Will you be dressing up for Halloween this year? Seems like more adults are doing it these days. Why not keep things real with a real gun? Like strapping on your cowboy action shooting rig and going to parties as Wyatt Earp. Or breaking out a shoulder holster and a Model 29 to go as Dirty Harry? Maybe a WWII GI, complete with a Garand and holstered 1911. If you break open the gun safe for authenticity, would you go loaded or unloaded? Will you have the most realistic costume in the neighborhood when you meet the trick-or-treaters at the door?   [h/t Don N.]
Sort of like an extreme open carry event. But yeah if I wasn’t dressed as management all day and thus not allowed to do the costume thing I would have had my grandadies old SA Colt and called everyone pilgrim all day
Too easy to find airsoft or non-firing replicas in my opinion. If you are just taking your kids around the neighborhoods… its probably okay (I conceal carry on Halloween myself); however if you are attending a party with alcohol, I would advise against it.
+1
Nate’s nailed it. Alcohol and firearms are not a stellar combo.
Yup. I could just see some moron grabbing the gun and pulling the trigger as a joke because they thought it was a prop (if you do carry, then have gun unloaded in that instance).
In the 90s I lived in Manhattan and 1 year dressed as the Terminator. I carried around my UNLOADED Mosssberg Cruiser for authenticity. I could have went to jail for that. Stupid eh?
I’m Canadian, so if I did I’d certainly get arrested and charged even if you can technically walk around with an unloaded non restricted firearm all you want.
Airsoft would present the same hassle.
I generally think Mr. Zimmerman is a thoughtful and interesting contributor to TTAG but this “Halloween Question” is nothing but gratuitous nonsense.
I’m not altogether sure that so called adults who give this much thought to Halloween costumes retain the critical judgement necessary to own guns.
Please tell me this is an ill considered joke.
I don’t dress up anyways, It’s always been more for kids in my neck of the woods. And I value my firearms and my families well being to much to risk it using them as a prop.
I don’t dress up to go trick-or-treating. That became inappropriate when I started high school.
On the other hand, if my family or my spouse and I are invited to a party where we’re asked to come in costume, then yes I will be a good sport and come up with a costume. Why should I cause drama with my spouse or disappoint my kids by refusing?
Perhaps you might consider that there are situations where not dressing in costume would be the socially unacceptable thing to do.
Too high of a probability for a “Show and Tell”. If I’m likely to pull out a gun in a social environment like Halloween, it will be an airsoft replica. A ‘ND’ in that situation would make the headlines of every paper in the westernized world.
Re-enactments that portray the Civil War, the Old West, and WWII are probably fine for bringing along a real piece provided it goes with the rules of the sponsoring organization. Dressing up in a costume with a real gun is asking for controversy much like those air-head punks who paraded around major urban areas with unloaded long guns because they had the “right”. Now, those “rights” are being taken back and they gave gun owners a black eye. We are at a time when more Americans who were previously anti-gun are now becoming pro-gun. I see no reason to go out of the way to make people uncomfortable at a Halloween Party or elsewhere. Good PR is something we all need to be responsible for with our behavior as gun owners.
I have no objection to celebrating the pagan holiday that got twisted into Halloween, but open carry is illegal in most places in Arkansas unless it’s to an approved event. I’m allergic to children, anyway.
LOL!!! Yea haven’t developed that allergy yet. Definitely carry concealed on Halloween tho’. Too easy to be the victim of a crime on a day when 90% of the local population will have on some type of mask!!
Grown ups don’t do this silly crap. Besides, it’s pagan.
Well it’s good you’re keeping an open mind. Sometimes people like to have fun. You should try it some time.
No, I won’t. To be blunt, it’s a stupid idea. Concealed, sure.
I’m actually hoping this was more or less of a troll blogpost – meant in jest.
Not in California, I’m not.
Hell, I’m not even sure carrying an Airsoft M4 with an empty mag-well is something I could get away with these days, outside of a private party at someone’s house.
no possible way. not only illegal to open carry in the Peoples Republic of Kali but just dumb PR wise.
I went to last year’s Halloween party. I didn’t even drink or dress up and still had the time of my life. Then again I’m in college so the amount of, ahem, “creatively dressed” young women looking to dance was plentiful. That and an endless flow of booze seems to be the reason why Halloween springs back to life for college kids.
That being said, If I ever had a costume that involved a gun I’d be on the safe side and get one of those solid resin props that can’t even function. I don’t want to be around drunk people with a real trench knife let alone a real firearm.
I dunno…Halloween is one of the clear open carry opportunities out there IMHO. Of course, not if alcohol is involved, as several other posters opined.
Hee! You guys are a buncha sticks in the mud. Halloween is just as fun for grown ups as it is for kids. Why let the tykes have all the giggles? Fine, to each his own….
