Carrying concealed in someon's home

[TxA]

then you are implicitly inviting the 8 ball of blow that they are bringing with them as well?

Come on Katy, you didn't just equate bringing in a legal firearm to illegal narcotics did you???

[longtooth]

If someone invites me into their home, they implicitly invite everything I'm wearing and carrying. If they don't allow handguns or car keys or cell phones or boxer shorts, it's up to them to explicitly say so. If their conditions are unacceptable, I won't accept their invitiation, and everyone gets what they wanted.

So if you invite someone into your house, then you are implicitly inviting the 8 ball of blow that they are bringing with them as well? Some people find guns just as offensive as drugs.

Lotta difference between legal carry of a legally owned firearm by a verified law abiding citizen or the illegal carry of illegal drugs by a law breaker at the time who may also have other convictions.

Lets keep it relavent to the real question please.
LT

[The Annoyed Man]

If someone invites me into their home, they implicitly invite everything I'm wearing and carrying. If they don't allow handguns or car keys or cell phones or boxer shorts, it's up to them to explicitly say so. If their conditions are unacceptable, I won't accept their invitiation, and everyone gets what they wanted.

So if you invite someone into your house, then you are implicitly inviting the 8 ball of blow that they are bringing with them as well? Some people find guns just as offensive as drugs.

But the coke is illegal (and possibly immoral, depending on your outlook), while your licensed carry of a concealed firearm is not at all illegal or immoral.

The trouble is that you have to out yourself to find out if they have an objection. With all due respect, perhaps you should reexamine how you feel about carrying. It sounds like you're still a little ambivalent about it. That's ok, but be clear about where your feelings are coming from.

[dicion]

Lets flip it so that we're the person who's inviting someone into their home.

How about, don't invite people into your home that you don't trust?

If someone invites me into their home, I assume it's because they trust me enough not to be carrying cocaine in my pocket, or go around randomly shooting people.

If someone is of the habit to invite people into their home that they don't trust... well they make their own bed on that one.

[jframe.38]

1. If it is not 30.06 posted then it is legal. It is perfectly ethical and moral to carry in someone's home as long is it is concealed and you are licensed.

2. A home owner is not going to guarantee your personal safety or security while you are in their home. No home owner will guarantee your security and safety while traveling to and from their home. If you don't feel it is ethical to carry in another's home and leave you firearm in your car they will not guarantee or insure it against theft and burglary of a motor vehicle.

3. As a practical matter,it is a sensitive issue for some to have firearms in their home. Concealed means concealed. I also will not belt carry in another's home, as the risk of discovery during hugs is to high. I will only pocket carry to prevent discovery from hugs or concealing garment failure.

[Katygunnut]

I'll admit that my example was a stretch because drugs are (currently and in most locations) illegal, while the carrying of concealed firearms is (currently and in most locations) legal. However, to me it is more a matter of respecting someone's wishes while I am a visitor in their home. As much as I hate it, some people are very much against having firearms in their home. I disagree with this stance, but I respect their right to their belief. More importantly, I respect their right to dictate acceptable behavior and conduct in their home. I expect the same courtesy from anyone who visits my home.

Let me use another example. If I was invited to the house of an acquaintance who I knew to be a liberal, I would probably refrain from wearing an "I hate Obama" T-shirt. Yes, I have the right to my freedom of expression, but just because I have the right to do it does not mean that it is the right thing to do.

I am not ambivalent about my right to carry. I carry everywhere I am legally able to do so. If I was invited to someone's house and I had reason to believe that they might not want a gun in their home, I would discuss it with the home owner if I was unsure, or thought I could change their mind. If I was fairly certain that they were against guns, I would politely decline the invitation and possibly invite them to my house instead (depending on the circumstances). I would not necessarily need to "out" myself as a CCW holder in doing this. Watching their reaction to my telling them about my last range outing would probably do the trick.

By the same token, I think it is important for the parents of my kids friends to know that I have guns in the house (properly secured, of course). I consider it common courtesy to give them the opportunity to choose not to have their kids anywhere near guns if they are uncomfortable with the idea.

