First Carry

[LabRat]

Abraham raises a question above. I've not been secretive about my CH license. Should it be a secret?

I don't think its a secret, however being discreet is never a bad thing. My dad always said "If you don't put your business on the street, nobody will know what it is."

We all have a comfort level of some kind. You set and accept your own.

To the OP,
Nice video...Camaro is very nice.
ditto on the license plate....obscure it if you can.

LabRat

[TexasCajun]

Abraham raises a question above. I've not been secretive about my CH license. Should it be a secret?

Only until you get your CHL badge, sash, & tiara

[WildBill]

Abraham raises a question above. I've not been secretive about my CH license. Should it be a secret?

I would describe my actions as discrete versus secret. I don't talk about CHL at work at all. A few family and friends know that I have one.
Although I have done it three times, I usually don't announce when I am carrying.

[Abraham]

My point about the car license plate is: Savvy criminals can access plenty of information from it.

How many of us list our firearm inventory in our signature line or that we'll not be home on such and such a date or...or...or...we get careless with our personal information.

See where I'm going...?

Am I being overly cautious?

I don't think so.

Of course, if crime has never touched you, you probably feel such caution isn't nearly so necessary.

Crime has touched me and mine more than once...

[Oldgringo]

Well, I brandish neither my gun nor my license but those who know I have it, know it and those who don't, don't. Frankly, I don't think anybody cares very much - one way or the other? Folk either want and have a CH license or they don't.

Maybe knowing that we're armed, and can be dangerous, is a deterrent to criminals and their dastardly deeds? BTW, I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that the visibly armed (OC) guy will be the first target of the BG.

[Blake]

You didn't with your license plate, bad.

I appreciate your concern, but I don't care about people seeing my license plate. Thousands of people see it all the time. Things that are easily visible to the public I don't try to hide from people on the internet. If a criminal wanted to get my information there are other venues. Also, if they wanted to get information from a person's license plate all they would have to do is walk outside. People might disagree, but that's how I view it, and they're free to do what they want just as I'm free to do what I want. Personally, I'm more concerned about all the thugs at the weekly car show than I am the ones on the internet hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Y'all raise good points about being discrete with your CHLs and I agree. The main reason why I decided to show mine was because I'm going to be doing future videos on conceal carry (What I carry, how I carry, ect...), so it's not going to be a big secret. That being said, I'm not running around telling everyone, or texting all my friends "I just got my CHL!". The people who I do tell, are going to find out one way or another, so I've just been sharing the whole process with them since the beginning, and they've all been supportive and several are wanting to get theirs as well.

Also showing it shows that I am licensed to carry (That I'm not a liar) and I'm not breaking any laws by doing so. That way anybody watching the video doesn't think I'm illegally carrying, and hopefully it encourages people to legally carry. Sometimes when I see conceal carry videos on youtube I think "Is this person really licensed? Or are they just saying so?". This answers that question.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say about that. (Read in Hickok45's voice)

PS,

Thanks for all the complements. If anyone is wondering, the cam is a Edelbrock Performer RPM series. I believe 7102 is the number.

[Oldgringo]

You didn't with your license plate, bad.

I appreciate your concern, but I don't care about people seeing my license plate. Thousands of people see it all the time. Things that are easily visible to the public I don't try to hide from people on the internet. If a criminal wanted to get my information there are other venues. Also, if they wanted to get information from a person's license plate all they would have to do is walk outside. People might disagree, but that's how I view it, and they're free to do what they want just as I'm free to do what I want. Personally, I'm more concerned about all the thugs at the weekly car show than I am the ones on the internet hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Y'all raise good points about being discrete with your CHLs and I agree. The main reason why I decided to show mine was because I'm going to be doing future videos on conceal carry (What I carry, how I carry, ect...), so it's not going to be a big secret. That being said, I'm not running around telling everyone, or texting all my friends "I just got my CHL!". The people who I do tell, are going to find out one way or another, so I've just been sharing the whole process with them since the beginning, and they've all been supportive and several are wanting to get theirs as well.

Also showing it shows that I am licensed to carry (That I'm not a liar) and I'm not breaking any laws by doing so. That way anybody watching the video doesn't think I'm illegally carrying, and hopefully it encourages people to legally carry. Sometimes when I see conceal carry videos on youtube I think "Is this person really licensed? Or are they just saying so?". This answers that question.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say about that. (Read in Hickok45's voice)

PS,

Thanks for all the complements. If anyone is wondering, the cam is a Edelbrock Performer RPM series. I believe 7102 is the number.

