Going Shopping
So, you've taken your carry class, and you're thinking about what and how to carry—you've probably not taken it with me, or we'd have already gone over this in a lot of detail—and it's time to go shopping. Sure; we cover all of this in the book, but not everybody has the book.
What You'll Need
The first thing your list, likely, is going to be your carry handgun. But let's not rush. You'll also need:
Let's take these one at a time.
Holsters
Finding the right holster is, basically, a pain. What works right for me may not work well for you—although I've found darned few folks for whom a pocket holster isn't a good choice. Something that looks comfortable online, or in the store, may turn out to press against your body in just the wrong way, or bulge too much, or whatever. And it's damned near impossible to find a shop in the metro area that has a decent holster selection. Your instructor should have gone over the issues around holster selection and purchase in detail; I won't repeat that here. If you're carry handgun is the same make as any of the local police departments prescribe for their officers, you're in a bit of luck—Streichers will probably have something by Galco or Gould that will fit, and those are, generally, pretty good holsters. If not, you'll probably have to either go with something pretty cheap, or go shopping online.All in all, I can't see a whole lot wrong with starting with a good pocket holster, and a lot right with it. If you've chosen a handgun that's too large for a pocket holster, it's probably worth rethinking.
Other carry methods
We go into things like fanny packs (good), purses (bad) and day planners (even worse than purses) in the book. As of this writing, it's late summer, and fanny packs are abundant in public places. Still look funny with business dress— even business casual—but they're really hard to beat in less formal circumstances. My personal favorite is the Original Tommy's Gun Pack—you can write to them at at P.O. Box 21, Simi Valley, CA 93062, or call them at (805) 520-4767. (Unfortunately, there's no way to order the Original Tommy's online—at present, at least.)The Belt
As we say in the book, the belt is even more important than the holster. You need a stiff, rigid belt, and for concealment purposes, it shouldn't be wider than your normal dress belt. Again, see Streichers. They've got the Galco Sport Belt at $39.95; roughly half suggested retail price.It's tempting to ignore the importance of the belt if you've gone for a pocket holster, but that temptation goes away pretty quickly when you find that a gun in a pocket holster causes a flexible, stretchy standard dress belt to let the trousers sag a whole lot. And there's always the possibility of the little-admired "clunk...skitter, skitter, skitter, skitter" as the handgun slides across the floor...
Ammunition
I've written about this elsewhere, but I don't mind repeating myself: I think that folks in the gun community worry a lot more about ammunition than we should. I think it's largely a psychological thing, myself. We can't control the most important thing about a lethal confrontation—whether or not it happens. If we could, there'd be no need for a means of self-defense, ever. We can't even control the timing of it—if we could, we'd set the time it would happen as "never."So we're understandably tempted to spend time and effort on what we can control: the carry handgun, for example. Or ammunition. Most of the time, that choice doesn't matter—after all, the typical permit holder will need to take out his or her handgun for serious, well, never. Even in the (thankfully rare) situations where it's necessary to produce the handgun, doing just that—producing the handgun—will deter an attack in the vast majority of cases—read Kleck.
The important thing about the ammunition is quality control. The folks who warn that the ammunition you use can come back to haunt you in court don't seem to be able to point to cases where that's actually been a problem. "Never dust a bad guy with a hot handload" sounds kinda cool, I guess, if a bit overly macho, but . . . is it a real problem? I doubt it. My attorney, who is very experienced in criminal matters, carries handloads in his .380. He could be wrong, I guess—but that's not the way I'd bet; he's a very experienced handloader, and my sense is that his quality control is going to be at least as good as a commercial manufacturer's. Should you go with handloads? Probably not; is your own quality control as good as a commercial manufacturer's? Is it as good as the best commercial manufacturer's?
Storage
There's two storage issues, really: storage in the home, and storage when outside the home. There's nothing at all wrong with keeping a gun that's not being used for self-defense stored unloaded, with the ammunition separate; Sarah Brady can't be wrong about quite everything, after all.
Still, for a defensive gun, that's clearly not acceptable. ("Excuse me, Mr. Home Invader? Would you give me a minute to get the gun out of the gun safe, then go downstairs and get the ammo? Be right with you, honest." Nah.)
I very much like gun boxes using the Simplex lock, like this one. They can be bolted to the wall, which is what we do at home.
For away from home, it's hard to beat a simple fire box in the car. If you get one with a keyed lock, rather than a combination one, it becomes inarguable that you don't possess the contents if you've handed the keys to somebody else.
I strongly prefer to keep these in the passenger compartment. I'm told that there are people who watch to see what you're putting in your trunk, and I don't want to make life easy for them.