Do You Carry At Home or Just When You Go Out?

Those that carry outside the home may feel uncomfortable when they get home and relinquish their handgun to the lock box or safe. Some may feel anxious without the comforting weight on their hip. The comfort or sense of security is gone, and until the situation is rectified you feel exposed.

Every morning as part of your daily routine, you pat your pants pocket for keys, change, and check for your phone. You feel to make sure your wallet is in place and you always put your hand to your hip to make sure your sidearm is secure.

The purse gets inspected for keys, phone, wallet, and other daily necessities, and you always make sure your sidearm is nestled inside. Often you feel as if you should have it clipped to your waist and not locked away when at home. Habits, and for many people ones they will never break.

If you watch the news or scan the local papers one might get the impression you can’t go to the mailbox without being armed, yes, it feels that bad in today’s world and in some cases it is.

A sidearm is a personal defense weapon and burglaries along with home invasions where people actually take over your home often happen during the daylight hours, times when you may very well be home. Your firearm is locked in its safe and your front or back door is kicked in, you have to pass by the intruders to get to your sidearm, and precious time is lost. If it is on your hip you are well ahead in the game of life and death.

At night while watching TV do you really have time to go to the safe or lock box to get your firearm if the front door is kicked in or a window smashed downstairs. Do you have time to load a magazine and then deal with the intruders?

Safety protocols dictate that if you have children in the home or even expect to have children over to your home, then the firearm is locked up separately from the ammunition at all times unless in your hand or on your hip. This makes sense from a safety standpoint. Of course, you cannot have children gaining access to a loaded firearm. Makes sense until you need your handgun in an emergency. The answer obviously is to carry when at home.

If you have it secured on your person then children and others do not have access to it, and it is close to hand when needed. People sometimes leave their loaded handguns unsecured and so children and others do gain access to them, and sometimes tragedies occur because of this.

Of course, with the dramatic increase in handgun sales, there will be people that have never owned a firearm that will buy one and strap it on and call it a day. They assume because they have one that all is well. Buying a handgun is really the easy part. The hard part comes after you get it home. A gun in the home does not make the home safer unless you know how to use a firearm effectively. A few hours at the range does not make you an expert either.

This article will assume that no one will carry a firearm unless they have had the proper training, and continue to train and that you follow all applicable laws. With the disclaimer out of the way, we can continue.

Get the right holster for your sidearm. If you don’t want to panic the neighbors and UPS drivers, then carry concealed on your own property. It is important that you do not skimp on your holster in particular if you carry concealed. You literally need a fitting before bringing it home, so try to purchase your holster when you buy your handgun so you can match the two up.

We were not going to get into the debate about open carrying out in public, but a news article caught our eye here.

“Gun-Toting Subway Customer Gets Into Open-Carry Dispute with Police”

In Connecticut, people can open carry so long as they have a concealed carry permit and are carrying the permit with them when carrying in public. You cannot be arrested for simply carrying openly according to the law, but the law gets murky. On one hand the law states police officers can ask to see your permit and a refusal to produce the permit can lead to an arrest because you interfered with police.

On the other hand, the law also states that police need a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed by the one carrying the weapon. This, however, allows police considerable latitude. One could assume that at any time police could reasonably assume a crime has been committed or will be committed by someone carrying a firearm openly. After all, it’s at their discretion. Essentially, in Connecticut police can ask you for your papers at any time.

Businesses are allowed to refuse service to anyone open carrying in Connecticut

This all came about when a customer at a Subway refused to show his open carry permit to a police officer when asked. According to the news article, there had been several complaints from local businesses. The article did not specify if the complaints were about this particular individual, or about others, in general, open carrying (Houck, 2016).

As we have stated in previous articles, if you open carry in public some people will complain to the police and they will respond. This is sometimes called “swatting”. If the police are confused about the law then the public at large will be as well, and people will call 911 to complain someone is wandering loose with a gun.

The gentlemen in question could have just shown his permit when asked, and then he could have gone on his way. He wanted to make a statement, however, and some do, because it is a constitutional question, which it seems is still open for debate despite Supreme Court rulings. Getting worked up over being asked to show your permit, when a gun is on your hip, is not sensible however and the police will react to that because they don’t know until they ask. Of course, if he did not have an open carry permit and the news article did not specify this, then he would be breaking the law.

Houck, B. (2016, Jan 15). Retrieved 2016, from http://www.eater.com/2016/1/15/10775084/open-carry-law-customer-subway-connecticut-police-dispute

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