My wife and I have gone as Indiana Jones and Marion and Booth and Bones. But out of respect for my lefty host, the open bar and the score of roving ankle-biters I left the S&W Hand Ejector out of the Indy costume and used an Airsoft SIG for the G-Man. The best surprise was the host dressed up as Al Capone, complete with an authentic replica of a Tommy gun provided by his gun-loving kid. He confessed his attempts to raise gun-free kids totally backfired. He had my sympathies.
I did. Went over the top tacticool. Harness, dump pouch, 5 mag ar pouch, M-9 on my offhand side of the harness, 1911 in a serpa, M-4gery lashed to my strong side, BDUs and cammo’d face. Had a great time and even educated a few people on the finer points of safety and operation. I am now to take a few to the range and introduce them to the wonderful world of firearms. I was of course unloaded, we were all drinking, so no need for a tragedy.
No…I don’t want to set that example for my kids, or others in the neighborhood. I’ll conceal carry, as i always do. But it seems a little crazy to walk around the hood, openly straped with a rifle while trying to manage my children as well as dodge other kids trying to run past me in search of their next candy spoil. No thanks.
I never wear my ACU’s for Halloween because the ACU’s are a uniform not a costume. A gun is a gun for a specific purpose, not some accoutrement for a Halloween outfit.
When I take my kids trick or treating, I will have my carry gun but it won’t be part of a costume or be in the open at all.
“Will I carry a real gun on Halloween this year?”
Yeah, I home carried this year, and not in costume unless you call jeans and a sweatshirt a costume. Been some problems in the neighborhood recently, plus we have the hurricane coming. Events like storms and pagen holidays are times when my mutant neighbors sometimes feel they need other people’s stuff more than the owners do.
Jeans and a sweatshirt sounds like you dressed up and an OFWG for Halloween
Yep, I’m an old fat tired white guy for sure, just got finished cleaning up hurricane debris at my mom’s place… tree limbs are a lot heavier than they used to be LOL
Hope your mom is ok. Even tho we aren’t close to any of the hurricane damage the photos have shown a lot.
Good luck and God Bless.
i went to my girlfriends haloween party last year dressed as a mafioso type, and brought along a full metal co2 powered uzi. kept it slung the whole time, until some drunk SOB slapped her. i got that full mag out of my pocket and dumped it on him in record time, he still has a few pock-marks under his shirt.
I hope you’re exaggerating. I’ve read the details of two separate civil cases involving one adult intentionally shooting another with a BB or pellet gun and causing permanent harm.
Causing permanent blindness in one eye and impaired vision in the other: $600K civil judgment against the shooter. Yikes.
If I went with a 1911 or some such, I’d have an empty mag in the gun but a loaded mag in my pocket just in case. If I had a SAA or other revolver, I’d have a belt on with ammo on it, but the gun itself empty.
Will I use a real gun on halloween. Only if I encounter real zombies.
New Jersey regulates BB guns, airsoft, sling shots.
If any of these are part of your costume you might have a problem.
I dressed as a hunter last year and carried a BB gun as part of the costume.
i’m not, and dont wory, i kept it center mass to avoid blinding him. You hit a girl, you earned whatever happens next.
Amen! I was always taught and raised to know that you do not hit a woman.
But on the other hand if a man does something like you had happen then it is just proper raising and chivalry to knock him on his ass!!!
I was always told that the Only time a man should ever strike a woman is in self defense. A woman can kill you as quick as a man can.
I remember when I lived in post housing at Ft Hood and the neighbor liked to get drunk an slap his wife around. For a little while before we moved in next door the MP’s were called but nothing done because he was an MP in another unit.
He came home one night about 1am(I remember the time because the yellin woke me up), and as I got out of bed to get dressed and got my .357 I heard 8 really fast bangs. When I got to the door of their quarters her hubby was laying on the floor with 8 holes from a 9mm in his chest and shoulder. He didn’t survive it.
She had a busted lip, broken nose and two teeth knocked out but took his ass out anyways !!!
She was acquitted of murder because all of us neighbors went to court for her and her medical records.
me lighting someone up with a pellet gun doesnt quite compare, but good sh!t.
F it taught the drunk dumbass his lesson then it was quite right.
Better than having to kill him by a far shot!!! Bet he was a sore SOB in the morning!!! Kudo’s to you good sir!!!!
I am dressed as a cowboy this year, and my work won’t even allow me to have a FAKE gun, a toy gun at that. It’s not even a replica or an airsoft gun. They said that if it even looks remotely “real” then I can’t use it. Sad times we live in these days, everyone is so paranoid.
Carve something close out of a bar of green soap. If any one uses foul language around you or around kids just stick the barrel in their mouth and wash it out, rinse and repeat’n