The majority of Americans recognize that firearm ownership provides real protection from criminal attack. Increasingly, women have come to embrace the empowerment of both gun ownership and concealed carry in their daily lives.
Yes, the fairer sex still lags behind in tooling up. However, women represent the fastest growing group of gun owners. In even worse news for the hoplophobic harridans at Moms Demand Action, women are applying for carry licenses at twice the rate of men. That spells bad news for bad guys.
My spouse has expressed to me plenty of times that she finds it reassuring that I carry. She knows that if things go very badly, I have sterner stuff than harsh words to hurl at adversaries.
While avoiding trouble through situational awareness helps good people avoid becoming victims, sometimes bad things happen to good people. At these times, a good backup plan and a gun will keep a person safer and healthier than a backup plan alone.
As of yesterday, my wonderful wife joined the ranks of American women who carry guns. Her Illinois firearm concealed carry license arrived in the mail. Hooray. My lovely bride doesn’t share my love for all things ballistic, but she appreciates the empowerment of carrying a firearm. Now she gets to share that empowerment with me and many millions of other Americans now legally carrying.
Knowing my spouse can take care of herself and then some when I’m not around gives me a lot of comfort and satisfaction. She carries more than harsh words for any potential attacker. What’s more, when she’s with me, she’s now a force multiplier against any would-be bad guys.
Now it’s my turn to tell her how I feel better now that she has a gun with her.
How many of our Armed Intelligentsia are lucky enough to have a spouse with a carry license?
she has the certificate, now just to pay the sheriff’s office and wait, but we both carry. I carry every day everywhere, as long as I’m awake, she carries when I’m not around.
Just a comment on the picture. I have begun to carry and carry at the small of the back. My understanding is that the method illustrated in the picture is not as good as keeping the firearm orientated in a RH holster (for RH) with a slight turn and reach back with the RH for a nice draw. In the pic shown, one must sweep themselves to bring the pistol forward. In my explanation, she should use her LH for a draw out of the location where the pistol is in the picture.
What is your experience. I am new to all this but trying to train myself to ‘best practice’.
I doubt that is actually his wife in the picture. In any case you are correct- however- many people still carry in that position due to existing shoulder/arm/back injuries, they find it to be the only place they can conceal a firearm, or they just don’t care about any dangers.
Steve, the potential downside to small of the back carry is if you ever fall or are thrown to the ground there is the possibility of breaking your back or at least being temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Not a good thing anytime but especially so if you are being attacked and trying to defend yourself.
Point taken. Thank you!
I am a ‘fit’ older person and carry 20lbs of self generated body armor / sarc between my sternum and waist. I used to carry 50lbs so at least there is some progress there. Bottom line is the only place the my pistol likes to hide is a bit right of center so not directly over my spine. This is where I feel most comfortable carrying so I take the risk.
My preference is small of back with a right hand IWB holster. You sweep your shirt and draw. That is the most fluid method for me and i think thats what you are talking about. The reverse grip as illustrated is awkward for me and i feel like it takes me way too long to get on target
I didn’t see a gun in that photo!
Took me a while also 🙂
Talk about concealed!
Staring it for days I do not see a gun!
Please explain, in detail, just exactly how “YOU” muzzle yourself when you draw from that position. I’ve heard that myth a number of times on the interwebs and would like to know, how you know, what you say you know.
Because I carry that way EVERY day, and I practice 10 draws a day, EVERY day from that position. Right-handed draw from a left-handed holster located at the 5 o’clock position IWB. I also have my wife observe my draw and critique it for muzzle direction, and I do NOT point the muzzle at myself or anyone around me as I draw and bring the pistol around. As with anything, proper technique and practice is the key. The muzzle is ALWAYS pointed at the ground until it reaches my right side where it is rotated to point down-range and is carried forward to mate up with my support hand on the way to eye level.
I use that method of carry because I find it VERY difficult to draw and clear from a RH holster from 5 o’clock with the right hand due to shoulder issues.
The small of your back may be an excellent place to keep it out of site, the problem is if you are knocked to your back there is a very good chance that you will damage your spine. A 4-5 O’ Clock position allows for excellent concealment as well as easier access to the weapon and if you were to be knocked on your back you can actually still get to it. Just a thought.
The last time I was at the sherriff’s office there were 5 people there for CCW, 4 of them women, it was quite encouraging.
