We host a Bible study in our homes each week. We have only met with this group three times, and we’re still getting to know each other. In the past week, I have had unexpected encounters with members of our Bible study related to my concealed carry.
At our last Bible study meeting, one of our newer members (I don’t know him very well, but his every spoken word is delivered with a great deal of excitement), picked up a magazine from the bottom shelf of the small table next to my chair to use as a backing for taking notes. It happened to be the current issue of Shooting Illustrated (my NRA magazine). He said, “Hey, mine arrived just today! Do you carry?” I was so completely unprepared for the question that I answered, “Yes.” Before I knew it, he had extracted a promise to go to the range with him at some unspecified future date. I am pretty sure no one else heard the conversation, as there were at least three other conversations happening at the same time.
Lesson learned: Just as we have to be prepared to use our carry weapons at any time, we have to also be prepared to hold every manner of conversation about weapons at any time.
On Sunday, my wife and I managed to encounter just about every member of our study group. One woman, seemingly the oldest member of our group - very nice, very quiet - hugged my wife, then slipped through the small crowd around us to hug me. I wasn’t prepared, and so she gave me a hug before I could drop my weak-side arm to block my weapon from the hug. I know she felt my gun, but her eyes did not give away that information. I’m not sure what she thought she felt with the hug.
Lesson learned: Be prepared for unexpected physical contact.
I think I have reached the point I don’t care who knows anymore. Reality is once one of your friends knows, everyone in that circle knows.
The upside is you meet more like minded people. The downside? Maybe they expect you to do something stupid in the future, like clearing their vacant house when their front door is open when they get home. Don’t do it, call Police and let them do their job.
Being a somewhat vocal 2a Activist now (having done second amendment lectures on occasion) a good deal of my friends/family know or suspect I’m concealed carry now. I’m actually quite honest about the subject in front of them. Though out in public I’m generally not advertising this fact and ask anyone I’m with not to do the same.
Recently we my wife found an antique loveseat on marketplace, and made arrangements to go buy it. It was in a small town about 40 miles away. We arrived and conversed with the couple. It was obvious the loveseat would not fit into my wife’s Liberty, and that we would have to return the next day with my pickup. The couple had plans for the next morning, so we would need to contact each other to secure the time.
The gentleman suggested text rather than messenger, made sense to me. As he held his phone out for my wife to get his number, he looked back at me, for my approval I assume, and says “I’m pretty sure you don’t have a gun, or knife on you.”
My initial thought was to say “actually I have both”, but we were in his house, so I said nothing.
Talking with my wife afterwards she said she almost blurted out " yes he does, he always carries a gun."
Thankfully we both kept our mouths shut, and we picked up the loveseat the next morning without incident.
You just never know when the subject of carrying a gun will surface.