how to draw from concealment, present the firearm and
engage
the hostile; those are just the physical aspects of it. There is also a
mental component to training;
thinking through a situation, having situational awareness, knowing what
to
do. The other aspect of training is the
most important: will and perseverance.
So, there is a lot more that goes into effectively engaging in armed
self-defense than just concealing a gun somewhere on your person where
nobody
can see it. How you conceal a firearm is
only one aspect of being a concealed weapon carrying citizen, and it is
the least important aspect of the whole
system. Instead of focusing on how to
hide the gun, you should focus on how you would deploy and use the gun if you
needed to. How do you do that most
efficiently? How are the obstacles
(clothing, seat belts, car windows, holster retention devices, et cetera) going
to hinder you from efficiently securing the gun, drawing the gun, presenting
the gun and engaging with the gun—with one hand, in a fight, in one second or
less? See, that is gun fighting, and doing
nothing but concealing a handgun somewhere on your body behind three layers of
clothing, holsters and retention straps—that require you to use two hands
and hop on one foot to get a chance of getting it out in five seconds—is not gun fighting! You would honestly have a better chance at
certain self-defense distances just using your bare hands rather than trying to
fight through all of those obstacles to get to a gun.
That realization right there must beg the question, then, in our
minds: Why the hell am I carrying a gun if I have it concealed so well that I
can’t use the damn thing when I need it?
Don’t get me wrong, if somebody tackles me from a blindside and I don’t
see them coming, I’m going to have to fight bare handed long enough to get to
the gun, and I think everybody should have enough empty hand skills to do that.
However, the goal of carrying a gun
should be to protect yourself and those you care about. If that tool is not making self-protection
more efficient for you, then why carry it? You are not accomplishing anything to increase your safety. If you think
the word “concealed” is the most important word in the phrase Concealed Carry,
you are totally missing the point of having a gun on you. You are carrying JEWELRY, and a bad person
will beat you senseless, unconscious or to death while you get HIS new gun out
of your concealed carry garments so he can pick it up and go victimize somebody
else.
What do you guys think?
Like and Share!
Soule
Easy 6
