More Thoughts About Home Carry and Fanny Packs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJK4n1z29ag&feature=player_embedded

Br’er Kozak expresses some surprise that Fearless Leader and his wife carry “pretty much every waking moment.” (30 Days to Conceal Carry, Day 3). Well, guys and gals, I may be a newcomer to this site but I’ve been scouring the internet for firearm-related news – which I share via my own mailing list – for about 14 years now. It still pains me every time I read about a home invasion and learn that one or more family members suffered damage until one of the innocent parties was finally able to access a firearm somewhere in the home. As soon as I’m out of the shower, my normal complement of revolvers is riding in holsters on my belt and in one pocket . . .

If, for some reason, my shower is delayed, there’s still one revolver in a pocket, to allow me to make my way to the .223 carbine that comes out of its locking rack when I bed down every night and goes back after the morning shower.

Pet peeves of mine include internet commandos who hold forth in the forums about which guns they carry in what holsters as they go through the seasons of the year and as they make their risk assessments, going through each day. I may not be the smartest bear in Jellystone Park but I like to think that I’m smarter than the average bear and that entails learning both from my own experiences and those of others.

In the first category, I experienced four high-threat incidents in just under 20 years, back in California. I was unarmed in the first one and was forced to draw but not fire in the last one. Two were inside businesses, one at a major intersection and one was in the driveway of my own home. Times of day varied from broad daylight to oh-dark hundred. What did they all have in common? No telegram, certified letter or phone call advising me, “Steve, today’s the day – or night – that you will find yourself in harm’s way.”

In the second category, my former shooting partner, now retired from the L.A, Sheriff’s Department, told me about the day he was working in “soft clothes” and spotted someone with outstanding felony warrants. When he reached to his belt holster for his revolver, it wasn’t there. That night, the shoulder holster went into a drawer, where it remains to this day. Invaluable lesson, learned at no personal cost? Don’t vary your mode of carry. Personally, I don’t even vary the guns.

Br’er Kozak seems to have learned the downside of fanny packs. I have a major page on my own website on holster selection. If you can’t find a conventional holster that will work for you, I think the Safepacker from The Wilderness is a better compromise than a fanny pack.

When my German Shepherd Dog takes me for a hike in the woods, I don’t care to leave my normal carry guns in a truck parked in an isolated area. The “bear repellent,” in the form of a four-inch S&W Model 629 gets slung in a Safepacker on a shoulder strap. I don’t own stock in the company but I like this product. It can be worn on the belt, on the safety belt of a vehicle, carried – hopefully only for very brief periods – in the hand and even affixed to the side of the bed overnight by insert the cover flap between the mattress and ther box-spring.