Concealed Carry Corner: Carrying In Tricky Situations

Welcome back to another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. Last week, we talked about switching your carry gun too often and some of the struggles that come with that. If you happened to miss that article, be sure to click the link here.

This week, there are a few different situations I wanted to go over since I do run into people and have these conversations with them. There will always be odd situations you find yourself in where you need to get creative when it comes to carrying a gun. I’ve run into a number of these situations and figured it would be fun to talk through some of them and how I figured it out. Let’s take a closer look at carrying in tricky situations.

Using A Public Stall While Carrying 

It happens to the best of us, we are going on with our day and nature suddenly calls. It may be a slow build-up or one of those moments where you need to find a bathroom in the next twelve seconds. People do all kinds of interesting things when they are in a hurry to use the restroom. Some will throw their carry gun and extra magazine on the toilet back while others will take their gun off and put it in between their legs and some just leave it on their belt. The worst possible scenario is leaving your carry gun on the back of the toilet for anyone to find. As ridiculous as this sounds, there are countless examples of this exact situation happening both with police officers and concealed carriers who forgot their handguns. Personally, I think it is absolutely insane to think someone could leave their loaded handgun in a random public toilet but apparently, it’s a real problem that does occur. So here is the million-dollar question. How do we stop this from happening? 

The best practice is to either keep your gun on your belt when you pull your pants down or if that makes you nervous for some reason, you can always take your gun off the belt line and put it in between your legs in your pants. That way when you finish doing your business, you have to physically take it out of your pants and put it back onto your belt before leaving. Having your gun on your body makes it way harder to leave accidentally when you have to hold it or move it before leaving the stall. Putting it out of sight is the worst thing you can possibly do though. Sometimes we just have a moment where we completely forget something and even important objects like our carry guns. It’s crazy to think but things like that just happen so it’s important to keep it in sight so it’s on your mind.

Plan Ahead When With A Group

Another interesting aspect of carrying a concealed firearm is when you start carrying with a larger group of friends but the others aren’t gun people. There have been a few situations where I’ve had to get creative fast and explain why I couldn’t do something the group wanted to because I was carrying a concealed firearm. The latest example is when we were all at a mall and a few friends of mine wanted to go into an adult arcade but at the entrance they were making people go through a metal detector without a gun-free sticker or anything saying no guns were allowed. I was completely legal to carry in the general mall area but for some reason, they were checking people in just the adult arcade.

I ended up saying that I had to run to the bathroom and I'd be back and waited until they were done before we went out to dinner. It's not a perfect excuse but thinking of something on the fly so you don't raise suspicion is never a bad idea. The best solution is to go out with gun-friendly individuals but sometimes that's not always possible. As a married adult man, it can be tricky to always go out with your friends if your wife or significant other wants to go out with their friends and you don't have much of a choice. Having a couple of excuses to wander off in a group situation is never a bad idea. Things like getting a work call, running to the bathroom and other simple excuses will be able to get you out of going to certain areas you may want to avoid with a concealed firearm.

Overall Thoughts 

There are plenty of situations you may find yourself in that require a little creative problem-solving to get through but it's all a part of having the right to carry a gun. Not announcing you have a firearm is the best method to remain discreet among friends and the public. Things happen and sometimes you'll find yourself in situations that are less than ideal that just require a little preplanning that will pay off if the moment ever calls for it.

Let me know what you guys think are some surprising situations you have found yourself in while carrying a concealed firearm. There could certainly be a part two of this if there's enough interest. If you have questions about carrying concealed or firearms in general, feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram @fridgeoperator. Stay safe out there and we will see you next week for another edition of Concealed Carry Corner.