I bought a fanny pack and I liked it.

[ghostrider]

You guys are fooling your self if you don’t think a healthy percentage of the population does not assume you are carrying.

You're fooling yourself if you think a healthy percentage of the population notices anything past their cellphone or Ipod. Most people appear to be in their own little worlds and wouldn't notice someone wearing a fanny pack, hawaiian shorts, shorts (with an ankle holster), CHL badge and sash :-)

[2crazy2carry]

My CHL instructor was very wise when he said never carry indirectly and alwasy have the gun carried out of sight and choose a carry method that is out of sight as well.

If you carry in glove box and a car jacker comes up and sticks a gun in your face and kindly asks you to test drive you fine automobile, its highly unlikely he is then going to turn his attention for 5-10secs to allow you to get into you glove box. So carry the gun on you.

I asked him about fanny packs. He said he carried that way for a while til he realized the weakness of the carry strategy.

Carrying in a fanny pack leaves you open to two vulnerabilities:

1) Educated criminals that know you might be carrying in your fanny pack. They will still try to rob you as they still have the element of surprise, and your element that you might be carrying is now more obvious. They will make seperating you from your fanny pack and priority and they will relish in the idea of a free gun.

2) If you have an uneducated robber, still, do you think he is not going to want the fanny pack? If you are being robbed he will demand your belongings and I do not see how he would not want the fanny pack. Basically you leaving a slimmer chance to actually get to use and deploy your weapon in a robbery situation.

Carry concealed and keep you chosen method concealed. if you are seperated from you valuables like watch, wallet, and fanny pack, you have a window to regain control if you toss everything on the ground in a mock compliance and back up telling the guy you dont want trouble he can have it all. When he goes to pick it up you can then side step and quickly withdraw your HIDDEN weapon.

Having a gun in a fanny pack makes your gun unvisible, but its not hidden, the object that contains your gun is in clear view and in the immediate attention of potential criminals making it harder to access the weapon without being noticed.

Good luck with the fanny pack, but i dont think its a realistic way to carry if your serious about not being caught off guard.

[Excaliber]

My CHL instructor was very wise when he said never carry indirectly and alwasy have the gun carried out of sight and choose a carry method that is out of sight as well.

If you carry in glove box and a car jacker comes up and sticks a gun in your face and kindly asks you to test drive you fine automobile, its highly unlikely he is then going to turn his attention for 5-10secs to allow you to get into you glove box. So carry the gun on you.

I asked him about fanny packs. He said he carried that way for a while til he realized the weakness of the carry strategy.

Carrying in a fanny pack leaves you open to two vulnerabilities:


1) Educated criminals that know you might be carrying in your fanny pack. They will still try to rob you as they still have the element of surprise, and your element that you might be carrying is now more obvious. They will make seperating you from your fanny pack and priority and they will relish in the idea of a free gun.
2) If you have an uneducated robber, still, do you think he is not going to want the fanny pack? If you are being robbed he will demand your belongings and I do not see how he would not want the fanny pack. Basically you leaving a slimmer chance to actually get to use and deploy your weapon in a robbery situation.

Carry concealed and keep you chosen method concealed. if you are seperated from you valuables like watch, wallet, and fanny pack, you have a window to regain control if you toss everything on the ground in a mock compliance and back up telling the guy you dont want trouble he can have it all. When he goes to pick it up you can then side step and quickly withdraw your HIDDEN weapon.

Having a gun in a fanny pack makes your gun unvisible, but its not hidden, the object that contains your gun is in clear view and in the immediate attention of potential criminals making it harder to access the weapon without being noticed.

Good luck with the fanny pack, but i dont think its a realistic way to carry if your serious about not being caught off guard.

When CHL instructors teach stuff like this, the adoring newbies in the class look at this godlike figure who actually carries a gun almost worshipfully and swallow almost anything he can come up with. Very seldom does anyone ask, "How many encounters with violent street criminals have you successfully managed or investigated?" The answer in many cases would likely be revealing and would provide useful insight into how much credibility to give to the instructor's musings on subjects outside of the CHL curriculum.

I sure hope nobody in the class takes your instructor's advice to dump all the goodies on the ground when the bad guy demands them. These guys are on a hair trigger and a power trip. Defying them that way has an excellent chance of resulting in the victim being shot - repeatedly.

