Based on pure probability, what’s the most dangerous thing we will do with our guns in our lifetime? Is it:
Going to Public Ranges?
Taking multi-day professional instruction?
Getting into a gunfight?
Living life with and around guns?
If you answered going to public ranges, good guess, but wrong. The answer is day to day administrative gun handling and living around guns. Every time the gun leaves or enters the holster, every time we set up for dry-fire, every time we take an EDC selfie for Instagram (don’t do that), every press-check, every time we transfer our pistol from our waistband to a car safe, every time we handle our gun, there is a small chance of making a mistake. Though the chance of negligence is very very tiny, we flip that coin every time we touch our gun. Over the course of a lifetime, that’s a lot of coin flips and the chance of messing up becomes a real possibility.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have had a negligent discharge, and those who will.
While a gunfight is certainly dangerous, the average gun owner will never need to use their gun to defend themselves. But they WILL live with a gun for as long as they own it. So, that means the biggest threat we face is our own negligence over the course of a lifetime. Just by having the gun around, there is always a low-grade probability that an accident could happen. I don’t think most people think about this. Especially not the ‘I just bought a gun, I’m good’ magic talisman gun owner. They should.
Minimizing Risk
Eliminate unnecessary gun handling. If possible, avoid moving your loaded gun from holster to car magnet to briefcase to… Load it, put it in the holster, and go about your business.
Have robust safety measures for dry fire. The gotcha moment for most NDs in dryfire is the ‘Just One More Press’ mentality that can happen after you’ve reloaded after practice. I use The Tactical Professor’s robust dry fire safety protocols and I like them.
Always concentrate on sharp gun handling. The primary safety is muzzle direction. This seems to be a big problem in cars. People want the privacy of their car to move their gun around or take selfies for the ‘gram, but don’t practice good muzzle discipline in confined spaces and end up flagging themselves or others.
Don’t have conditional gun handling rules. Always avoid pointing at things you don’t want to shoot, even when you’re sure “It’s unloaded”. The two loudest sounds in the world: a bang when you expect a click, and a click when you expect a bang.
Avoid leaving your guns laying around for someone (usually a child) to play with. Either on you, or secured.
Maintain and use quality gear. Also consider how your clothing affects your gun handling. Floppy holsters and errant T-shirt material are responsible for lots of accidents.
Maintain a healthy respect for firearms.
Nope.
Why?
Paradoxically, we own and carry guns to make ourselves safer from high stakes statistically rare events, but in owning those tools we open ourselves to the risks inherent in tool itself. It’s worth considering.
There are a lot of people I interact with online who should deeply consider if living with a firearm is the right choice for them. I’d like to see people hold themselves to a higher standard and treat these tools with the respect they’re due. I hate hearing about kids shooting their siblings after they found mom’s pistol in her purse at the grocery store. We can do better, we just have to remind ourselves of the risk we assume when we own and carry a gun.
Thanks for reading.
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I’ve been outfitting my new Ruger LCR for carry, and I wanted to install a clip to allow easy carry around the house. ClipDraw doesn’t make a custom LCR clip, but they do make a universal revolver clip that uses 3M adhesive tape and a screw together mount.
I’m a big fan of this style of ‘holster’ for small double action revolvers and small DAO pistols. I do NOT recommend them on anything resembling a Glock’s SFA trigger.
I snapped some photos and will outline the simple install.
Clean the surfaces with an alcohol prep to remove crud.
Confirm where you want to install the clip, and trim the adhesive strip so it fits in the available space on the frame of the gun. Take care to keep it on a single flat surface so it bonds well with the steel mount.
Firmly press the mount onto the adhesive at the desired location. If you have a weird application, like trying to work around a crimson trace laser for instance, you can trim the parts as desired. Since that wasn’t needed here I just simply mounted.
Note there are three threaded holes. This allows two positions of the clip that grabs the belt, for some fine tuning of ride height. This gives a bit of control over getting a full firing grip vs more deep concealment. Screw the screws and away you go.
It’s been several years since I wrote about about my search for a tiny gun that I could wear regardless of how I was dressed. I coined the term The Underwear Gun, and the internet had a chuckle. I obviously am not the only person who sees a need for this sort of tool. For instance, Darryl Bolke of Hardwired Tactical calls his the ‘Rule 1 gun’. As in, Rule 1 of a gunfight is have a gun. Claude Werner carries a KelTec P32 for a similar purpose. William Aprill of Aprill Risk Consulting calls it the ‘milk run gun’ for running to the grocery store real quick. So, at least I know I’m not totally crazy.
