Walmart Markets Jacket Designed for Concealed Carry

WalMart is carrying a jacket specifically designed for concealed carry. Clothing designed for concealed carry has been available commercially for decades. But most of the shops marketing it were specialty oriented. WalMart may have seen the latest CPRC report. It shows the presence of 16.2 million concealed carry permit holders in the United States. The 16.2 million does not include the populations of the 14 states that do not require a permit to carry concealed pistols. Second Amendment supporters are winning the culture war. From WalMart.com:

Rothco’s Lightweight Concealed Carry Jacket has 2 inner pockets for concealed carry, one on each side, as well as 2 inner mag pockets on each side for ammo. The mirroring pockets on both the left and right, give the jacket a unique ambidextrous feature.

The jacket is a product of Rothco, and comes in Coyote Brown as well as black.

I have not examined the Rothco jacket. But its existence in the WalMart inventory is a powerful statement about the normalization of the exercise of Second Amendment rights.  There are 200 million registered voters in the United States. 16.2 million carry permit holders are 8 percent of all registered voters. Virtually all permit holders are eligible to vote, and virtually all of them are registered to vote. If we remove California’s 19.4 million registered voters, (only 92,000 permits in the state) and New York’s 12.5 million registered voters,   (only 88,000 permits in the state), there are 16 million permit holders for 168 million registered voters in the rest of the country.  Outside of the highly restrictive California and New York, permit holders are 9.5% of registered voters. 

I state this with confidence from my experience of teaching concealed carry courses for 15 years.  The people who go to the trouble to attend concealed carry courses are among the most responsible people in the community.  In fifteen years, I never had a check bounce. People showed up early. They offered to help set up. They are self selected as responsible individuals who anticipate problems and solve them before they happen.

President Trump appealed directly to them with his call for national reciprocity. Among permit holders, it seems absurd that their drivers license is universally recognized, but their concealed carry permit is not.

Permit holders are a force to be reckoned with in the economy, as well as at the voting booth, as evidenced by WalMart’s marketing of a concealed carry jacket.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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