Dealing with Concealed Carry Anxiety Syndrome
Making the decision to start carrying concealed is a pretty big step. It’s a huge responsibility and, let’s be honest, there’s some inherent risks involved. Walking out your front door carrying a gun for the first time is incredibly stressful for many people. What if it goes off in my pocket? What if someone sees the gun? What if I drop it?
There’s a term for this: “Concealed Carry Anxiety Syndrome” (CCAS). It’s that feeling of constant panic you feel when you first start carrying. The good news is, you’re not alone. We here at the Gun Noob Institute for CCAS Research have some tips to help relieve the stress that new carrier might encounter.
Try it on for size
It’s all about being comfortable with your EDC (Every Day Carry) weapon. Many who experience CCAS, got their license then threw their gun into a holster and walked out their door. While some turn out just fine, others start to feel the effects of CCAS before they make it to their car. To help combat this, try carrying the gun inside your house for a bit before you take that first step outside your door. Here, in the comfort of your home, you can learn how your gun and holster will act with your movements and body type while doing things like getting up from chairs or reaching for items on shelves. Do this for at least a week before you carry outside your property and you’ll be way ahead of the curve!
I should note: in most states, you can carry inside your house or on your property with no license so you can be getting used to carrying while you’re waiting for your license to arrive. Check your local laws first, however. We’re gun geeks here, not lawyers.
Mirror, mirror…
One the biggest symptoms of CCAS is the overwhelming feeling that everyone and their dog is staring at your gun. Some suggest that taking a good look at yourself in the mirror is a good way to alleviate this fear. We tend to disagree. Whenever we check out our gun in the mirror, do you know what we see? Our gun. Right there. There’s the shape of it and everything. Why? Because we know exactly what we’re looking for. It’s kind of like trying to play hide and go seek when everyone is wearing GPS locators and flashing beacons. There’s just no point.
We at the Institute feel that asking a family member or friend (not, and this is important, not a random stranger) to see if they spot something to be a much more reassuring method. Now, don’t just walk up to your friend and say “can you see my gun?!” because…well..that could be taken in the wrong way. Instead, holster up and when you see them say “do you notice anything about me?” Lift your arms a bit, do a spin and possibly walk back and forth like a fashion model. Unless you’re trying to conceal a Desert Eagle, I’d be willing to bet they have no idea what’s going on. That’s exactly the mentality of Joe Public. No one knows you’re carrying and, frankly, they wouldn’t know where to look or what to look for. A slight bulge in the shirt while you were handing over your credit card is going to go completely unnoticed. If for some Murphy’s Law reason someone does notice it, the last thing they’re going to think is “gun”. More than likely their mind will go to cell phone. There are just too many harmless items that are carried in the waistband and that works to your benefit. So take a deep breath and practice your catwalk strut. Blue Steel, baby.
Listen to your mother…
Does “sit up straight” and “don’t slouch” sound familiar? Did your parental units say that to you constantly growing up? That advice will help you greatly with your concealed carry. By maintaining proper posture, it will cause your clothes to hang like they’re supposed to and your spine to curve like it should and this will create a bubble around your gun that will keep it from poking out. Knowing that your gun is now even more concealed will help relax you. Not only that, you’ll have an aura of confidence around you that will undoubtedly help you in life. So stand tall, proud carrier, head up, shoulders back and back straight.
Stop picking at it
You ever notice how a dog or kid, when they’ve done something wrong, will pretty much tell you that they’ve done something wrong? Like, they just start trying to act normal….almost too normal. It’s so out of character for them to act this way that you just know they’ve broken something. New carries do this all the time. They try to walk in a way that they feel will hide the gun. They’re constantly adjusting their shirts, specifically on their carry side. They keep adjusting something in their waistband. Everything they’re doing to try to keep people from noticing is, in fact, drawing attention to it!
Holster it and leave it alone. If you have to make an adjustment, do it in a bathroom or something. Be mindful of your shirt’s position but realize that the act of carrying is going to make it feel different. Forget the gun is there (metaphorically speaking). You’re only going to make things harder on yourself if you keep this up.
Oops…
One of the biggest and most dangerous aspects of CCAS is the fear that the gun will go off accidentally. This can lead many people to carry in a configuration that is, frankly, counterproductive to carrying in the first place. Many won’t chamber a round or carry in the “cocked and locked” position the gun is supposed to be in. We have even met some patients here at the Institute that carried their gun and the magazine separately because “it’s safer”.
Why is this bad? Let’s look at reality. As mentioned many times on this website, real life and Hollywood rarely, if ever, co-mingle. Robberies and defensive situations never look like what you see in movies or TV. Go watch some security camera footage on LiveLeak.com or YouTube and you’ll see how quick these types of things happen. You won’t have time to draw, chamber a round and then aim and fire. You really won’t have time to load a magazine then chamber, aim and fire. Tests have shown that an attacker can cover about 20 feet in about 1.5 seconds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill) That amount of time is barely enough time to draw and fire, much less fumble with chambering a round or loading a gun. If you’re not carrying in a “ready to fire” position, statistically speaking, you might as well not be carrying at all.
So let’s put this fear to rest right now: your gun is not going to “just go off”. Now we know every news story always put it as “the gun accidentally discharged” while it was being cleaned or while the person was showing it to a friend. The dirty secret is that just doesn’t happen. If a gun is going to shoot, you either have to pull the trigger or you REALLY have to work at it. Chances are 99.9% of those people didn’t follow the safety rules and used the “it just went off” to try to cover up their mistake.
We conducted quite a few tests with various styles of modern guns to try to make a gun “go off”. Our lead researcher, codename “The Noob” has done countless things (under safe conditions, of course) to simulate drops, strikes, and more. He even beat the firing pin of a SIG P238 with a roll pin punch to try and make it fire. While he’s yet to release a whitepaper or entertaining YouTube video on the subject, we can give you a sneak peek at the results: “none of the durn things fired”.
If your gun was made in the last 20 years, it’s more than likely safe. Well, “safe” is a relative term. A better thing to say is “the gun is safer than you are”. Those 4 firearm safety commandments are there for a reason. While you don’t have safety devices built in, most guns do. Even the cheap Hi-Points have drop safety mechanisms.
The other factor to watch out for is snagging the trigger. That means, if you pocket carry, you have to dedicate your gun pocket to only your gun and its holster. Regardless of how you carry, make sure your holster covers the trigger. Other than that, follow the firearm safety rules and you will never have a problem.
Get Out There!
The ultimate fix for CCAS is time and experience. You’re not going to get used to carrying unless you carry. The more you carry, the less you’re going to stress about it. Once you’re used to it, you’ll be surprised at what you can conceal. For example, I had always carried pocket pistols. If I did carry IWB, I carried small guns. Then one day I decided to try carrying my SIG P220. This is a large, thick gun and I might as well have been carrying my little .380 pocket pistol. It was just as well hidden as a XDs or Taurus TCP. It felt rather comforting having that big gun with me as well.
So follow these tips and Concealed Carry Anxiety Syndrome will be a thing of the past for you. Just remember to relax and, above all else, follow your safety rules.
Images used under Creative Commons License from bottled_void, Evil Erin and bark.
Like what you read? GunNoob is now part of Pew Pew Tactical. Check out the rest of our awesome resources:
Leave a Reply