Unless you literally have guns laying all over the house (for someone with a kid is a no-go) if you want to be armed in the home and not inconvenienced too much, an underwear gun is a good choice. Let’s cover it all in some detail.
Why the Underwear Gun?
I’ll be covering some old ground, but it’s worth repeating. First we have to recognize the problem. Namely, that bad things happen anywhere. Including your home. Tom Givens recently mentioned that twenty years ago, home invasions were most probable if you were dealing or buying drugs. The simple advice was, don’t deal in drugs, and you likely won’t have to deal with home invasions. But he mentioned that the incidence of armed home invasions (where they come in with weapons while you’re at home) isn’t relegated to that sub-culture anymore. If you like numbers, here’s some stats from the FBI and BJS:
There are about 8000 Burglaries a day
40% of those are armed. Usually targeted are single females, the elderly, handicapped.
in ~28%, the victim is home, which is about 1,000,000 incidents/year with people at home during the crime
Out of 3.7 million burglaries, 7% include violent victimization
Night time burglaries are less profit motivated and more likely to include rape and assault (they know you’re home).
In summary, it should be apparent that having a layered home defense plan is worthwhile. This includes, for me, a readily accessible firearm. Anyone willing to come into your home while you’re there needs to be dealt with harshly. What do you think this crew had in mind when they were checking doors?
Options for Access
There are a few ways you can handle the firearm access. If you’re in a home with no kids, you could stash long guns and pistols in every nook and cranny. I advise against this because of the ease of theft, and because it’s easy to forget where all the guns are. If you have house guests with children, now you have to worry about where the kids are playing. Even if your kids are trained to not touch your guns, their dumb friends aren’t, and plenty of preventable deaths result from this annually.
This leaves your guns either secured in a safe, or on-body. Quick access safes are a good option if you’re not interested in on-body carry. For instance, the GunVault speedvault or this generic push button safe keeps little fingers and drunk uncles away from guns, while giving you rapid access. There is always a trade-off between security and access. For a staged home invasion gun, rapid should be the emphasis.
Some quick access safes. Photo: Luckygunner.com
Another option is to have a gun that you carry in and around the home. If you’re super dedicated, it might mean watching Game Of Thrones wearing belted pants with holster, pistol, mags, etc. I’m not that dedicated and I won’t be bothered to do that. Mowing grass, walking dogs, checking mail, and watching Netflix demand something less obtrusive.
Definition of an Underwear Gun
A reliable gun with a trigger I can use, sights I can see, with a weight that can be held by a pair of drawstring gym shorts, and with support gear that doesn’t require a belt. Caliber is irrelevant for this gun.
The Underwear Gun
That’s pretty much it. It turns out there are a lot of options, and I’ve tried a handful of them. Here’s a few that have fit my needs over the years.
Ruger LCP in .380 (or a comparable Kel-Tec in .32 or .380)
The Taurus PT-22 in .22 (or Beretta 21 bobcat)
The Smith and Wesson 43C in .22 (or LCR .22)
The Ruger LCR in .38 or .357 (or Smith&Wesson 442 , or any other J-frame as light as you can get it)
Glock 42 in .380 (or Smith&Wesson Shield in 9mm or any single stack micro 9 or .380)
Etc.
Taurus PT-22 in .22lr
Smith 43c in .22lr
G42 in .380acp
Ruger LCP in .380
Ruger LCR in 38spl
Carry Methods
There’s a reason I prefer a Double Action pistol for my underwear guns. In an effort to keep weight down and increase convenience, I really like carrying them with minimal, if any holster. I understand the possible safety issues associated with not covering the trigger guard, which is why I only use them with DA guns. NEVER use them with Glock style triggers. I also don’t use them when I’m playing with my son and he’s crawling all over me. My absolute favorite underwear gun ‘holster’ is one with either a spring steel clip, or ledge built into the grips to hold the gun at the waist-line. Click through the photo gallery and I’ll give my thoughts on each kind. Not all are created equal.
The Techna-Clip on an LCP. Also set-up with Crimson Trace laser guard and hogue overmolded grip.
The Universal ClipDraw on an LCR
The Barami Hipgrip (which I textured). While designed for behind the hip, this does pretty well Appendix. Note that there’s enough grip sticking up to get a firing grip. Pairs well with a Tyler T-Grip.
The Desantis Clip Grip is the worst of these options. The boot grip style stocks don’t leave enough grip for you to get a full firing grip. You can skip these.
The ClipDraw. This is my favorite. While the clip partially obstructs the cylinder, it orients the gun perfectly for appendix.
