Why I Don't Tell People I Carry

[Cypher]

I think the reason this is something I give thought to is because I've had bad experiences related to it.

I've had two (former) co-workers that randomly threw their permits on the desk at work like a challenge coin. I had one trainee ask me in the middle of training if I had a permit (WTF would you even ask some random stranger that? Especially given that random stranger is your supervisor and can get you sent to security guard Siberia /the impound lot on third shift/ with a single phone call)

I had one guy that used to preach the Gospel of Nutnfancy to me every time he saw me and tell me that if I wasn't a member of the NRA I was a blood sucking leach on the back of honest gun owners and if didn't have a permit I was failing in my civic sheepdog duty. Finally, there was the dumbfuck who came to work at LEAST once a week with some breathless story about how he came THAT close to having to shoot someone but "they noticed my CCW and thought twice."

I swear to God I've had each and everyone of these interactions and somewhere along the line I decided I wasn't EVER going to be THAT GUY.

[Darth_Uno]

Anyone I'd consider a friend knows I carry. I don't really care who knows TBH. If you don't like it, we weren't going to be friends anyway.

I've been asked directly though, mostly at church. My answer to, "Do you have a gun?" is to smile and say, "Do I need one today?" People translate that to whatever makes them feel better.

[DocGKR]

It is nobody's business but your own. It is CONCEALED for a reason....

[Corey]

My immediate family all know I carry, but it's cool because they all carry as well. Outside of that I figure it isn't anybody else's business.

[olstyn]

There are very few people in my life who know I have a carry permit, or even that I own guns. Lots of my family and friends lean to the left politically, and as such, would have a very hard time understanding my choices even given their knowledge of the surrounding situation, so it's just easier not to tell them. The VAST majority of the people who know that I carry are people I shoot with. The few that aren't are coworkers with whom the subject has come up gradually after a significant number of conversations in which I've had the opportunity to "feel them out" on it. (I'm slowly working on getting one coworker to come to a USPSA match, but he hasn't shown up at one yet.) Everybody else just doesn't need to know, [most] family included.

[HCM]

This question has come up several times. My answer is simple.

"I do not carry A gun."

I carry two. Which is also none of their steeekin' business.

Reminds me - A couple months back, I went to the Federal Court House to swear out a search warrant. Only USMS personnel can be armed in the court house. As I'm signing in, the USMS security contractor (They are all retired LEO's) asks me "Do you have a weapon?". I replied "Weapon(S)." He winked at me and said "Good man."

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Interesting. My response would be REALLY different than most of you:

"Sorry, buddy, but heck no! What the heck is that even aboot? Maybe if I was some kind of Bruce Lee Willis action fella, but not a chance, eh? Sorry."

[David S.]

Half the time my wife doesn't even know.

[BillSWPA]

Early in my concealed carry days, I experienced the problem of second tier friends with loose lips at the wrong time.

However, some of my best clients use me partly because I am a gun person, and are well aware that I carry. Depending on their technology, that knowledge helps my work for them.

In general, I prefer that people find out only after they get to know me well, and I get to know them well enough that I trust them with that information. Letting people get to know me first gives me a better chance to educate them about gun issues. If they learn about the gun too soon, they have already made their assumptions about me, and any chance at educating them is lost.

When carrying in an NPE, even people who know I am licensed will not know I am carrying. The single easiest way to get busted is by opening your mouth.

Regarding church, my church responded to recent events by announcing and expanding a “no guns” policy that I and the vast majority of other members had no idea existed. I have been quite open about my opposition to this policy, which probably makes it known that I carry. In this situation, I do not care. If the policy does not change very soon, my family and I are looking for a new church.



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[ragnar_d]

This question has come up several times. My answer is simple.

"I do not carry A gun."

I carry two. Which is also none of their steeekin' business.

Sounds like a conversation I had with a wife's friend. She knew I was a shooter and asked one time if I was carrying a gun. "Nope, I'm not carrying a gun, why would I need to do that?" and redirected the conversation to bitching about cost of living down here. Wife and I get back to the car and she asks why I said I wasn't carrying a gun when she knew I was. "Honey, I'm not carrying a gun. I'm carry two guns . . . it is Miami after all."

Seriously though, I avoid talking guns at most costs in mixed company that includes my having a CWP and carry habits. It just isn't a pleasant topic of conversation most of the time anyway. Only positive conversation I've had in mixed company was after the Las Vegas shooting when I explained the difference between a bump fire stock and a machine gun and the legalities of each because of legit interest and curiosity on the subject. The guy (husband of a friend of the wife) took it all in, asked intelligent questions, and at the end commented, "So pretty much everything I hear on the new about guns is a bunch of made up crap?" "Now you're gettin' it!"