Transition To Carry At Home

When I get home I go from a Glock 23 or Glock 26 in an IWB to a Walther PPS (M1) 9mm or a .40 S&W Shield in my pocket, but if I'm even dressed in just shorts I have something on me besides my folding knife.

It's easier to just draw a pistol than to race back to wherever you stowed it (for me that's usually my bedroom).

When I was on the ambulance one of the patients that I felt kind of bad about was this older guy who was just lounging around his house when his doorbell rang and instead of talking through the door he answered it and got bum rushed by several gang bangers doing a home invasion.

They'd heard that he had guns from someone and decided to clean him out. I checked up on him after another call took me to the same hospital and it turned out that he had an orbital fracture of his left eye and there was some question if he might lose sight in it permanently. I don't know how many guns he had, but he might have had a pretty good shot at repelling the attack as they just used fists and feet and hit him with the brass lamp by his easy chair.

You could also step outside for a second and get attacked. Doesn't have to be a person, might just be a couple large dogs that your neighbor lets loose.

So yeah, I'm armed even at home and even though I live in the suburbs.

If I felt so threatened I needed to carry in my home I would move. I guess I'm fortunate that I live where I do. I know no one that carries in their home or even outside on their property and very few that carry concealed.

On the other hand nearly everyone I know carries in their vehicle when traveling as do I.

I pocket carry a Taurus TCP in a DeSantis Nemesis, and it stays on me as long as I am wearing street clothes. Some days that means it stays with me until I go to bed, but most of the time I change into shorts or sweats when I get home from work and the pistol goes into the nightstand drawer then. I have both handguns and long guns stashed in various locations around my home, so I've never felt the need to carry while watching TV generally. YMMV.

I don't usually bother removing my BHP unless I'm stripping down for bed, or will be climbing around under a car to work on it.

Some of you think it's about where you live, or whether or not you have a "paranoid" mindset.

Can't it just be about, being used to the thing, and that its presence has become habitual?
I always thought the goal was to make it a part of your normal wear, and not a thing tacked on after the fact, to be fussed over and fiddled with.

I'll still do it that way. My hands never have any doubt as to where to go and what to do with it once they've found it... and I'm pretty sure that only the shrewd and trained eye can spot that I'm packing, since I've also worked to eliminate "tells".

I only wish I was smart enough to be able to tell when I may actually need it!
Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and all that

Some of you think it's about where you live, or whether or not you have a "paranoid" mindset.

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I think it's more about where a person lives. For some of us carrying a gun around the house would feel a little paranoid. For others it would be pretty smart. Your circumstances dictate what a guys gotta do.

"That kind of thing never happens here"

Well my post certainly stimulated the conversation, more than I would have expected.

I am 72 years old. I could not legally carry until the last few years, so I have survived most of my life without the protection of a concealed handgun. I like to think I have enough street smarts to keep myself out of most potentially dangerous situations. I am delighted that concealed carry is more widespread throughout the nation. I carry when I am away from home. I am fortunate to live in a region and neighborhood where I feel safe and can relax at home. I should have phrased post #8 more personally:

"If I felt so threatened that I had to carry at home, I would move." And I stand by that statement.

The logic of concealed carry cuts both ways...one could decide that carrying one gun at home is not sufficient, so maybe one should carry two, or three,....it seems there must be a point of diminishing returns.

I don't care if you carry at home. As other threads have shown, there are many reasons to carry a firearm, and I really don't care what your reason may be. Or if you carry at all. My reason for carrying a firearm is my perceived risk at the moment, since I lived a long time without being able to carry one at all. I have decided that I am not at significantly increased risk by not carrying inside my home. That is my criteria for carrying; you have the freedom to use different criteria.

I have decided that I have no need to carry inside my home because I like the way the firearm looks when I see myself in the mirror, or to compensate for any anatomical shortcomings. Criticism of such a personal decision is rude at the least. If I was perceived as rude in my previous comments, I apologize; rudeness was not my intention. Those who are bent out of shape because I have chosen to take that (minuscule) risk to not carry within my home should recognize that their comments appear rude also.