[The Annoyed Man]

I'll admit that my example was a stretch because drugs are (currently and in most locations) illegal, while the carrying of concealed firearms is (currently and in most locations) legal. However, to me it is more a matter of respecting someone's wishes while I am a visitor in their home. As much as I hate it, some people are very much against having firearms in their home. I disagree with this stance, but I respect their right to their belief. More importantly, I respect their right to dictate acceptable behavior and conduct in their home. I expect the same courtesy from anyone who visits my home.

Allow me to draw an analogy.... A knife is very much a deadly weapon. Let's say that the homeowner has a problem with knives... Are you going to alert them to the fact that you have a pocket folder in your pocket and ask their permission to enter the home with it? If not, why not? How would you know about this aversion unless A) he/she declares an aversion to knives, or B) you ask him/her if they have an aversion to knives. Along a similar line, if properly held, I can put your eyes out beyond all repair with my car keys. Should I ask if it is OK to bring my keys into the house? I'm not trying to be disrespectful of your point, but I am trying to point out that the problem isn't the gun/knife/keys. The problem is the intent of the person in possession of those items. In your case, you have to out yourself to have the homeowner's answer, unless extensive conversations over time have previously revealed the other person's sentiments to you. Advance knowledge is not always feasible, and I recommend against outing yourself to get the answer you're looking for, because if the answer isn't favorable, you can bet your bottom dollar that within 24 hours, ALL of that person's circle of friends are going to know that you carry a gun. Not cool.

Let me use another example. If I was invited to the house of an acquaintance who I knew to be a liberal, I would probably refrain from wearing an "I hate Obama" T-shirt. Yes, I have the right to my freedom of expression, but just because I have the right to do it does not mean that it is the right thing to do.

Doesn't apply. You can't open carry in Texas.

I am not ambivalent about my right to carry. I carry everywhere I am legally able to do so. If I was invited to someone's house and I had reason to believe that they might not want a gun in their home, I would discuss it with the home owner if I was unsure, or thought I could change their mind. If I was fairly certain that they were against guns, I would politely decline the invitation and possibly invite them to my house instead (depending on the circumstances). I would not necessarily need to "out" myself as a CCW holder in doing this. Watching their reaction to my telling them about my last range outing would probably do the trick.

It's admirable that you want to be respectful of others' sensibilities; I just think you're asking for more trouble than you had bargained on. And, things cut both ways. By not allowing you into their home armed - with the implication that they cannot protect you while you are there - it is not particularly respectful of your sensibilities. Do they serve meat to people they know to be vegetarians? I would keep better friends than that... but that's just me.

By the same token, I think it is important for the parents of my kids friends to know that I have guns in the house (properly secured, of course). I consider it common courtesy to give them the opportunity to choose not to have their kids anywhere near guns if they are uncomfortable with the idea.

Again, you're just asking for trouble. Do all the right things. Secure the guns. Then let it go. You are under no moral obligation to inform them. Would you also inform them that you've installed child-proofing outlet plugs in all your electrical outlets to keep their little Johnny from sticking a fork into a wall socket?

[Cobra Medic]

How about, don't invite people into your home that you don't trust?

QFT

[terryg]

I started this similar thread a while back regarding carrying while around other peoples children. The topics are very much related in that they deal with the juxtaposition of two conflicting views on the usefulness and appropriateness of carrying a weapon for self defense and the potential destruction of a relationship when those two viewpoints meet.

Many tend to try to boil the equation down to the question of what is legal and to the truth that if we decide not to carry in these situations, we are putting ourselves at a greater risk of being crime victims. I do not argue these points as they are true. It is perfectly legal to carry a concealed weapon into another's home without notification or prior permission and failing to carry in these situations does indeed put one at greater risk of being a victim.

On a personal level, I found these positions to be somewhat cold. Just because I do not put much value in the commonly held opinion that guns are inherently dangerous does not mean that I do not value existing relationships with many people who hold those views. TAM is absolutely right that:

... the problem isn't the gun/knife/keys. The problem is the intent of the person in possession of those items

But, most non-gun people are not going to see it that way and we are not going to convince them of that in the minutes after we are outed or during the conversation where we are requesting consent before entering their property.

