5 Concealed Carry Mistakes You Need to Avoid

5 Common Concealed Carry Mistakes.

CCW mistakes you need to avoid for safety.

How is it that you decide the actions you take to keep yourself and your family safe? It is an important question that few people take the time to consider. We all have our ideas about what actions can help use to lead a safer life, but where are those ideas grounded? Often times, we find ourselves subscribing to conventional wisdom.

The problem with self-defense “conventional wisdom.”

Simply put, often when scrutinized we find that the conventional wisdom that surrounds self defense isn’t wisdom at all.

Instead, some of the most common place concepts are half thought through and illogical. The big problems is that when these ideas don’t work, we can suffer some pretty serious consequences.

After all, self-defense with a firearm is a life and death situation. When you count on a poorly considered idea for self-defense, you face the potential consequence of death if it doesn’t work out your way.

Sounds pretty final to me. That makes it worth taking a look at to see if we can understand a bit deeper than the surface.

Keep reading to take a look at my thoughts on 5 common concealed carry mistakes that you should avoid.

5 Common Concealed Carry Mistakes.

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Common CCW Mistakes You Need To Avoid.

You carry for safety, but if you make these mistakes you might be kidding yourself.

We all make mistakes.

That is a fact, but concealed carry mistakes are serious. A mistake with your ccw handgun can result in injury or death to yourself or to another innocent person and those types of consequences are beyond what we want to have to deal with.

There are plenty of mistakes that can be a serious problem, but I selected these 5 to examine today.

Only carrying when you “need to.”
A “good shoot” is a good shoot.
The real reason carrying on an empty chamber is a mistake.
Why off body carry is a concealed carry mistake for most people.
Thinking the gun is the solution to your safety is myopic.

I can’t promise that you are going to agree with me or even be pleased at some of the topics we are going to look at, but I encourage you to look critically at your concealed carry practices to see if any of these problems are issues that you need to reconsider.

Concealed Carry Mistake #1:

You only need to carry your concealed carry handgun when think you’ll need your gun.

This concealed carry mistake is a big one. It really gets to the heart of the issue that some folks have in feeling that having a concealed carry permit and a gun somehow magically makes them safer.

The unfortunate reality is that the permit and the gun do nothing for you unless you have them. It is really about your commitment to safety and your willingness to take action when you need to protect your family and those that you love.

There are a limited set of circumstances where the use of a handgun is legally, morally and ethically justified and in those circumstances if you don’t have your gun, you may have a serious problem in extricating yourself from those circumstances.

If you have the ability to know when and where you are going to need your gun and you don’t change your plans, you are making a serious mistake. You NEVER know when or where. It doesn’t matter if you are on the good side of town or the bad side, you can become a victim of violent crime.

When we project our beliefs onto criminals we set ourselves up for failure. Criminals know and understand the beliefs that you and I have about violence and they exploit them. Why rob and steal and attack in a rough neighborhood where people expect it and have more experience in the ways of violence when instead you can go to places where people don’t expect it and don’t understand it, and pose less of a threat. It is that simple.

You need to carry your gun. Whenever you can. If you carry your gun only when you feel like it you are committing a Concealed Carry Mistake!

Concealed Carry Mistake #2:

A good defensive shoot is a “good shoot.”

It is true that a good shoot is a good shoot is a good shoot. The truth doesn’t really matter though as we have seen the past several years in the main stream media. What matters is the perception of the circumstances of the self-defense shooting that you are involved in.

The perception of the police.

The perception of those who saw SOME of what happened.

The perception of the judge and jury.

The perception of the media.

All of these viewpoints can have a significant impact on the manner in which you weather the legal aftermath of a violent encounter.

You can have a SIGNIFICANT effect on these perceptions IF you know how to handle yourself before, during and after a violent encounter.

I firmly believe that the decisions you make long before you get involved in violence can have a strong impact on how you are viewed in the aftermath of a violent encounter.

What modifications have you made to your concealed carry handgun?
What statements have you made about self-defense and other hot button issues that may be used to paint a picture of you as a person?
What training do you have that shows your understanding of the intricacies of the use of lethal force?
And more decisions like this one…

The decisions you make during the violence itself can have a drastic impact as well.

