When were you comfortable carrying?

From a relatively new OCer,
I just wanted to post a question. When did you finally feel "comfortable" with your decision to carry?

For me, it took a lot of time. Coming from a family where guns were ALWAYS in the house (rifles mostly, and the .44 magnum my father hated) I was taught to fear them. I was taught never touch them or face your father's wrath. I was taught they WILL take a life in the wrong hands. I was taught, though, how to use them fairly efficiently and accurately. Pistols were always viewed as wrong. Any man can feed his family with a rifle. A pistol is worthless. This was my father's opinion and one I had to learn to overcome.

I never understood what my dad meant, and still wonder. I'm guessing it's a hunting reference to killing for food as he so expertly did for the low income household I grew up in. My dad is old fashioned.

I had a lot to get out of my head. The Army did most of it. Our MPs carried 9mm Berettas, the gun I absolutely fell in love with. It's what I'm most comfortable with and can strip, clean, repair (if need be), and return to service. Carrying, even CC, worried me. I had my daughter sitting behind me and carrying "Vera" (my 9mm) in my shoulder rig made me nervous. I'd carry her unloaded most of the time with 2 mags on my right side and one in my wife's purse. I then had to get to know my weapon.

I fired her, cleaned her, and called her George (OK, not George). It took time and was NOT something I was comfortable with overnight. I wasn't scared to have her or fire her, it was the carrying part, in public. I'm just curious. How long did it take for you to gain confidence in your weapon and be comfortable to carry her OC.

OT: I know not much about the 1911 so will be asking at Starbuck's how it's safe to carry with the hammer back. Please, be kind. I know little about many handguns. If it's not a Glock, a 9mm, or similar, I'm clueless but WILLING to learn.

Thanks for reading. I just felt I needed to post. Comments welcomed! :monkey

Goose

Welcome to the wonderful world of OCDO. (OK, belatedly, Welcome.)

Getting "comfortable" OCing took about a week. I needed to get used to the redistribution of weight and how my body leaned this or that way as I moved to compensate for the mass hanging off my belt. It also took a bit of time to get used to moving through space - adding an extra couple of inches to the amount of room needed to clear tight areas or not bump into people in crowds.

Then we get to the fun part - getting used to dealing with how other people react to me OCing. That took some time. Not so much because I got a lot of negative feedback, but because I started out a bit too far over into paranoia about other people getting too close to my handgun side. I wasn't so much worried about possible gun grabs - although that did enter my mind - as I was about having to draw while being crowded in on my someone. I got over that with practice and training which included just walking about in "normal" crowds (doing my grocery shoppping, getting coffee, wandering the malls) and mentally imaging draws.

As for the safety of your gun vis-a-vis other people (your daughter, for example). If yu keep your booger hook off the bang switch, and everybody else's too, there should be no problem. Modern handguns do not go off by themselves unless there is a rare manufacturing defect of you have Bubba'd it. Yes, a lot of folks get all in a snit about horizontal holsters because the muzzle is pointing at someone. My opinion is that as long as the holster retains the handgun securely and covers the trigger there is nothing to get worked up about. YMMV considerably.

In closing, JMB (pbohn) designed the 1911 to be carried in condition 1 (round chambered), cocked & locked with the safety engaged. Generations have followed his wisdom with nary a mishap. Save yourself some embarassment at Starbucks (you were goping to ask the other OC-ers and not the barista, right?) and just ask them to explain the various safties on a 1911.

stay safe.

Goose said:

From a relatively new OCer,
I just wanted to post a question. When did you finally feel "comfortable" with your decision to carry?

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I'd love to achieve such "status." Instead, each time I'm out open carrying I am brought to the reality that this should not be necessary! People should be nice to one another! We should care for one another, treat one another with dignity and respect. Take care of our young, those who are less fortunate, as well as our elderly!

Two weeks ago I built two ramps so that one of my Mom's friends who is suffering from MS could navigate her way into my parent's home without impediment in a special wheelchair. On a test run last week, she was able to navigate her way in and out without impediment - mission accomplished.

If you want to know what "makes me tick," that's what makes me tick. She never made the party. She's still alive, but was in the hospital with a serious infection during the party.

I'm sorry, but the comfort level about which you speak hasn't happened yet, and probably won't happen in my lifetime. I'm a lover, not a fighter! But bad people kill people. I wish we could capture and incarcerate them all, but as CS Lewis once said, "If the only way you can stop a truly bad man is by killing him, then I supposed that is what you must do."

For me, it took a lot of time. Like forever. I'm still not there.

Even though I came from a family where guns were always in the house, I was never taught to fear them. They were tools, nothing more, nothing less, and was given free (albeit monitored) access to them, along with all the other tools in my father's garage, in which I learned how to fix and rebuild cars. My grandfather started out with a .22 and a .410 which he used on the farm to hunt food. He'd have used it in a heartbeat to protect his family from crime, but was spared from such occasion.

I never understood what my dad meant, and still wonder. I'm guessing it's a hunting reference to killing for food as he so expertly did for the low income household I grew up in. My dad is old fashioned.

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Sounds all to familiar!

