Holster selection is a tricky business. You need to carefully consider comfort, caliber and covertnessosityittude. You also need to make sure your holster has a proper grip on your gun: loose enough to allow efficient presentation (ta-da!) and tight enough to keep your gun from falling out during strenuous activities. Which, for OFWGs, could be as simple as bending down. Just ask baseball-loving granddad Richard Gransee . . .
Roger Gransee of Whitewater said he was acting as catcher as his granddaughter warmed up for her 12-and-under fastpitch game Sunday when he lost the handgun . . .
Roger Gransee said he usually keeps his gun on his waistband, but he had taken off his shirt on the warm day and didn’t want it showing through his T-shirt, so he clipped the holstered gun in his boot. He suspects the gun slipped out as he was kneeling. He didn’t notice it was gone until he arrived home that evening.
Gransee said he returned to the ball field early the next morning but could not find it. He continued to retrace his steps and finally called police.
Gransee figured someone found the gun and turned it in.
“Thank goodness somebody did,” he said.
gazetteextra.com doesn’t tell us how Mr. Gransee managed to “clip” his Taurus PT738 into his boot. I suspect he was keeping his gun in his waistband with a simple Uncle Mike’s-style holster. Failing to recognize that Inside-the-Waistband holster doesn’t do double-duty as a proper boot holster, he stashed his gat in his footwear and forgot it. Until he didn’t.
Thank goodness no one was hurt! Only, someone could still be. Specifically, someone victimized by a bad guy who could’ve been stopped by a legal concealed weapons carrier but wasn’t because the good guy with a gun couldn’t carry a gun at the ballpark thanks to a gun ban inspired by Mr. Gransee’s bone-headed pistol packing improvisation.
The possibility of banning guns at games was discussed at a Janesville Youth Baseball board meeting this week.
[President of Janesville Youth Baseball and a Janesville police sergeant Aaron] Ellis, said the situation is complicated because it appears state law does not allow cities to ban concealed carry in parks, but the baseball group leases Youth Sports Complex fields from the city.
“My choice would be to be able to post it ‘no concealed carry.’ If that option is available to us, I think that’s the way we’re going to go,” Ellis said.
Irresponsible gun owners hurt us all. Don’t be “that guy.” That is all.