Were your actions reasonable when it comes to when and why you used force?
Were there other option that you could have used to avoid force?
The list is long here as well…

Finally the actions you take immediately following violence can be an indicator for those that judge you as to how they should proceed.

How did you interact with others at the scene?
Were your interactions with law enforcement reasonable?
Were you able to articulate important information about the incident?

You need to make sure that you have the education that you need to make the right decisions before during and after violence so that you aren’t forced to face consequences you don’t deserve due to your own ignorance regarding the legalities of self-defense and concealed carry.

Some of that education can be had through written word but EVERYONE that depends on a gun for self-defense needs to receive training in the legalities of the use of force. I encourage you to take a look at these resources:

Every year Safety Solutions Academy hosts Massad Ayoob for his MAG20 and MAG40 courses. Get more information on these important legal courses by following this link.
Check out these books as well:
Deadly Force – Massad Ayoob
Self-Defense – Andrew Branca

Concealed Carry Mistake #3:

Carrying your concealed handgun on an empty chamber is safer than carrying your CCW handgun loaded.

Plain and simple if you aren’t comfortable carrying your concealed carry handgun with a round in the chamber, you aren’t quite ready for concealed carry.

I’m not saying this to anger you or anyone else. Instead, I’m saying it so that you can take action and get yourself prepared.

People that don’t carry with a round in the chamber often cite safety. They figure that they are less likely to injure themselves if they carry on an empty chamber. What they forget about is that they are also much less likely to be able to stop a threat which is of course the purpose of carrying the gun in the first place.

You might be in this camp and you might focus on getting your gun loaded faster out of the holster. The issue is much deeper than time, however. If you understand violence you get the idea that you may not have all of the resources available to you in the middle of a violent encounter that you have when you are on the range.

Like both of your hands.

Imagine, you are injured in the initial attack and your secondary hand is out of the game.

Or that you are dragging your injured child to safety.

Or that your left hand is controlling the knife that your attacker is wielding.

In none of those situations would you be able to use your hand to help load the gun.

There are certainly other ways to load a gun than with two hands. None of them are easy and none of them are fool proof.

The solution to this problem is training with a qualified instructor. The training helps you to become comfortable with carry of a handgun with a round in the chamber through familiarization with the weapon and developing confidence in its handling.

It is imperative and if your instructor is having you unload your gun every time you go back to load magazines you might be in the wrong class to get comfortable with a loaded concealed carry handgun.

Concealed Carry Mistake #4:

Off-body Concealed Carry.

Carrying your concealed handgun off body in a bag or in your vehicle is much more comfortable than carrying concealed on your body. That is a fact that I can’t deny.

The problem is, your access to a gun that is carried off body is severely compromised much of the time. It forces you to learn a different draw stroke for every position that your bag might be carried or staged in, and off body carry only works when your bag is easily within an arms reach of you.

A bag with a gun in it in the back seat or on the floor of the passage side of the vehicle is inaccessible in any reasonable way. Even the passage seat is no guarantee that you will be able to access your gun in time.

The other facet of off body carry that folks forget about is the fact that the farther from your body the gun is carried, the more difficult it is to protect that gun from theft. Remember, bags are often the target of theft. Your bag probably contains cash and credit cards and maybe drugs or jewelry. When a dirt bag snatches your bag not only have you lost your valuables, you have lost your means of armed self-defense and given a powerful weapon to a criminal.

You also face the risk of the curious gaining access to your gun. This can have tragic consequences and needs to be avoided.

In 2016, there are many ways that you can safely securely and comfortably conceal a handgun on your body. Although it can be less comfortable than off body carry, when you carry on body you gain a significant ability to access your handgun when you need it.

In most situations, for most people, I see off body carry as a concealed carry mistake.

Learning about concealed carry mistakes is important, but learning about carrying concealed the right way is even more important. That is why SSA’s Critical Defensive handgun is so popular. We teach concealed carry the right way.

Safety Solutions Academy’s flagship course is Critical Defensive Handgun. The course can be taken as a 1/2 day, 1 day and two day course and is one of the most important courses that you can take if you depend on a handgun for defensive use. It will teach you the critical skills that you need to protect your life and the lives of those that you love and the confidence to enjoy your life even if you are never forced to use your skills. CDH is also one of those courses where you will learn to become comfortable carrying a loaded gun on your body.
Learn more about Critical Defensive handgun by following this link.

