Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun agitprop machine, The Trace, is an interesting outfit. While its writers hoe the same row as mainstream media ho’s, Trace scribes are marginally more circumspect. In other words, they’re not completely oblivious to reality. Except when they are. Let me show you what I mean, quoting today’s email blast . . .

NRA self-defense expo promotes risky concealed carry purses

The gun group’s inaugural Carry Guard Expo featured a much-covered concealed carry fashion show. Among the products brought down the runway were handbags specially designed to tote handguns. [Yahoo Style]

Gun experts on both sides of the debate have warned of the dangers of carrying “off body.” (One called the practice “stupid carry.”)

I’m thinking Jersey Shore’s The Situation should have changed his name to The Debate. But I’m not wondering if off-body carry is a bad idea. It is. But not for the reason that The Trace trots out, revealing their myopic prejudice.

When a purse or any other conveyance containing a gun is flung to the ground, the firearm inside can go off. Placed on a counter or chair or inside a shopping basket, the bag puts the gun within reach of little hands.

News clips show multiple cases of toddlers finding guns in purses and shooting themselves or their mothers. 

Said a Florida woman shot in the leg by her 3 year-old son in 2015: “I should’ve never left the gun in my purse like that! I never do!”

I like the end quote: “I never do!” It makes gun owners seem irresponsible and forgetful Mentally ill? Something.

Add that to The Trace’s contention that purse carry is dangerous because jostling — sorry “flinging” —  a purse may make a gun within discharge. What are the odds? Fake news! OK, sure, the SIG P320. So mostly fake news. In any case, note that just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s important.

Bottom line: even when they’re right, The Trace is wrong. Their anti-gun animus simply won’t let them report the truth about guns without some kind of anti-gun spin. They’ve got a civilian disarmament monkey on their back and he will not let go. As do the rest of the mainstream media (Fox News excepted, kinda).

The difference here is that The Trace’s writers are more focused on facts. Not reporting them…using them. Which makes them especially dangerous and, dare I say it, readable. Assuming you want to raise your blood pressure, that is.

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12 COMMENTS

  2. Off body carry has it’s place, but if you go that route, you need to be hyper-vigilent.

    Saw some “patriots” in eastern Oregon openly carrying both pistols and rifles. They came into the restaurant we were eating at. Slung their rifles over the backs of the chairs and the slings weren’t even held in place by their body weight. Would have been easy to grab a rifle…..point is, it isn’t as simple as everyone thinks it is…

  4. If she never left her gun in her purse as she exclaimed, then she wouldn’t have been shot in the leg by her 3 year old who found the gun in her purse.

    I heartily disagree with off-body carry and appendix carry — why break arguably the most important of the 4 rules on purpose? I’ll never understand.

  6. Every Style of carry isn’t a One Size Fits All. Planning, Practicing, situational awareness is the only thing that will work. Off Body has it’s uses just as Concealed does. Open Carry is a visible crime deterant and has it’s uses also.

  8. I remember last summer when the National News carried the story of a woman shopping with her purse on the shopping cart. Her young child reached into her purse and grabbed a safety-less striker fired pistol and simply pulled the trigger and blew her head off.

  9. Nope. Sorry. Sounds like the Trace has got you dead to rights on this one. Even TTAG rails against off body carry, for numerous reasons, when it suits their purpose and doesn’t overlap with the antis. That the gun community in general and TTAG in particular can’t be cool about it and acknowledge this sliver of common ground is shameful. No wonder they hate us. Let’s roll the tape, shall we?

    11-12-16, TTAG, Dan Zimmerman, “How to Ensure You’ll Never Have a Negligent Discharge”

    “Purses, fanny packs, messenger backs and briefcases can all be dropped, and there are a number of news reports of purses going “bang” when dropped.”

    5-20-17, TTAG, Robert Farago, “POCKET SHOT Holster: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

    “Any holster than doesn’t completely cover the trigger is a negligent discharge waiting to happen.” A purse isn’t even a holster! So Farago’s, then, admonition is even more cogent. Instead, we get in this article righteous indignation. For example:

    “I like the end quote: ‘I never do!’ It makes gun owners seem irresponsible and forgetful Mentally ill?”

    No, TTAG, it makes the gun owner sound safety conscious, remorseful, and acutely reminded of the fact that all it takes to invite a tragedy is one mental lapse one time. TTAG makes such points itself, in isolation, on occasion, and that’s fine, but when the Trace or similar does so, too? Uh oh. 2A absolutism defensiveness goes on high alert, goes about in high dudgeon, and slides into lowered credibility. As Donald “the ‘J.’ stands for ‘Jenius'” Trump would say, er, I mean, tweet: Sad!

    • I have to tell you you have it all bassackwards, exactly like an anti. Holsters having to cover the trigger is only an issue on safetyless, striker fired semi autos, like a glock. DA revolvers can be carried safely without a holster at all, in the pocket and such, as proven(by the pudding) for a hundred years now. And even if the firearm in question IS a glock, there are still holsters that fasten to the inside of a purse, purses that have the holster built-in, etc.
      Geez, that was the whole purpose of the little fashion show. Didn’t you even bother to notice? I guess you were too busy researching Farago, and cutting and pasting old ttag items to learn your ABCs…

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