Virtually everyone is aware that some fanny packs contain guns, and some don't, just like some bulges under shirts are 1911's and some are cell phones and medical devices. LEO's who actually do have experience with bad guys often choose this carry method, especially in warm weather, because it solves the problem of how to effectively conceal a gun large enough to be of some comfort if things go south. They know that some good guys and some bad guys will suspect they're carrying a gun, and they could care less because they're legal, reasonably discreet, and it doesn't matter. The same is true for knowledgeable and licensed non-LEO's.

It's true that bad guys will recognize a fanny pack as a possible repository for a weapon. This is particularly true when the sag of the pouch and the apparent strain on the wide strap make it clear that there are either gold bars or a big gun in there.

It is also true that bandits' occupational choice requires they be astute at choosing victims who aren't carrying. The guys who fail this test end up with abbreviated careers and in the news as a warning to others.

I've literally seen the pre-approach "danger scan" work in real time on more than one occasion when a bad guy's target scanning glance locked on the fanny pack and he decided he didn't need to ask me for the time after all.

Anyone who has a defensive strategy that depends on getting to his gun after he's let a bad guy select, approach, interview, position, and confront him and has actually been robbed doesn't have a fanny pack problem - he's got a crime dynamics knowledge issue and a situational awareness problem.

[RPB]

I wore fanny packs YEARS before I carried.

I took them to Casinos to keep my coins sorted by denomination
I took them to Amusement parks to carry hard candy and gum and (wife's personal feminine products)
I took them fishing because stuff falls out of pockets into puddles, or worse, car keys fall into the lake.
I took them motorcycling because falls out of pockets

Maybe I'll start wearing them again, for robbery prevention, if people think I have a gun and wallet in it, then I'll hand over my fanny pack to the robber with it's contents of candy, chapstick etc, and reach for my wallet where there is GOLD at 5:30 IWB (Gold Dots JHP hollow points)

[Abraham]

If a child asks "what's in your fanny pack" I wouldn't be offended, because he/she's a child.

If a grown stranger were to ask me, I wouldn't feel the slightest obligation to answer...

[The Annoyed Man]

If a child asks "what's in your fanny pack" I wouldn't be offended, because he/she's a child.

If a grown stranger were to ask me, I wouldn't feel the slightest obligation to answer...

Bingo!

[The Annoyed Man]

Virtually everyone is aware that some fanny packs contain guns, and some don't, just like some bulges under shirts are 1911's and some are cell phones and medical devices. LEO's who actually do have experience with bad guys often choose this carry method, especially in warm weather, because it solves the problem of how to effectively conceal a gun large enough to be of some comfort if things go south. They know that some good guys and some bad guys will suspect they're carrying a gun, and they could care less because they're legal, reasonably discreet, and it doesn't matter. The same is true for knowledgeable and licensed non-LEO's.

It's true that bad guys will recognize a fanny pack as a possible repository for a weapon. This is particularly true when the sag of the pouch and the apparent strain on the wide strap make it clear that there are either gold bars or a big gun in there.

It is also true that bandits' occupational choice requires they be astute at choosing victims who aren't carrying. The guys who fail this test end up with abbreviated careers and in the news as a warning to others.

I've literally seen the pre-approach "danger scan" work in real time on more than one occasion when a bad guy's target scanning glance locked on the fanny pack and he decided he didn't need to ask me for the time after all.

Anyone who has a defensive strategy that depends on getting to his gun after he's let a bad guy select, approach, interview, position, and confront him and has actually been robbed doesn't have a fanny pack problem - he's got a crime dynamics knowledge issue and a situational awareness problem.

What he said...

I have a fannypack. It's not my primary method of carry, but I do occasionally use it - bike riding, trips to the gym, quick runs to the store with my (as someone else called them...) "Guitar Hero" shorts on. But I also have both a Maxpedition Fatboy S "man bag" and a Safepacker that I sometimes use to carry a gun in. There are days when my back just hurts too much to put any kind of gun on my belt - either IWB or OWB - and I want to carry more than my pocket snubbie. I am perfectly comfortable with these carry methods because:

1. Most people just aren't that observant. They don't notice "printing" either. They are oblivious to most of what happens around them, unless they hear a sudden "BANG!" or see a violent, out of the ordinary motion.
2. Like Excaliber said, those who will notice are either LEO, other CHLs, or predators. I don't worry about LEOs or other CHLs. I make eye contact with potential predators so that they know I have them under surveillance. I let them draw their own conclusions about what's in the fannypack/bag/Safepacker.