That said, once these arguments were laid out for me, I realized that there was no easy answer. My options are:

1. Not carry in these situations. You will not be discovered but could be very sorry.
2. Talk to these individuals and request permission to carry. This has the potential to have wildly varying outcomes.
3. Carry in secret in these situations. This should be ok, but if your outed it can go badly.

Once you realize that your choices are really very limited the reasoning that seems cold and impersonal at first starts to sound much better. So far, although I have chosen option 1 a time or two, most often I have been going with option 3 - and with increased frequency. I have not yet chosen option 2.

Your final option is to become an SD and CHL ambassador which many on this forum do regularly. Not just come out of the closet, but become a flaming 'gun nut' in the eyes of some. A big part of me desires to take that path - but only time will tell ...

Edited for grammar ...

[MechAg94]

If it were my home and you carry without letting me know, you better damn well keep it concealed. If I see it or you decide to pull it out to show someone, I would be upset that you didn't ask permission. I can live with concealed guns, but I don't want anyone handling them in my home without my supervision.

[cbr600]

If it were my home and you carry without letting me know, you better darn well keep it concealed. If I see it or you decide to pull it out to show someone, I would be upset that you didn't ask permission. I can live with concealed guns, but I don't want anyone handling them in my home without my supervision.

I feel the same way about cell phones. Turn off the ringer and keep it concealed, or take it outside.

Kind of like Luke's diner in Gilmore Girls.

[dicion]

... Just because I do not put much value in the commonly held opinion that guns are inherently dangerous ...

Well, you shouldn't have to, that opinion is factually incorrect!

If people actually looked at the numbers, and attributed the number of 'accidental deaths' to mean that something is 'inherently dangerous', Motor Vehicles would win hands down.

Maybe I should yell at everyone that pulls a car into my driveway about bringing that 'dangerous object' onto my property!

If anything is inherently dangerous, it's PEOPLE. A large number of accidental deaths are caused by PEOPLE, and 100% of Convicted Murders & Rapists are People!

Outlaw People!.... wait a second...

[The Annoyed Man]

On a personal level, I found these positions to be somewhat cold. Just because I do not put much value in the commonly held opinion that guns are inherently dangerous does not mean that I do not value existing relationships with many people who hold those views. TAM is absolutely right that:

... the problem isn't the gun/knife/keys. The problem is the intent of the person in possession of those items

But, most non-gun people are not going to see it that way and we are not going to convince them of that in the minutes after we are outed or during the conversation where we are requesting consent before entering their property.

That said, once these arguments were laid out for me, I realized that there was no easy answer.

Terry, as usual, you require me to respond with more than a simplistic answer. That's a good thing. My first response to the idea that such answers are cold is this: every relationship has two partners to it, and the responsibility for the health of that relationship is mutual. I am all about relationships. I don't have tons and tons of friends, but the people I do call "friend" are very dear to me and those relationships are important to me. That said, friendship is an expression of a degree and kind of love, and there are different levels of that relationship sentiment.

Here is a source with deeper explanations of what I mean by that: http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/co ... ngs/06.asp. Briefly, these are the categories...

1. Storge, the love between family members
2. Philia, the love between friends
3. Eros, romantic love
4. Agape, perfect Christian love

Realistically, most real world friendships fall into the category of Philia. About Philia, the above linked website says:

Philia is the love between good friends. Philia is also called "platonic" love. Philia is a chosen love, because we choose whom we will befriend - usually on the basis of shared interests [emphasis mine]. Philia is more conditional and less sacrificial than storge. Philia is less willing to continually overlook faults and frequently forgive others.

Even if one is not a Christian, the first three categories of love still apply.

The point is that we choose our friends, and someone is not likely to be my friend unless we have shared, common interests. What that means is that, among my friends, there is a nearly 100% probability that they have no problems with my carrying a gun, my carrying a gun in their home, or with guns in general. I'm not saying that I can't be friends with someone who doesn't like guns, but it is extremely unlikely that I will be so.