If none of those tickles your fancy, there’s still a ton of options. Here’s some I use depending on what I’m doing around the house.
A clip on kydex holster with a quality clip (shown is a Dark Star Gear hitchhiker), also look at discreet carry concepts clips to retrofit your existing kydex.
Since I love wearing gym shorts, BJJ Gi pants, pajamas, shorts with no belt, and being comfortable in general, one of the big features of an underwear gun is that it not pull down my pants and that it can be carried without a belt. As a weight ceiling, I’ve found that my Smith Shield in 9mm is heavier than I can comfortably manage for my most common house clothing. I can always tie the drawstring tighter, but even then the weight of the gun will cause flopping over the waist and destroy any concealability I might want if I make a store run.
Caliber is basically irrelevant for this gun. It’s a big reason why my Smith 43c gets a lot of ride time. I get 8 tries at under 12oz. I use high quality, high velocity .22 ammunition, and practice enough that I can make good hits on demand. .22 high velocity ammo can get to 12″ in gelatin, so if I do my part, I’m not sweating it. The CCI Stinger gets to the minimum 12″ penetration through double layer denim. This isn’t the place for a caliber debate.
Shown Empty in holster because I can’t carry it without the DSG setup. This is about the heaviest I can go, and have it work with the most clothing configurations.
LCP. Shown Empty.
LCR. Shown empty.
43C. Shown Empty
You Still Have to be Skilled
Just because it’s small doesn’t mean you get to cop out and call it your ‘belly gun’ or your ‘bad breath distance gun’ or your ‘contact range gun’. You have to be able to make good hits and be fast enough at realistic distances. I tend to use some different drills as well as police qualifications so I can always answer in court that I hold myself to the same accuracy standards as the police do. Here’s a few things to try and track progress:
The 5^5 Drill from The Tactical Professor: 5″ Circles, 5 Yards, 5 shots, 5 seconds, 5x in a row. PASS/FAIL
Lots and LOTS of dry work is in order too. I don’t emphasize reloading as much, because I simply won’t have a reload on me if I need to use it. Here’s one of The Tactical Professor’s dry fire targets that works great for small space practice.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
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Everyone has resolutions and goals. Some people want to lose weight, get stronger, start a new hobby or sport, get better at shooting, or whatever.
So you pick a diet plan, a hobby, a sport, a goal, and you do the work. You realize your goals. People notice. Your family notices. They congratulate you on your hard work and ask how you were able to do it. You excitedly preach about your path and the methods you use. You feel accomplished, and people care about how you’re doing.
Public accountability is a strong motivating factor in sticking to a goal. Knowing that there’s an audience of people watching (no matter the size) can light a fire to keep doing the work. Checking in with progress pictures and having people comment and like give you a nice dopamine hit that makes you want more.
Time passes. The newness of your achievements wears off. Now you’re a person who just does a hobby, or weighs a healthy weight. You’re a few years past your goal and you’re just doing your thing without anyone noticing. There is a definite choice to be made here. Either progress in silence, or let the old habits sneak back in.
Sometimes people who get a taste of their goal will regress (quickly or slowly) because they fall off the wagon. They wanted to say they achieved their goal more than they wanted to improve as a human. They turned a marathon into an unsustainable sprint just to cross a line.
Sometimes the path was wrong to begin with. The diet-plan didn’t jive with your lifestyle or physiology and became unsustainable. Adjust your course and keep going.
Injuries and sickness can lead people down a path to failure. For some, they are the beginnings of a cascade of negative emotions, inactivity, and poor choices. Listen to your body, but don’t stop moving forward.
Burnout is a big problem for me. I personally tend to get obsessively focused on a goal and work towards it until I can’t stand that activity. When this happens, I have to indulge in some goal-hijacking. I have to allow myself to find something else to focus on while the fire re-ignites for the original goal. I haven’t found a shortcut for this. Just time.
Everyone fails and falls short. Everyone gets frustrated and goes off the rails. Everyone gets sick or injured and regresses. You just have to decide that you’ll maintain the discipline to start again.
Pro-tip: THE PROCESS IS THE GOAL.
Find motivation in the minutia. The deep dive. Depth of study and depth of discipline.
Remember why you started, and that you’re doing it for you. For your health, sanity, safety, whatever. People will eventually stop caring, and stop ‘liking’ your progress pictures. They might even mock you for your slip-ups. Rapid improvement will eventually become imperceptible forward progress, or maybe just maintenance. That’s how it is. And that’s fine. The journey doesn’t end.
Do The Work.
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