Self-Defense Mistake #5:

A concealed carry handgun will solve all the violent problems you might face.

A gun isn’t your ticket to safety. Period. As I mentioned earlier in the post, a gun is only suited to solving problems in a very narrow set of circumstances. Yet often, people get gun training and no other self-defense training. If you approach self-defense in this manner it does not make a significant increase in your safety.

Let’s start out by looking at it from this angle:

You can’t always carry your gun. Really, you can’t. Recently, I flew to Florida for some family vacation time. From the time I got out of the car in the parking lot to the time I got back in the car in Florida, I was disarmed. I don’t count on TSA to keep me safe. After all, after a secondary inspection of my checked luggage they failed to lock it leaving a suitcase with two handguns and ammunition too accessible to bad people.

If I face a threat inside the secure area of the airport I have no intention of rolling over and playing dead unless that is the strategy that best guarantees the safety of myself and those that I love.

I better have some other skills. Unarmed skills and skills with improvised weapons make a good bit of sense to me and they probably make sense to you too.

Even if you are carrying your gun you might find yourself in a situation where use of the gun is justified but you can’t access it until you gain some physical control of the attacker that you are facing. Again, unarmed skills will save your tail.

We also probably agree that there are a whole host of circumstances where you might face some kind of a threat but the gun you carry concealed isn’t the right tool because its use isn’t needed or justified. In that case those unarmed skills are critical.

This is just one set of examples. The same applies for awareness and avoidance skills. The best way to win a fight is to avoid it all together. Do you have those skills?

What about medical skills. You might need to use your gun, but what if you or someone you love is critically injured in the incident? Are you going to count on medical professionals getting there in time to help you? If you do, why aren’t you applying that same logic to self defense? Won’t the police get there in time to protect you?

It comes down to much more than having a gun. If you don’t know, accept and prepare for this, you are making a concealed carry mistake.

Final Thoughts

Don’t make concealed carry mistakes, the consequences are too high.

Safety is about much more than we tend to think it is. Your personal safety is important. That is why you have read this far. It’s why you carry a gun. It’s why you lock your doors.

When we are really interested in our safety we are willing to take a critical look at our beliefs and practices and make changes that are likely to increase our safety.

My list of concealed carry mistakes isn’t exhaustive. I can’t imagine compiling a complete list of mistakes. We all need to take a critical look at what we are doing and why we are doing it and make a realistic assessment of the effect our actions have.

Use this list as a starting point to look at your personal safety. If you are making mistakes on this list and immediately dismiss the mistake as my error, you have made another mistake. You might be an exception to the error, but if you aren’t willing to consider the fact that you might be in the wrong, you probably are…

If you still have an open mind, expand from there and consider what steps you can take to make an improvement in your personal safety.

I’ll take a moment right here to let you know that nothing in this post, podcast or related materials is there to make you angry. I created this content specifically to help you increase your safety. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please leave a comment in the comments below. I am happy to continue the conversation.

What You Should Do Next:

The best way to make progress is to take action now!

Take Advantage of These Important Resources:

Every year Safety Solutions Academy hosts Massad Ayoob for his MAG20 and MAG40 courses. Get more information on these important legal courses by following this link.
Check out these books as well:
Deadly Force – Massad Ayoob
Self-Defense – Andrew Branca
You might want to take a look at this video on carrying a round in the chamber.
Subscribe to the Safety Solutions Academy Podcast and please leave a rating and review.

Take a critical look at your concealed carry habits and consider if you might be making some mistakes that need correcting.

I hope you found the information on this page helpful. If you have comments, suggestions, or a different view, please leave a comment below. I look forward to hearing from you!

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5 Common Concealed Carry Mistakes.

The problem with self-defense “conventional wisdom.”

5 Common Concealed Carry Mistakes.

Common CCW Mistakes You Need To Avoid.

We all make mistakes.

Concealed Carry Mistake #1:

Concealed Carry Mistake #2:

Concealed Carry Mistake #3:

Concealed Carry Mistake #4:

Self-Defense Mistake #5:

Final Thoughts

What You Should Do Next:

Interesting links

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