So that leaves Storge love... the love of family members for one another. That love is sacrificial. Sacrificial presumes that one would willingly disarm to enter the home of a family member who hates guns. But sacrificial also means that the family member who hates guns would willingly allow you to enter their home armed. It is a relationship with two parties to it, and both parties have mutual obligations to it. What defines it as Storge is the extent to which either will overlook the shortcomings of the other for the sake of the relationship.

None of my friends (Philia) care about my being armed, so this is a non-issue in my life. Of my surviving immediate family members (Storge), my mother would ban guns from her home, but she lives 1500 miles away in a state where I cannot legally carry a firearm anyway. My non-gun owning brother wouldn't care, and my gun-owning brother would be tickled pink and want to see what I was carrying that day.

OK, that leaves Agape love. How is that going to be expressed in my life? Well, for me, that means when I go into a rough area to deliver a meal to someone less fortunate than me. Or, it means going into a rough area and building a classroom where the children living in an apartment complex can get taught to speak English. Or it means participating in the International Student Ministries at UT Arlington. In the latter, I am bound by law not to carry into certain buildings, so I don't. In the former, I do not abandon my right to self-protection in order to bring God's love to the less fortunate (Luke 22:36).

Terry, it's not that my answers are cold, it is that they have been well thought out over a largish number of years. That's the best answer I can give. I hope it helps you to understand my position better.

[terryg]

Terry, as usual, you require me to respond with more than a simplistic answer. That's a good thing.

And, as usual TAM, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this answer. I am going to respond in two parts to keep this digestible ...

Part 1:

There were two forks to my reply that I intended to convey - and I may have failed to properly emphasize the more significant one. I did not mean to imply that your responses in the past, or even the one I quoted, were the sole product of unfeeling calculation. There were, in fact, several responses from different individuals in my previous OPC thread that utilized vastly varying tones to state mildly varying arguments to come to very similar conclusions.

The main point I attempted to convey was my personal transformation. In my previous thread, some of the responses were very basic and 'calculating'. The responder did not give a second thought to any concept of parental sovereignty (or homeowner sovereignty as is the topic of this thread). Others (yourself and Mr. Cotton included) did acknowledge the potential 'pain points' but still came to the same conclusion. It is very easy to see, and I sincerely believe, that the following statement you made is completely true:

Terry, it's not that my answers are cold, it is that they have been well thought out over a largish number of years. That's the best answer I can give. I hope it helps you to understand my position better.

But for me personally, that conclusion - the result, is still cold - regardless of how it is derived. Some come to it quickly by only considering the 'facts' while others come to it only after deeply considering the relationship and possible ramifications. I used your quote about the "gun/knife/keys" because it was in the current thread and was a recent reply - not intentionally to become the primary target of this conclusion. But it still applies: If we, for a moment, emphatically imagine that we held strong anti-gun sentiments, we would feel greatly offended and, indeed, threatened to learn that someone was carrying a loaded handgun into our home - or around our children. We would be 'aghast' that someone would have the gall to take this course of action without checking with us first.

So the transformation (still underway) is that I do, more and more, exactly understand your position. In fact it is, more and more, becoming my own position - but it doesn't stop it from feeling cold - it is just more tolerable because I have a better understanding of the parameters that define it and make me more willing to follow this course - my option number 3 below:

1. Not carry in these situations. You will not be discovered but could be very sorry.
2. Talk to these individuals and request permission to carry. This has the potential to have wildly varying outcomes.
3. Carry in secret in these situations. This should be ok, but if your outed it can go badly.

This thought saddens me to some degree but is the product of reducing the decision tree to possible outcomes. As the risk of discovery is fairly low, option 2 has a higher likelihood of producing a damaged relationship than option 3. And option 1 becomes less attractive to me the longer I carry regularly everywhere else.

The other less significant prong of the fork was simply to be a reminder that regardless of how well we can boil it down, it remains a potentially sticky issue. Like it or not, by not receiving explicit permission to carry (or understood permission because we know they are kindred spirits on this issue) while entering someones home, we are placing our personal beliefs about a very sensitive and potentially volatile issue above the relationship with that person/family. I won't linger here, but I fear that this was the point that I unintentionally emphasized rather than my transformation to carry in-spite of this.

