I’ve actually found that walking up with a smile and introducing myself with a handshake goes a long ways towards alleviating most peoples apprehensiveness.
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Friendly but direct eye contact, a nod, and a “Morning Ma’am” or “Afternoon Sir”. Then back about my business.
It says yes, I see you seeing me and my gun, and I’m a polite, mannerly, ordinary person who isn’t up to anything out of the ordinary, and I’m perfectly comfortable with you knowing I’m carrying. Nothing more to see here, folks, move along.
Have had a few gun friendly conversations out of it.
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That almost sounds like an old Jedi mind trick
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As instructors it’s just good business and a good way to pickup business.
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@DBrogue I’ve learned a few things from my hubby 
I’ve seen him put the “whammy” on both people and animals. We kinda think Maybe He’s Not From Around Here. Jedi mind tricks just seem to come naturally to him.
@WildRose Yep, if I’m gonna teach, I need to feel super secure and comfortable with what I’m doing… so much so that it just converts nervousness in casual observers to curiosity. That opens the door to teachable moments and to people becoming students.
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I teach RSO’s and a lot of student level courses and have assisted in quite a few other instructor level classes, particularly for basic pistol. I’ve often taught the basic pistol course for my TC to classes that are there to get the BP student course done prior to taking the instructor course and then later assist with the instructor course.
The biggest problem I see with instructor candidates is they are afraid to get up in front of a crowd and speak. Generally those are the same people that have a hard time interacting even one on one with strangers.
These types of interactions in public really help you build your confidence interacting with strangers and I think it translates directly to making you a better speaker in front of a class of students.
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I just act normal and go about my business as if I’m not doing anything wrong because I’m not.
Kind of funny story, I was in Walmart a while back and I was carrying as usual (concealed, but you never know when you might bend over or reach for something & accidentally show your gun), anyway I hear a guy passing by yell “gun! Someone has a gun in the store!”. Well I immediately think that they’re yelling about me and start mentally preparing for a hassle (even though I’m legal) while exiting the store like every other shopper. The whole while I’m waiting for a cop to grab me and start hassling me about carrying, but it never happens. Come to find out someone was caught shoplifting and they ran into the Subway sandwich shop inside Walmart and armed themselves with a bread knife! The “guy with the gun” was a cop and the whole thing was over before the employee even got to the part of the store that I was in! Crazy! I knew I wasn’t flashing or printing, lol!
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I usually will say something along the lines of I apologize if that makes you nervous, but I assure you I trained and licensed to carry
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I carry every day and have done for years. I have not had anyone notice except for a couple of lady friends of mine who gave me hugs. They felt the gun on my hip and asked about it. Since they were friends of mine, it was not an issue.
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I would go about my day as if nothing happened unless they said something to me about it. There is no sense in creating more of a situation than necessary. Without knowing the person you do not know how they will react if approached. If confronted by someone about carrying concealed or openly it is always best to be calm and rational when explaining or talking about it.
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Same thing happened to me in church. The look on the lady’s face was priceless. I really try to avoid hugs in church.
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Good Mind set for concealed carry Lacy. And welcome to the group
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I heard a great response if asked what the bulge on my hip is. Tell them it is your life saving device.
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They’ve already reacted, so might as well just pop a friendly smile and attitude to lower their blood pressure and let them know that lots of their fellow law abiding citizens are also armed and prepared if necessary to stop a deadly threat.
The more positive interactions the non carrying and non gun owning public has with us the more of them will join the cause.
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I’m on the security team at my very large church (over 25K in attendance each weekend). Our only identification is a name tag on an American flag lanyard while the rest of the staff and volunteers have a standard church logo name tag lanyard. Several members who know what the lanyard means have asked me if I am carrying. I tell them that I’m glad they have to ask because that means that if I was carrying then it would be well concealed. If that doesn’t satisfy their curiosity then I tell them that if they ever see me holding a gun then they will know the answer to their question and they should also be looking for cover because there is also a bad guy who is about to learn that I have a gun. Their next question is usually, “Do all the security team have guns?” And I tell them that carrying a gun is not required to be on the security team and only those who have passed the police qualification test are allowed to carry if they want to. If they want to know more I refer them to our full time security team leaders. I believe that concealed carry is exactly that, concealed, and it is never anyone else’s business whether or not I am carrying unless they have a legitimate need to know. (for example a police officer.)
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The problem with those tags is that they identify you and thus make you a target. Not only will the members quickly figure it out it wouldn’t take long for a “newcomer” that might be scouting potential targets figures it out.
Might want to discuss this with the person in charge of the security team and suggest using the same name tags as the rest of the staff.
I spent a good part of my career playing the bad guy in training scenarios and learning to think like the bad guys even when I was on the other side.
What I can promise you is that if I were targeting a church or was a disgruntled parishioner the first thing I’d do is find a way to identify the security team members and they would be my first targets.
Eliminate the most dangerous threat first and work your way down.
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@WildRose I generally use non verbal communications such as a smile for most encounters. As a 6’1" Amazon Goddess I cannot assume that any glances, stares, etc towards me are because I am carrying concealed. As you may guess I do get noticed pretty much everywhere I go. It’s never because of me carrying though.
I conceal for the specific reason of not wanting others knowing that I am carrying. It’s for my protection and peace of mind. Because of my Amazon Goddess status I am not going to assume a reaction from someone is because I have a handgun on me. Therefore, I am not going to walk up to them and start talking saying something like "it’s ok…, don’t worry…, etc. They may already be in an alarmed state and by approaching them that could escalate things when not necessary. Which is why I choose to wait until they say something first. On top of that it alerts others nearby that I am carrying and defeats the purpose of being concealed. Especially if that person does not say anything out loud.
My ex is very anti-gun because someone pointed a one at them, then shot the wall, and started laughing. It was a very traumatic experience for them. It did not matter what I said or did nothing was going to change their mind on the subject or about me having any firearms around them. You never know someone’s back story. By physically approaching them to verbally say something about it may heighten their anxiety of the situation to an alarming level. Neither is or will be good for the other person or the law abiding carrying community such as ourselves. Like I said before this is why I choose to wait for them to say something or ask me about why I have a firearm on me.
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That’s a good point WildRose. Fortunately our church is large enough that we can also hire uniformed officers. The officers know that they are almost always going to be the first targets of an active shooter and the rest of our team are their eyes and ears through radio contact through our team leader who is always the one who communicates with the police team leader. Part of the security team’s willing responsibility as “sheep dogs” is to try to identify the “wolves” through their suspicious behavior and we are willing (but not hoping) to be the ones that are the targets of an active shooter rather than the unarmed church members. It would be nice to have an element of surprise through total anonymity but that has to be balanced with the need to be able to identify other members of the security team. We have a large enough team and attendance changes from week to week so that we can’t recognize or know every member of the team on duty. We do have a team meeting and area assignments so we are personally acquainted with those in our area but any other team member could arrive at an incident as backup so the unique security lanyard is an important item, even if it does give a slight increase in exposure.
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Hey @Kelly, you’ve got company in the high altitudes!
Seriously, we need a USCCA meetup… hanging out at the range with the extra tall ladies would rock!
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I just go about my day unless asked
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