TexasCHLforum.com

CoffeeNut wrote:

JALLEN wrote:You could ask Suzanna Hupp what she thinks of that idea.

I know what she'd say and while my idea to put it in the glove box might not have been the best thought that really wasn't the point of this thread. As I said I kept it on my hip and had I had no issues but the thought certainly crossed my mind especially since parents were just off to my right learning of the tragedy as their kids played in the play pen.

CoffeeNut, I do get where you are coming from. Really, I do........but I've been over and over this stuff in my head, and not just in the light of this most recent shooting spree. I did my first renewal this year and got my new plastic in hand a little over a month ago, so although I haven't been carrying as long as some of the other members of this forum, I've been carrying for five years now—long enough that I've already dealt with these issues and made up my mind a while ago, and new events don't really change anything.

First of all, I dress appropriately. I wore my gun (a XDm-45 Compact 3.8 + 1 13 round backup magazine) on stage this morning, TWICE, in front of about 650 people each time. Nobody knows....unless they know me personally and know I carry. I wore an untucked shirt today, long enough to hang down past the bottom of an OWB holster, and loose enough to hide the gun on one side and the magazine (also OWB) on the other side, pretty much no matter how I moved. The shirt had a striped pattern which would have broken up the outline of any possible printing, but the truth is that my guns don't really print because I dress right for carrying a concealed gun.

Secondly, people are largely dead from the neck up.......even the really smart ones. They just DON'T pick up on subtle details like that. They really don't. Their eyes are drawn to the other person's face, not to the subtle details of what might be under their shirt. Absent looking at the other person's face—and I'm just being really honest here—most guys are looking at a girl's "other features," and women are guilty of the same. In other words, people are "checking each other out," but they are not checking each other out for the possibility of a gun. ALSO, in light of these types of dramatic shootings—Columbine, Aurora, Sandyhook—there were "evil black assault weapons of death" in use, as well as pistols. That bozo in Aurora shot a lot of people with a shotgun, and he finished with a pistol, but that's not what everyone remembers. They remember that he had an AR15 with a 100 round magazine, and that he fired 30 rounds with that AR before it jammed (a powerful argument against those 100 round magazines if there ever was one). That's what people will be on the lookout for, the person with a black long gun, particularly one with a pistol grip and a "shoulder thing which goes up," and they are not likely to notice your or my properly concealed handgun.

Lastly, as LT noted, forget about it and leave it alone. This speaks to whether you or I or any other CHL has confidence in our concealment. It took me a while, but I eventually figured out that the quickest way to give away the fact that I was carrying a gun was to keep plucking at my clothing. The cure was to make sure that I dressed appropriately to hide it, and then to mentally force myself to leave it alone. Eventually it became a habit.

The thing is, we all mourn the loss of these kids......or we do if we have a soul. If someone isn't deeply bothered by this senseless shooting, then he or she ought to seek counseling because they're lacking in normal human empathy. And this ought to be especially true if we have precious young ones of our own. But I can't govern my life according to what other people think of human rights issues when their opinions differ from my own......and make no mistake, the right to keep and bear arms is a human rights issue. The curtailing of human rights as an emotional response to a tragedy is never the right solution. Punishing the innocent for the depredations of the evil or insane by stomping on a human right of the innocent is itself an act of evil.........not that those who would do so believe themselves to be motivated by evil. They actually believe that this is how you deal with evil. But listen to this, they are themselves deceived victims of an evil SO great that it uses their legitimate and hard bought grief to disguise their perpetration of that evil against innocent people by crushing their freedom.

The only way I can fight that evil is to not give in a single inch to it, to face it square on, to acknowledge its existence and its scope, and to shed as much light on it as I can. You may or may not be a person of particular spiritual inclinations. For my part, I am a grateful follower of the Lord Jesus, and I believe His word. In scripture, we learn that evil is darkness, and darkness fears the light and flees from it. If I disarm myself because I am afraid of the sentiments of grieving people, or of people who cynically use that grief to push for a loss of MY rights, then I make myself a willing and complicit victim of that evil. So the only way I know to deal with this stuff is carry on, keep carrying, and to have confidence both in my rights, and the manner in which I exercise them.

.......and don't pluck at my shirt.

Anyway, I hope that explains where I was coming from.

CoffeeNut wrote:I like the rest of the world has heard plenty about the recent shootings so I don't want to turn this into another thread about gun rights or insane people but rather about carrying differently now.

I went to get food shortly after the news broke of the elementary school shooting and I was carrying and I admit I was a lot more aware of the firearm on my hip and felt a little off. I found myself pulling on my shirt a bit more and while no one noticed, I did. I wasn't concerned that I'd have an issue with law enforcement but I was concerned that if people saw it printing or anything so close after a violent act that they might overreact and while I would sort of understand that I was still worried. I didn't disarm but I was thinking of putting it in the glove box for the rest of the day.

Did you carry differently or think a little more about your carry after these events? Do you think other civilians, even here in Texas, would overreact if they got a glimpse of something that they thought was a firearm especially so soon after a tragedy regardless of a CHL?

I've noticed that most people don't seem to grasp a CHL and where you can and cannot carry unless they themselves have one and while it is concealed there are more than enough discussions of printing here to make it a worthy discussion.

No, I do nothing differently....except to be thankful that I live in a state where CHL is easily possible. Constitutional carry would be even better. I know that most people simply aren't that observant, and I take the normal precautions to carry discreetly.....without being obsessive about it. And frankly, I don't really care what someone else thinks about that. I'm not going to stick my head in the sand because they have chosen to do so themselves. I'm a sheepdog, not a sheep, and the sheep are often wary of the sheepdog because they have teeth like wolves. Furthermore, if such a person "over-reacted" and attacked me, why on earth would I want to be disarmed? I carry a gun EXACTLY for the reason that people are unhinged.