alittlejoy1960 wrote:First time poster here. I've read, or rather my husband - oljames3 has pointed out as he so often does many posts on here that interest me. I think he does that to "strongly encourage" me to start carrying on my body. And I thought it was us wives who did most of the nagging.
This is the first time that I have felt compelled to respond.
I had a situation that made me want to change the way I carry. I normally carry in my conceal carry purse, if I carry at all. The night I'm about to tell you about, I wasn't carrying at all. I was frustrated with 'Mr. aliitlejoy1960' and decided that I needed to walk it off. We live on a corner. I walked outside and was approaching the corner when I noticed the silhouette of someone walking in my direction coming up the street. (Thank goodness for situational awareness.) I crossed the street and the silhouette of a man also crossed the street. At that point the hairs on the back of my neck that had already started standing up when I saw him were at full attention. I kept thinking why the heck didn't I bring my phone or my pistol. I crossed back and started towards my front porch. When I got to the porch, the man stopped and was just standing there watching me. Now, I know that I didn't know the intention of that man. But I did know that I didn't want to find out either. I went back into the house and went to the bedroom to calm down. After, I told my husband about the incident. That silhouette was the last thing I thought about that night before going to sleep and the first thing I thought of when I woke the next morning. It had affected me more than I thought. Since then, we have been talking about better ways for me to carry - and all are on my body. We even bought me a different pistol to carry. We went to a gun range that allowed me to try several different pistols. My problem has been being able to manipulate the slide. I found one that I could easily manipulate and feels right in my hands - a Walther PPS M2. The next day, I bought that pistol.
My next step is to find a way for me to carry comfortably on my body. I have a rather large top, small waist, and large bottom. Most of the videos of women I see carrying are mostly straight with no defined waist. A lot of the methods in which women carry don't work for me. I'm still searching for what will work best for me... and I won't stop until I find one.
SewTexas wrote:alittlejoy1960 wrote:
My next step is to find a way for me to carry comfortably on my body. I have a rather large top, small waist, and large bottom. Most of the videos of women I see carrying are mostly straight with no defined waist. A lot of the methods in which women carry don't work for me. I'm still searching for what will work best for me... and I won't stop until I find one.
Welcome Alittlejoy1960, I carry a Curve or an LCP pretty much all the time, seldom in my purse. With Jeans I use an IWB hoster from Kusiak for my LCP. With leggings I took a corset from WM, added some elastic and ended up with a corset holster along the lines of Dene Adams. For dresses and skirts I took some compression undershorts from WM along with some clearance compression under stuffs, added some pockets on the legs and at the waist and they are perfect.
Thank you both for responding. It’s always refreshing to get the women’s perspective when this subject comes up. In the case of my wife, she currently owns 3 pistols - a Glock 19, a Glock 43, and a S&W 642 .38 (she owns an AR15 carbine too, but that’s outside the scope of this discussion). The .38 was her first gun, a Valentines Day gift from me. She carried it for a short time, but she didn’t like shooting it much because of the trigger pull effort. She purchased the G19 the day after she took her first CHL class, because she shot one when she took the NRA Basic Handgun class, and liked it enough to rent one for her CHL range qualification. She shoots it just fine, but it just doesn’t work for her as a carry weapon because of its size and weight. (Of course, if she belt-carried it, she wouldn’t notice the size and weight as much, but she has so far refused to belt-carry.) For a while, she carried a Kahr CW9, which was fine as far as size, but when the G43 came out, we sold the CW9 and bought her the G43 because it was - other than being narrower - ergonomically similar to her G19, and maybe just a tad smaller than the CW9. She likes the G43 just fine, and shoots it reasonably well, but she just basically refuses to carry any other way but her purse.
A few years ago, she had me buy her two belly band holsters and one pistol-wear under arm holster from The Well Armed Woman. She tried them out, and
says that she likes them......but she rarely ever uses any of them. The only time she does, is when something has scared her, and she reverts to on-body carry for a day or two. But, usually within 48 hours, she’s right back to purse carry. I have a theory.... my wife is a “Proverbs 31 Woman”, and she is never still unless she is just conked out. She is always in motion. I think that often, she is so focused on whatever is her
next task, that she rushes through the
current one. When the current task is “getting dressed to go out”, she just finds it easier to throw the gun into her purse, than it is to slow down, and take the time to get the holster on and the gun comfortably positioned. At least that’s my theory.
She’s been this way as long as I’ve known her, and when she came to Christ at my side (we both answered the same alter call, neither of us aware that the other one was....eyes closed, heads down kind of thing), the kingdom gained a mighty prayer warrior. She is a gift to me. But if she has a fly in her ointment, it is her habit of rushing from task to task, without sometimes allowing herself to slow down, pause, assess, and focus on certain things. I think that
how she carries her gun is one of those daily things that she just doesn’t spend much time on, and I learned 30 years ago when we first got married that browbeating her about
anything isn’t going to get either of us very far.
I am the head of my household, but I listen to her wisdom before I make any decisions for our family. About half the time, the decision is to do whatever
she advises, because it’s the right thing to do for that situation. For instance, I never send off a stern email to a disappointing service-provider without first reading it to her over and over as I compose it, to make sure that it has the right tone so that I don’t scorch the earth. But I’m the one who decides the email needs writing, and then executes it. But sometimes, it just doesn’t seem to matter what I say, she’s going to do what she’s going to do. It’s not
defiance so much as I think she sees some things as not really needing my input.....like what kind of underwear she buys herself, or how she wants to wear her hair, for instance. It turns out, it seems, that how she chooses to carry is one of those things too.
It’s not a fight I can win.....and it’s not really a “fight” anyway. It’s just that she doesn’t attach the same importance to it as do I. Alittlejoy1960 (Welcome to the forum, by the way), I think you’re right...... my wife is going to have to have the kind of experiences you had before she takes on-body carry seriously enough to make it her habit. It is my
prayer that the Lord keep her and protect her until then, and beyond.
)
The Annoyed Woman and I have been doing ‘round and ‘round about that for 8 years now, ever since she first got her license. She absolutely agrees every time that she shouldn’t carry in her purse, and promises that she’ll start carrying on her body. Every single time, I challenge her (diplomatically) about how quickly she would be able to (A) find, and (B) deploy her gun, if she found herself in that situation. Every single time, she tries to show me that she can get to it quickly and safely......and fails. Then she promises (again) to start carrying on body.