My only qualms about any of these things is that they are technically "off body," and as such, there is some small possibility that I could be separated from them. Living in Condition Yellow is the cure for that.

[alvins]

my father wears a fanny pack i think their almost as bad as a man purse.

[dicion]

my father wears a fanny pack i think their almost as bad as a man purse.

"European Shoulder Bag"

That commercial's hilarious.

[Warhammer]

The very idea of being made by a thief who will then confront you to take you gun is ludicrous. If a thief thinks you are aremed, he will simply avoid you. Guns are WAY to easy to get for a BG to risk a drrect confrontation just to get another gun. Predators attack the defenseless, they don't go looking for the target that is most likely to fight back.

I agree that the CHL Instructor who gave the treatise on the evils "indirect" carry was expressing opinion and overlooked the many situtation when it is actually the best solution available. Also, he seemed to assume that you would have absolutely no way to stop the confrontation from actually getting to the point that you're handing over your fanny pack. Apparently, he doesn't talk about situational awareness in his classes.

[RiverCity.45]

I live in San Antonio, which is a tourist town. Where there are tourists, there will be fanny packs. All this assertion that anyone will assume you are carrying a firearm iin your pack doesn't apply here. Criminals are more likely to think you are a tourist with money in there, not a gun. So when you come to San Antonio, wear it with ease and disregard the doomsday predictions.

[68Charger]

Eh.. sure. I live here in San Antonio, too. When I go downtown I see them a lot and don't think at all that there is a gun in there.

Fanny packs though.. They're just so darn ugly.

And they say men in the 60's had great fashion sense. SHAME ON YOU ALL!

;)

[chasfm11]

Eh.. sure. I live here in San Antonio, too. When I go downtown I see them a lot and don't think at all that there is a gun in there.

Fanny packs though.. They're just so darn ugly.

And they say men in the 60's had great fashion sense. SHAME ON YOU ALL!

;)

Actually, when I wear mine, you have only a little more chance of seeing it than you do of seeing my IWB. I've figured out that I need to wear my gun belt on my pants and that I need to size the fanny pack so that it fits above the gun belt. I'm never been a "tuck" guy and all of my concealment shirts easily cover the fanny pack. It would only be when I reach into a pants pocket and the shirt tail comes up that any of it becomes visible.

You can ask my wife: She would be the first to tell you that I have no fashion sense. That's because I just don't care. As long as I'm clean and neat, that is good enough for me. Besides, I can think of many other types of garments that I consider uglier than a fanny pack but I'm not going to list them all here. I guess it comes down to personal tastes.. or lack of them in my case.

[Excaliber]

The very idea of being made by a thief who will then confront you to take you gun is ludicrous. If a thief thinks you are aremed, he will simply avoid you. Guns are WAY to easy to get for a BG to risk a drrect confrontation just to get another gun. Predators attack the defenseless, they don't go looking for the target that is most likely to fight back.

I agree that the CHL Instructor who gave the treatise on the evils "indirect" carry was expressing opinion and overlooked the many situtation when it is actually the best solution available. Also, he seemed to assume that you would have absolutely no way to stop the confrontation from actually getting to the point that you're handing over your fanny pack. Apparently, he doesn't talk about situational awareness in his classes.

I read the instructor's opinion of "indirect carry" as disfavoring such off body carry methods as a day timer, purse, or other container that is not actually worn on the body. If that's what he meant, I agree with him that these carry methods have very strong downsides and should be avoided whenever better methods are available. I don't consider a fanny pack that is worn on the body to be in this category.

I use a fanny pack (which was custom made to my discreet specs and doesn't resemble any of the mass produced gun pouches) anytime it would be difficult to otherwise conceal a gun big enough to have confidence in if I need to use it. That being said, I also am not dating or looking for a career as a fashion model, and I really don't care if somebody thinks it looks goofy. It works for me.

I don't ever use off body carry, but I also won't say it never has a valid use for anyone. Some women's dress requirements and preferences don't leave a lot of other viable options open in some situations. (This disclaimer gives me at least a small chance of getting away with a survivable number of scorch and scratch marks from our distaff members after all the smoke clears. )

I will say that if purse carry is practiced, the situational awareness radar has to be kept constantly on high because in any confrontation, separation of the woman and the purse usually happens by surprise in the first second or two. This leaves an armed attacker and a disarmed victim - a less than ideal situation in tactical terms.

[mgood]

If I see a fanny pack, I figure there's probably a gun in it.
But I assume everyone is armed, unless they're naked, then I'm not sure.