You’ve decided to carry a concealed firearm and that’s great! Before you dive head first into it, let’s go over a few tips that will help you on your way to successfully and safely carrying your firearm.

This article will touch on 10 Tips for the newbies, and will also serve as a refresher for those that have been carrying for years. Remember, you can never train enough.

Tip #1: Buy Multiple Holsters before Multiple Firearms

Choosing a firearm and accompanying holster can be an intimidating task, and you’re sure to end up with a drawer full of holsters until you find the one that’s right for you. Getting situated with a comfortable system is extremely important. Not only will it be the safest way for you to carry, but it will also help you carry every day (because it’s comfortable). So many people decide to leave their firearms at home because they don’t like the way their holster feels. Don’t be that person. Find a great holster that you love, then maybe get yourself a new firearm.

Tip #2: Wear your Holster, Belt and Firearm Around The House First

Some call this stupid, I call it proactive. If you don’t know exactly how your new setup will act while you’re out and about, you could have something unintentional happen such as your firearm dropping to the floor or accidentally exposing it to people around you. Neither of these will result in a good day.

Take your time with your new setup and get familiar with it. When you sit down, pay attention to it’s orientation. When you stand up, see if your holster has shifted around while you were seated. It’s better to figure these things out in the privacy of your own home vs out in public which leads me to the next tip.

Tip #3: Don’t Touch It, You’ll Only Draw Attention

On a few different occasions, I’ve picked people out of a crowd that were carrying a concealed firearm. How? They gave it away by adjusting and fidgeting with their setup in public. People do notice this, and it will draw attention. If you feel that your holster or firearm has shifted, wait to check it until you’re in a private area such as your vehicle or a rest room. If you’ve practiced Tip #2 enough, you should know exactly how your holster should feel if it ever moves out of place. If it doesn’t feel like that, keep your hands to yourself.

Tip #4: Keep Your Carry Firearm Stock

I love fancy gadgets just as much as the next guy, however I have a very strict policy with keeping my concealed carry firearms completely stock (with the exception of sights). The reason is simple: The manufacturer has spent a whole lot of time and money to make your firearm work correctly. If you start adding aftermarket parts like triggers and slide release levers, you are opening yourself up to failures.

Some people will debate this all day and never be satisfied with my answer, but I’m sticking to it and offering it up as a suggestion.

Tip #5: Don’t Act Like You Have A Gun

Very often, new carriers will act a little nervous while out in the public eye. If you aren’t playing with your firearm and it’s concealed properly, no one knows that you’re carrying it. Relax, take a deep breath, and go about your normal daily routine.

Tip #6: Actually Practice And Train With Your Setup

So incredibly important that I cannot stress this enough. It’s great that you want to carry, but even greater if you are as familiar with your firearm and cc setup as you are with the back of your hand. Take yourself to the range and practice drawing from concealment. Practice with different clothing on as well. Your draw will be different if you’re wearing a t-shirt than it is if you’re wearing a winter jacket. Be prepared for any situation.

Tip #7: Always Practice Safe Firearm Handling

Remember the 3 Rules of Firearm Safety? Recite them and practice them each and every time you’re around a firearm. If you pick up your firearm and safety check it, then set it back down, and then a minute later pick it up again, you should be safety checking it again. Any time that a firearm leaves your physical possession, you should be safety checking it the moment you pick it up again. Trust me when I say that it’s not overkill. If everyone were to do this without fail, negligent discharges would diminish close to zero.

Tip #8: Don’t Advertise

Telling your immediate family and very close friends is one thing, but advertising it beyond that is not usually the best of ideas. Don’t give away your carry location either. One wrong person that has this information would get an advantage over you. Retain your element of surprise by keeping this information as private as possible.

Tip #9: Be Confident With Carrying A Round In The Chamber

Laugh all you want, old timers. The fact remains, many people that are new to carrying are at first afraid of carrying with one in the pipe. If you never were, just move along. This section isn’t for everyone.

Tip #10: Have Fun And Stay Safe

Absolutely, carrying a firearm is a serious matter. But, it doesn’t need to be stressful or intimidating. If you’ve got a setup that you’re happy with and fits comfortably, you’re ahead of the game. The fact that you’re carrying at all is a testament to how much you value life and safety. Maintain this attitude, gain as much knowledge as you can on the topic, and carry on.

I started hunting with my dad at a very young age and took a hunter’s safety course as a requirement by my Dad.  In that course we were taught that mechanical safeties are by definition “mechanical devices prone to failure.” This has stuck with me throughout my years of shooting and even more so now that I am an instructor.

Many people have the misconception that these mechanical devices automatically make a gun “safe” and therefore you can let your guard down about the firearms safety rules once they are engaged. This leads to complacency and dangerous behavior. The thought that this mechanical lever or button is going to prevent someone from firing a gun if they gain access to it is far from reality. But due to the name of these devices, uninformed people assume they instantly make a gun “safe.”