[terryg]

Part 2:

Here is a source with deeper explanations of what I mean by that: http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/co ... ngs/06.asp. Briefly, these are the categories...

1. Storge, the love between family members
2. Philia, the love between friends
3. Eros, romantic love
4. Agape, perfect Christian love

Realistically, most real world friendships fall into the category of Philia. About Philia, the above linked website says:

Philia is the love between good friends. Philia is also called "platonic" love. Philia is a chosen love, because we choose whom we will befriend - usually on the basis of shared interests [emphasis mine]. Philia is more conditional and less sacrificial than storge. Philia is less willing to continually overlook faults and frequently forgive others.

Even if one is not a Christian, the first three categories of love still apply.

The point is that we choose our friends, and someone is not likely to be my friend unless we have shared, common interests. What that means is that, among my friends, there is a nearly 100% probability that they have no problems with my carrying a gun, my carrying a gun in their home, or with guns in general. I'm not saying that I can't be friends with someone who doesn't like guns, but it is extremely unlikely that I will be so.

So that leaves Storge love... the love of family members for one another. That love is sacrificial. Sacrificial presumes that one would willingly disarm to enter the home of a family member who hates guns. But sacrificial also means that the family member who hates guns would willingly allow you to enter their home armed. It is a relationship with two parties to it, and both parties have mutual obligations to it. What defines it as Storge is the extent to which either will overlook the shortcomings of the other for the sake of the relationship.

None of my friends (Philia) care about my being armed, so this is a non-issue in my life. Of my surviving immediate family members (Storge), my mother would ban guns from her home, but she lives 1500 miles away in a state where I cannot legally carry a firearm anyway. My non-gun owning brother wouldn't care, and my gun-owning brother would be tickled pink and want to see what I was carrying that day.

Thank you soooo much for posting this. It has helped me tremendously in understanding a particular relationship that has been the most troubling to my mind for the past few months. While the journey to CHL and regularly carrying has been going on in my mind for years - I only took action on this a few short months ago. I have had weapons for home defense for many years, well secured - but easy to access if needed. This has, to a large degree, led to a compartmentalization of this aspect of my life. Part of this was due to my wife's fear and hesitancy toward guns. I am sure if it was a hobby that she expressed an interest in, I would have picked up to this pace before now. But I have always liked guns in general and have believed in the right of citizens to protect themselves with guns. These general beliefs have not changed drastically.

What has changed, in some cases drastically, in the past few months are my beliefs about:
1. What types of RKBA restrictions are reasonable (but you still can't have a ICBM in your backyard)
2. The balancing of the right to carry vs the responsibility to carry
3. The amount of time I spent thinking about and practicing many aspects to RKBA
4. The financial resources I desire to and am willing to invest in this hobby/lifestyle

There may be more, but to summarize, this has very quickly become a much bigger part of my daily life than ever before - by several orders of magnitude.

But there is one family in particular that we are extremely close to that would likely be very surprised by these developments. Due to various professional and personal factors, we have not spent any significant time with them since before this summer. But this is pretty unusual and likely to end as relaxation of our children's schedules is on the horizon (and as football season ramps up).

This family is one, that for us, crosses the line from friends and into extended family. And although they no longer attend our church, they have in the past and we certainly share the same desire to attempt to express Agape love in our daily lives. This family sacrificed greatly for us when we needed it several years ago. It seems that they may also be heading to a valley where they will require similar from us - and we will gladly give it.

In the past, our children have spent nights in their home and vice versa. Knowing my guns were safely secured assuaged any tinge of pressure I felt to discuss the topic with them. However, I have not yet been forced to decide, since getting my CHL, what I will do the next time we are visiting in their home. Complicating the decision will be that my wife is still less comfortable with this whole thing - so even if I want to breech the topic, I am not sure she would agree. There is a good likelihood that I will choose to disarm in this situation until the choice is more clear either by subtle contextual clues or by Divine revelation.

But at least by recognizing that this family is much more like an extended family to us, it has helped me identify the source of the increased turmoil the decision creates for me.

Edited for grammar ...