Yeah it would nice in a perfect world if my beautiful wife carried(other than pepper and a knife). She taught self-defense to other women and could probably kill me if she desired. Maybe someday she’ll get an ILL CCL(I hate Illinois)…
In the burgeoning era of islamic terrorism, everyone who is capable of getting off 3 aimed shots and hitting a target under even slight stress should get a permit and carry, I dont care if its a .22 LR!
LEO’s can’t protect against this kind of thing.
Trucks, knives, and guns have to be a useless implement in the US, make them go with other means if that’s what they gotta do.
My very first date with (the soon-to-be) Mrs. Z was to the range, so I knew I didn’t have to do any convincing on the matter at all! We’ve both carried for as long as we’ve known each other.
I was even carrying at our wedding, with her knowledge and approval. She would have too, but there weren’t as many options for carrying in a dress at the time.
Could have had a lot of fun recovering the garter and pulling out a gun in a thigh holster instead. Heck, the garter could have been made from a holster.
Yeah, that would have been a good idea, if we’d done the “traditional” sort of thing. But we didn’t bother with that, or a standard reception. Our wedding was 5 minutes presided over by a Justice of the Peace friend, then we and the handful of people in attendance just dropped in at a restaurant for dinner.
Maybe some future Couples of the Gun (COTG?) can use your garter-holster suggestion though. 🙂
Many years ago my best friend’s fiancee’s ex-BF had declared to anyone who would hear that he was going to come ‘bust up’ the wedding and ‘no one was going to stop him’.
Good thing he did not actually show up, the groom, his best man (me) and the other groomsmen were all carrying.
Very few people in the pews knew, but those that did visibly relaxed at the end of the ceremony. Wish we had portable video camera’s back then, I’d love to re-watch that today, just for that moment. 😉
Get her a garter belt holster…..or a thunder bra.
Got hers the same time I got mine. Went through CCW class together. Her live range qual target groupings still make me not want to piss her off.
She started carrying again this week after back surgery. We both feel lots better about it.
My husband and I both carry. It’s nice being able to go shooting together on a range date!
My wife got her CCW with me. I told her that it’d help her get out of tickets. She’s proving to the cop before he looks her license up that she’s paid money from her own pocket to prove she’s not a violent or felonious criminal. She doesn’t carry, but I guarantee that if my state every tried to restrict CCWs, she’d be… for lack of a better term… up in arms about it.
That is great. My wife has her CCW and I’m making my daughter wait till Sept. to get hers, since it went from $140 to $40 here in TX. Here College won’t let her have it on campus so the urgency is not there. I make her keep one in the car when she is home anyway.
Yea, Texas! You should not fail, in such a post, to remind our neighbors that TX has unlicensed car carry, as of last year.
My wife has been licensed to carry for five years now and does so daily. That wasn’t the case at first, though.
Thanksgiving Day of 2012, about a month after she received her license and started carrying, she had to run to the grocery store just down the street for a crucial item. Being “just down the street”, she opted to leave her self-defense side arm at home.
In the parking lot after having made her purchase, she was approached by an aggressive, insistent, indigent-looking fellow. He kept asking for a dollar and kept getting closer and closer, despite her demanding that he back up, while backing away from him herself.
Eventually, she turned sideways to him and placed her hand on the handle of the imaginary concealed handgun she was carrying inside her waistband and shouted that he leave her alone. He got the message, turned, and walked away.
She hasn’t left home without her real self-defense sidearm ever since, even to go just down the street.
Yes, my spouse has a license to carry concealed and carries pretty much every day … only occasionally deferring to me to be the only armed person of the two of us.
I would prefer that my girlfriend carry, or at the very least keep a firearm in her apartment as we live several states apart, but my brief suggestions were meant with a firm declaration that she “doesn’t want to”. She isn’t anti-gun and has no problem with either my constant carrying or my ever-growing collection, but has no personal desire to own or carry.
It’s frustrating, and I regularly hope she changes her mind, but I know that pressing the issue would only drive a wedge between us when otherwise we get along fabulously. I can only hope that she eventually changes her mind [hopefully without something terrible happening first]. If not, well, someday we’ll actually live in the same place, and at least then I can try to instill that if something happens in the residence, she should defend herself with whichever firearm I’ve prescribed for home defense, where it is, how to access it, etc. She still probably won’t carry, even in the home/apartment, but I’ll take my small victories where I can get them.