I had a lot to get out of my head. The Army did most of it. Our MPs carried 9mm Berettas, the gun I absolutely fell in love with. It's what I'm most comfortable with and can strip, clean, repair (if need be), and return to service. Carrying, even CC, worried me. I had my daughter sitting behind me and carrying "Vera" (my 9mm) in my shoulder rig made me nervous. I'd carry her unloaded most of the time with 2 mags on my right side and one in my wife's purse.

...

How long did it take for you to gain confidence in your weapon and be comfortable to carry her OC?

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I know not much about the 1911 so will be asking at Starbuck's how it's safe to carry with the hammer back.

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It's never safe to carry with the hammer back, and doing so makes you look like a retarded, war-mongering idiot! And if you have the safety on, now, you now have two steps to stop a perp, instead of one! Sheer lunacy!

If your state allows, please carry it in Condition Two, hammar forward, but with a round in the chamber. As with 99% of all semi-autos on the planet, a simple draw and fire are all that's required to drop a bad guy from this condition.

Please, be kind. I know little about many handguns. If it's not a Glock, a 9mm, or similar, I'm clueless but WILLING to learn.

Thanks for reading. I just felt I needed to post. Comments welcomed!

Goose

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I think I can speak for nearly everyone here when I say that 99.9% of us would never carry if we didn't have to, if there weren't a real and credible threat out there. For one, even at 2.6 lbs, it's just too much dang weight! As it is, we had a car stolen last night here in town, and since Christmas there have been nearly 50 armed robberies of businesses or persons.

In answer to your question: never. If you ever become "one with your gun," you've gone over the edge. This adage applies as much to us as it did with the Marine Corps in the 1940s. It's a weapon, a tool for inflicting force on another person for whom other means of force, including the law, and perhaps verbal commands such as "Put it down! Put the knife down!" are willingly disregarded by the other person.

Carrying a firearm is preemptory to using deadly force in the line of defense of self or others. If you're not willing to split another man's head in two in defense of yourself or your family, you have absolutely no business carrying a firearm.

I myself have a difficult time with it, and wish the criminals would simply go away. But as a career military veteran who signed up for the job and have been trained out the wazoo to take care of business, I am just as ready to pull the trigger on a perp as I was ready to release twenty nuclear cruise missiles on their targets during the cold war back when I was a Navigator aboard B-52s.

Then, as now, I pray to God it never becomes necessary to do so. But then, as now, if it does, I will not hesitate to pull the trigger on a bad guy.

Since9, the 1911 platform is designed to be carried hammer back. It IS safe to do.

I think I may be in the minority, but I didn't have to "get used" to OC. It felt natural the first time I did so, and still feels natural.

Without getting in to the "wish we didn't have to carry" argument, I think the idea simply has always been "better safe than sorry."

I cannot remember when my father did not have handguns. I recall sitting around the kitchen table with him and his friends, and most of the time there was a gun being passed around (one of my first safety lessons -- it may be passed from person to person to person, but EVERY SINGLE ONE of them checked for a round before doing anything else). I recall asking my dad why he carried (in MA, without a permission slip) and he reminded me of the McDonalds shooting in California. He told me "If I'd been there, there would not be 12 dead. Someone would be; let's not be stupid. But there would not be 12 dead.")

I started open carrying shortly after I moved to Virginia in 2002. The only negative reactions I've had have been at "educational meetings" held by antis and from protesters who are "afraid to be around guns" but protest events frequented by groups of gun owners.

since9, please tell me you are not really saying that a 1911in Condition 2 is safe. I have a lot of respect for your opinion and would hate for this to come between us.

@ OP, the safety on a 1911 can only be engaged with the hammer back, and there is no decocker. To lower the hammer for 'Condition 2' carry, you would have to pull the trigger. This is not safe, and cannot be made safe. You would be asking for a negligent discharge.

'Bout 50 yards past the New Mexico border comin' outt'a Texas on my way here (the final time). Other than that... (in a civilian capacity) wherever it was legal to do so... goin' back to before it became illegal to do so.

It's never safe to carry with the hammer back, and doing so makes you look like a retarded, war-mongering idiot! And if you have the safety on, now, you now have two steps to stop a perp, instead of one! Sheer lunacy!

If your state allows, please carry it in Condition Two, hammar forward, but with a round in the chamber. As with 99% of all semi-autos on the planet, a simple draw and fire are all that's required to drop a bad guy from this condition.

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I hope Since 9 you made this erroneous statement because you are not familiar with the 1911 pistol. Your advice might be ok for a DA/SA pistol but if you did this to a 1911 being carried in it's proper cocked and locked position nothing would happen.

It is SA and has both a grip safety for the trigger and a hammer safety which locks the hammer and slide. As mentioned, there is no safe way to decock it for condition 2 carry

Hope your post was because you are not familiar with the 1911

Tess said:

I think I may be in the minority, but I didn't have to "get used" to OC. It felt natural the first time I did so, and still feels natural.

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Tess, me too, and my first OC was in VA because I live in Marylandistan where we can't carry (yet.)

The other thing that made me relax was the total non event it was and cointinues to be, even in uber liberal NOVA. You live in a great state,.