Due to these misconceptions, I believe that calling mechanical safeties a “safety” actually leads to firearms being more dangerous — the idea that once you “turn the safety on” you can ignore the standard rules of firearms handling.  Following the rules of safe gun handling does not end because you utilize a mechanical safety. Instead, if you choose to own or carry a firearm that requires the use of a mechanical safety, you should make an even greater effort to follow the basic safety rules of gun handling due to these firearms having more likelihood of an accidental discharge if you forget to engage the mechanical safety.

There are many versions of the basic safety rules. To me, these three are the most fundamental:

1. ALWAYS KEEP THE GUN POINTED IN A SAFE DIRECTION. This is rule #1 for a reason. A safe direction means a direction in which, if the gun were to go off, it would likely not cause injury or damage. If you forget every other rule in the book and follow this one, even if the gun goes off, it will not hurt or kill anyone.

2. ALWAYS KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO SHOOT. Ready to fire means you are ready for the bullet to leave the gun. Even if the gun is pointed at the target, you do not place your finger on the trigger until you are ready for the bullet to come out of the muzzle.

3. ALWAYS KEEP THE GUN UNLOADED UNTIL READY TO USE.  This is the best safety for making a gun “safe.” Whenever you pick up a gun, always check to see if the gun is loaded, remove the ammunition source, open the action, visually and physically inspect the chamber and magazine area, which should be clear of ammunition.  If you do not know how to open the action or inspect the chamber leave the gun alone and get help from someone who does.

Utilizing these safety rules as the foundation for everything you do with firearms and will keep you and others around you much safer than learning to use a mechanical safety.

Why I Don’t Have Safeties on My Defensive Pistol

I teach my defensive pistol students that if they ever need to utilize lethal force, they will most likely be surprised by the attack. After all, if you are expecting to need to use deadly force, you will avoid the confrontation if at all possible rather than preparing for it. This means you will need to react quickly under severe mental and physical stress. Your body will react in many ways, including the loss of fine motor skills. Operating a mechanical safety is a fine motor skill that will be difficult even with training under this kind of stress.

Without the pressure of someone attacking, I see people fumble the operation of a mechanical safety during training. This delay could mean the difference between your attacker being on top of you or not. It is now an accepted fact that the average person can cover a distance of approximately 21 feet in the time it takes a trained individual to draw and fire their defensive handgun (approximately 1.5 seconds).

Conclusions

Although mechanical safeties are intended to prevent accidents and injury, they can actually lead to lapses in normal safety procedures and result in injury. Combine this with the fact that in a defensive encounter, safeties could cause a delay in being able to protect ourselves or our loved ones.

Many people say that they train to work their safety. Only being in a defensive encounter would let us know if that training worked. My suggestion is to utilize that time practicing the two main rules of safe gun handling and get a defensive firearm that does not require the extra steps.

One of the most frequent questions that I get as a CCW instructor is what to do if stopped by a police
officer while legally carrying a concealed handgun. The answer depends on the local and state laws where you live, but I think that most situations merely call for a little common sense.

You have to understand that when a police officer approaches a vehicle, they have no idea what they are going to encounter.  Every traffic stop has the potential to be deadly, and every officer has been through hours of training reminding them of just how serious of a situation it can be.

So what does this mean if you get stopped while carrying? The first thing is that you have to do to make the situation easy and clear for the officer. Pull off the side of the road far enough, if possible, to give the officer enough room to approach your vehicle without having to worry about oncoming traffic. Roll your window down, place both hands on the steering wheel and leave them there until told to do otherwise. The first thing the officer is going to want to see is your hands, because that is where any threat is going to come from. If it is dark outside, take the added step of turning on your vehicle’s interior light; it is just one more thing that shows you’re looking out for his safety. It’s your responsibly and common courtesy as a CCW holder to remove as many perceived threats as possible from the situation.

This is not the time to start digging in your glove box or center console for your insurance card or registration. To an approaching officer, that looks surprisingly like someone reaching for a gun. This is also not the time to jump out of your vehicle and walk back towards the officer. Although your tag number, vehicle description and location should already have been called in before the blue lights come on, there may be radio communications occupying his or her attention. Seeing a driver exit their vehicle and start walking back raises all kinds of warning alarms as the officer thinks back to their training on how many deadly encounters started that way.

Once the officer approaches and begins speaking with you, make sure that he/she knows you have your CCW permit and if you are currently carrying, than ask the office for instructions.  The officer should be giving very specific directions to control your actions, so do exactly as told.  If asked for your identification, let the officer know where it is and what you have to do to retrieve it, and you don’t do anything without letting the officer know beforehand.   The officer controls the traffic stop from start to finish. Let him/her do that. Any issues can be dealt with through a supervisor after the fact.

If you follow the above guidelines, you’ll find that the majority of officers will show appreciation for it. They will recognize the efforts that you took, and it may even influence how they handle the initial reason for the stop.  A CCW holder identifying themselves is mandatory and could also relieve apprehensions during a stop, for Office’s already know up front you passed a background check, had been through training, and presented little threat during a stop. Rather than raising tensions, it eased them.

One last word. If you carry, make sure that you know the laws in your jurisdiction and those
jurisdictions you're legally allowed to carry, and make sure that, unless directed otherwise, your handgun stays out of view during a traffic stop.