It rook 25 years for me to come around! I was never anti-gun, no idea why I just wasn’t intetested. Have patience grasshopper! Hubby is thrilled I’m finally in the game.
My wife just joined the ranks about 4 hours ago. Still working on what she is comfortable carrying and how.
Do to a unnerving situation at our neighbors house and the marked rise in child abductions she has decided she can’t trust anyone else to protect her or our kids.
Nothing is sexier than a confident and empowered woman
To JFRAME, your daughter can take the class, then wait until September to send in her paperwork, I think. I’m just basing that on when I took the class, I had a year to send in the paperwork. I don’t know for sure that if class is taken in June, June rates for the license apply.
From the amount of people who are taking classes, it doesn’t seem so. Went to the range yesterday, and half the place was rented out for a private class.
BTW, just called the range to find out. If I were to take the class now, send in the paperwork in September, I’d pay $40.00. I also know that 20 year olds can take the class, send in paperwork when they turn 21.
Back in the day I bought a .357 ported magnum, only way wife would let me purchase it was if it was her gun, OK not a problem, got a box of 165 gr Gold dot and some 158Gr +p stuff I had reloaded figured after putting up with the recoil of 15 those suckers the gun would be mine. Put up 3 Man sized targets and did some stop drills 2 in chest one in head, in wife”s case it was more like 2 in the Nards, I regress! wife shot 45 of the Gold dots and saved me only 5 which I grudgingly shot, being bored i suggested going home, she asked if she could shoot some more trick question as she saw the box of +p home loads i .38 spcl, ya I do she shot up 180 of those, then told me she was tired! “#@#@##$^&,”
to this day that pistol is her baby and I still have only shot it 5 times,
Wife alternates between ,357 and .380 for carry though she is pretty proficient using the SIG .40 or customized .45
ACP, too much bulk for her carry
My wife got her license a couple of weeks ago. She has carried a couple of times since then, but with an empty gun. She wants to be completely comfortable before she goes loaded. Now our big challenge is finding her the right holster. She has tried both the hip hugger and corset from can-can concealment, but neother fit her right. Now she has one from pj holsters but she is not sure if she likes it. She’s too picky.
Just watch out: she may come in and ask you “Does this Glock make my butt look fat?” The only way out is to say “Here, try this 1911”
With my luck she would take that as even worse. No glocks or 1911s here though, just some Rugers from the LC family for us.
I will say, the people at can-can have been very helpful through the process. My wife has returned about 4 of their products to try different sizes and styles. When she called to ask which size corset she should get the guy on the phone asked for her measurements. After hearing them his response was something to the affect of “I bet you have a happy husband”.
Bought my girlfriend a Beretta Jetfire ($25 NIB) and taught her to shoot in 1965 (at 18!), she has carried more or less continuously since, got her CHL same time I did, don’t recall exactly but around 2000 (wasn’t important, after we had both been carrying for 35+ years). Just for another good argument, we’ve been drunk too many times to count, had plenty of roaring screaming matches, raised 2 sons and been married 50 years in Sep, loaded guns present AT ALL TIMES, firearms have never been a concern for either of us. Don’t be ridiculous.
“As of yesterday, my wonderful wife joined the ranks of American women who carry guns.”
As of about eight years ago, my now ex-GF joined the ranks of American women who carry guns.
Which scared the crap out of me.
The lovely item in the photo appears to be carrying a Sig P238. I have one as well, and find it easy to conceal at the 5 pm position behind the right rear pocket (right handed), but using the “reverse” hand position like she is, with an ambidextrous Ace Case IWB holster that allows the weapon to fall into a slight cant. I find it very uncomfortable to use a normal hand position if the weapon is any farther back than 4 pm, and I don’t find that I am muzzling myself or anyone else when I draw it out. How and what one carries can and should differ based on body size, gun size, and clothing.
My wife loves purses.. she collects purses.
Now she collects CCW purses.
I’m a single mother of three and I carry everywhere I legally can. My state is enacting constitutional carry on August 1st, but I have my class 1 CCW anyway so I can carry in 39 states. I always carry at least 2 non-lethal and one lethal. Layers of protection. Sometimes lethal force is not necessary and a situation can be de-escalated with non-lethal means.
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