TexasCHLforum.com

You can lead people toward the value of having a CHL, but I think it's a good idea to proceed one step at a time. Most people reject the concept of armed self-defense, because they instinctively feel that if they don't think about bad things, bad things won't happen.

Going too fast can alienate them.

Alienating your friends and relatives is bad enough. They can talk about you and start gossip. Depending upon the community, it could be a problem down the road. There's nothing wrong with having a CHL, but gossip tends to become distorted and exaggerated.

Alienating someone that you work with can cost you your job, as has been stated.

- Jim

atxgun wrote:People I barely know that I carry: employees of the range. I haven't flat out told anyone but I have walked in holding nothing but a box of ammo and walked out holding nothing when I pay.

All they know is that you have a handgun (assuming that you aren't just throwing cartridges at the targets).

It's perfectly legal to carry a firearm to the range in whatever manner you chose, and LEOs and others who don't need CHLs also practice.

I'm envious that they let you draw from a holster, though.

I have found that people who are heavily into shooting assume that you have a CHL, and are surprised if someone doesn't.

- Jim

I have to add that after I was with this company a couple of years, a guy that I had just started working with used a phrase that only a shooter would use. I don't remember what the phrase was. Something like squib load, that you just never hear outside shooting circles.

It turns out that he has taken foreign employees who are visiting Texas shooting many times, and makes no secret of it. So apparently top management is cool with it.

(Unfortunately, we still have that lousy parking lot policy.)

- Jim

Many episodes like this have been described here.

The bottom line is to keep the lips zipped at work until you know for a fact that your boss is a gun nut.

One day my boss told me how he had pulled a shotgun on a prowler the night before. I took that as a good sign. Then his boss was telling hunting stories over lunch.

But even with that kind of signal, you can't be sure that they are comfortable with concealed carry.

BTW, it's handy to do some sport shooting that is not CHL-related, so you can talk freely about it. People seem comfortable with the concepts of skeet or trap shooting, bullseye, or plinking.

- Jim