[LabRat]

You didn't with your license plate, bad.

I appreciate your concern, but I don't care about people seeing my license plate. Thousands of people see it all the time. Things that are easily visible to the public I don't try to hide from people on the internet. If a criminal wanted to get my information there are other venues. Also, if they wanted to get information from a person's license plate all they would have to do is walk outside. People might disagree, but that's how I view it, and they're free to do what they want just as I'm free to do what I want. Personally, I'm more concerned about all the thugs at the weekly car show than I am the ones on the internet hundreds or thousands of miles away.....{snip}

I hear you and I understand your reference.

However, seeing your license plate in the vastness of America's highways with hundreds of other cars is one thing.
You're awash in anonymity...like hiding in plain sight.
Everyone "sees" it, but not everyone "notices" it.

Now, you've narrowed that focus to "just" your license plate. It's only when people notice things, that they become curious. Maybe more curious that you'd like to be subject to.

That's all we're saying. No knocks on what you decide to do; just some friendly advice.

LabRat

[Blake]

You're awash in anonymity...like hiding in plain sight.

I don't know about that... A '77 Z28 kind of stands out... A lot. I always have people looking, waving, ect... I've even caught guys sitting in it. People are always curious about the car and ask tons of questions. The most common ones being "What year?", "How much?", and "What engine do you have in that thing?".

Also, if you want to say it blends in on the street, you could say it blends in on the internet too... look at all these '77 Z28s that don't hide their plates. I'm not saying that because they don't that means it's okay, just that I don't believe the risk to be any higher on the internet than in real life. You don't see very many old Camaros in real life, but they're all over the internet.

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

These are just a few of many, and these are all '77 Z28s. Think about ALL the classic cars, or all the cars period.

Anyways, y'all do what you want and have fun doing it.

[RetNavy]

Guess you can say this is a First Out of State carried since i received my plastic Mar 1st... Went to Joplin Missouri this weekend with my wife.... since had to drive through Oklahoma checked up on laws there... concealed carry ok... transport carry ok.... wasn't even really worried about gun buster signs since you have to be asked to leave if in a place that have them... which brings to my point.... stopped in McAllistor at a convenient store for a pit stop... didn't notice the no gun sign until up to the door even though was looking for one.... decided to carry any in anyhow.. (actually think the bladder decided for me).... while waiting for my wife there was a different attendant at the counter than when i entered.... stood by the door just waiting for wife saw that she was on the phone talking in low voice... after wife showed up we bought something just because we used the store and was heading towards the door when a city LEO walked in.... we both said Hello to each other and went on our business... wife asked if I was carrying and I said yes... was i worried that the attendant might have been calling the police... thought about it but also rationalized that i needed to asked to leave first..... did heart miss a beat when the LEO walked in.... possibly two... but also used same rationalization... all in all been a good weekend.... carried everywhere i went in MO... moral of the story.... check local laws before leaving..

[maximus2161]

Nice video. I also make YouTube videos. Basically on gear reviews and knife reviews. I remember when I first started carrying I had all these ridiculous worries like I would be in the grocery store and my magazine would magically eject and hit the ground and bullets would spill out or something. That went away pretty quick :)

Though I was in the check out line at the grocery store once and my kid was next to me and bumped into me and smacked his head on the butt of my gun and said "Owww daddy! I hit my head on your gun!" I just smiled at the cashier and left.

[The Annoyed Man]

Blake, like you, I think that sometimes people's desire for personal security on the Internet can approach the paranoid..............

............BUT............

I do think there is a sort of minimum standard that makes sense. For instance, before I will post any closeup picture of one of my firearms, I'll make sure that the serial number is blurred out if it is otherwise visible in the picture. I don't post my address on public forums or Facebook, although because I am a business owner who works out of his home and my business has an Internet presence (I own a small website design and hosting business), a little due diligence on the part of a bad guy will eventually turn up my address. But, I'm not going to make it deliberately easy for someone with malicious intent.

