Stash Guns

Tam talks about this, and as a long-time concealed carrier, maybe I should too.  We'll start with a discussion she links to, from a detective working a murder scene:

"One of my very first murder scenes as a uniformed officer was a guy toes up halfway in/halfway out of his door and in his boxer shorts. Someone had dumped a mag of .25 in him. Evidence indicated he was gut shot, fell down, and they they emptied it into his face. I spent over 3 hours clearing guns to transport to the property room for safe keeping until next of kin could be notified. Eleventy bajillion loaded guns in the house, dead on the door step in his boxers."

 Why someone would open a door in his boxer shorts is another quesion, but in several decases of police work, I've seen that more than once.  The point is a guy laying dead in his door, and loaded guns all over the house.  Didn't do him much good, did it?

You never know when someone is going to get the drop on you, and that's a fact.  In 2000, I made a decision to have a gun on my person at all times. It became my default position, being armed.  People ask, sometimes, ask how I carry a gun to _________ (fill in the blanks.  Sometimes it's church, sometimes it's a Little game. you get the point) .

Normally, the first thing I do when I get up in the morning, is slip on a pair of jeans that is hanging at the foot of the bed. The gun is already in those jeans.  It goes with me on my daily travels. This particular gat hasn't been "put away" in over four years.  It gets cleaned and serviced occasionally, but it is the one that rides with me everywhere.

Here's the thing about being armed as a default.  If you ever run into me, and I'm not armed, it is because I made the decision to leave the gun, for reasons that are purely personal and my own.  I may have made the decision for a variety of reasons, but when I'm not packing, I am acutely aware of that fact, and I remedy it as soon as possible.  That familiar heft on my right side is part-and-parcel of my daily attire, and it feels odd when it's not there, like I decided to go out with one shoe.

I liken it to a lady going out without her purse.  Every woman I know carries a purse and when they decide NOT to carry it, that is a conscious decision.  It really is that personal.

It's not a decision for everyone.  I get that, but it's a decision I made sixteen years ago, as an experiment, and I've never regretted it.