I'm not so much worried about a home invasion while I am at home. Anyone with that career in mind who tracked me down via my Internet presence would have learned in the process that this would be one way to ensure getting shot down most ricky-tick. Between my wife and myself, they would be met with a mixture of 12 gauge, 5.56 NATO, .45 ACP, and 9mm. For me, I am less worried about what might happen to me and mine than I am worried about what might happen inside my home when I am NOT there to defend it. I don't have the largest or most varied gun collection on this forum, but I own a LOT more guns than the average bear. I keep them locked in a safe, and I have a pretty good home alarm system. I also have a largish (boxer/lab mix) dog who will eat your butt if you enter the house uninvited. But, none of those layers of security will stop a determined thief who knows that I am not there to defend the home, and the catastrophe of such an event isn't just the dollar loss in personal property to me--I have homeowner's insurance--or the loss of items to which I have an emotional attachment; it's that I would have armed a criminal with a wide variety of weapons that would make him a dangerous man indeed.

THAT is why I don't put up pictures of my license plate, or my gun serial numbers, on the Internet. You have a drop-dead gorgeous car. Yeah, it's "just a car", but think about what it would mean to you to open your garage one day and see an empty spot where you last parked your car. The problem with posting your license plate on the web isn't so much what someone might do to you, it's that anyone who cares to now knows where they can find a really nice Camaro for the taking. When I was still single and living back in California, my then girlfriend's father drove a very nice, and fairly rare Porsche with a racing pedegree. He kept it parked at night inside a locked garage with an alarm system on it. One morning, he came out to go to work, and found his garage door open, the alarm system bypassed, and the car gone..............and it had happened while they were all at home! They had not heard a thing. The thieves had backed a flat bed tow truck into the driveway, opened the garage, popped the locks on the Porsche doors, rolled it out of the garage and winched it up onto the tilted flat bed, all without making enough noise to wake up either my girlfriend's family OR their neighbors, whose house was right next to my girlfriend's driveway. The car was never seen again, by anybody. It was rare enough that it would have stood out if anyone had been driving it. No. The thieves almost certainly parted it out, and pieces from it were used to soup up other Porsche-owners' cars.

This event predates the Internet, taking place around 1980 or so, but somebody knew that there was a very nice Porsche to be taken at precisely her family's address--this was a planned theft and not a chance occurrence--and they used that information to abscond with the car. When you post your car with the license plate number clearly visible, you are advertising to potential thieves where they may find a really nice Camaro. Your car is very unique, and like you said, it really stands out. No thief with half a brain is going to try to sell your Camaro as an intact car to anyone but a chop shop. It will be torn apart, parted out, and never seen again. Thieves like that are not interested in confronting you or your family. This being Texas, they will probably even assume that you are armed, and they will understand that there is no percentage in threatening you or your loved ones. But unless that car is your daily driver (and I suspect that it is not), then they will simply wait until you and your wife are at work and your kids at school, and they'll rip you off while you're not there to stop them.

Also, with gun serial numbers in particular, the less the federal gummint knows about me or what I own, the happier I am. Unless things change, the day might easily come when we are "asked" (at the point of a gun) to surrender any firearms of a certain type....or of any type. I don't want to make things easier for them....but that's a separate discussion.

Anyway, the whole point of this isn't about what people might do to you, although that certainly has some small possibility, it is about what people might do to your stuff, which has a much higher probability. In my mind, listing a half dozen other YouTube videos of Camaros with license plates visible isn't proof that theft won't happen; it is proof that there are at least a half dozen other people out there who do not take the security of their property very seriously.

I'm not saying that you don't take it seriously, what I'm saying is that you can always do better at it. We all can. I hope you read this in the spirit intended..........just friendly advice.

[strider67]

Great video. Great car. Long way from WalMart!
Welcome to The Forum!

Between my wife and myself, they would be met with a mixture of 12 gauge, 5.56 NATO, .45 ACP, and 9mm.

[TEA]

Abraham raises a question above. I've not been secretive about my CH license. Should it be a secret?

Yes. A CHL is top secret.

Mine came with a decoder ring.

Nice video and car. I'm surprised you didn't have "Radar Love" blasting on your 8 track, though.

[jmra]

Abraham raises a question above. I've not been secretive about my CH license. Should it be a secret?

Yes. A CHL is top secret.

Mine came with a decoder ring.

Nice video and car. I'm surprised you didn't have "Radar Love" blasting on your 8 track, though.

I will be on the phone with DPS Monday morning. Very upset they failed to send my decoder ring.