I don't know that there's a right or wrong here, only what's right for your situation. My brother lives in a part of Wisconsin where people who lock their cars are considered paranoid. Carrying a gun on your property or while in your house is unheard of. I'd move there in a minute, but my ex has a say in this because of our kids, so I'm stuck in the Chicago area for now. Our suburb has a very low come rate, but from time to time the trash from other parts of the Chicago area find there way here. Break ins, armed robberies and shootings are not a daily event, but they do happen from time to time, making carrying in your house not such a bad idea.

Kleanbore said:

When I got my carry permit eight years ago, my intention was to carry only when I perceived the need. There's a problem with that: how would one ever know in advance?

So--I carry almost all the time. Then someone brought up the idea of carrying at home.nThat sounded preposterous to me. That was until I had given it just a little thought.

For decades, I had kept a firearm in the bedroom for house defense.

That "felt" fine--until it occurred to me what it wouldn't really help much at all unless I happened to be in the bedroom when the need arose.

A little analysis gave me a list of all the places in which I might find myself in the house at any point in time. I added the points of possible ingress for a violent criminal--and then, their possible routes inside the house.

Those factors are all floor plan dependent.

It took only a little simulation and risk analysis for me to arrive at the conclusion that carrying at home wasn't really such an outlandish idea at all.

So, I carry at home. I can access the weapon in the very unlikely circumstance that it is needed; I know where it is, always; no one else can do damage with it; and I don't have to take it on and off when I leave the house and come home.

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^THIS^

Especially the part in bold.

I put mine on when I put my pants on and take it off when I take them off. A couple of points: I do the same thing with my wallet so I don't forget it, the gun is like that. One of the most common home invasions is a guy puttering around in his garage and a couple of guys just walk up to him. Do you arm up to go to your garage or get the mail. I don't have to I'm already armed.

Most people don't have the luxury of moving. I bought my place, two years later and the nice older woman who lived next door son got out of jail after 17 years and started an ongoing criminal enterprise out of her home and I started carrying. In the real world most of us are not rich and live where we can afford to live. With the property value crash we just can't just sell our homes and move.

helitack32f1 said:

Steven Seagal?

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Not the gender I had in mind. But it really doesn't matter because my wife would never allow it anyway.

I keep my EDC within arms reach pretty much at all times.a

Glock 26 fits in athletic shorts pocket just as fine as it does clipped to a belt.

JR24 said:

Glock 26 fits in athletic shorts pocket just as fine as it does clipped to a belt.

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That is one of those "your mileage may vary" things lol

At home I transition down from a full size M&P9 to an M&P9C. I generally wear sweats at home and carry in the pocket of my hoodie.

I don't carry a gun at home because I fear a home invasion, I carry a gun at home because it's cheap insurance. The likelihood is I will never need a gun (ever really) in my home but I would hate to be stuck in my living room with a thug between me and my gun in my Bedroom.

There are enough compact guns on the market that there's really no reason not to have one for around the house.

When I get home, my primary usually (but not always) goes into my desk. The BUG stays in my pocket until I go to bed.

I don't expect trouble, but I would like to be prepared for it just the same.

No matter how "safe" your hood is, anytime, anyplace, anywhere something could go down.

If you made the choice to carry a firearm, why not carry in the most precious place you know, your home.

Just imagine if you were not carrying and the door burst open. Would you be able to live with yourself if a family member got hurt or was lost and you did not have the means at your disposal to do something immediately about it?

For those who have small children, you may and maybe should modify the way you carry in the home. Pocket may be best in that case, but you should at least think about why you don't, if you don't and of course, the ultimate choice is up to you.

In the summer months I generally transition to shorts when I get home and slip my S&W 642 into a front pocket.

At only one pound, it is much lighter than any of my daily carry handguns and is light enough to forget it is there.

Edmo

The nice thing about the hammerless Snub Nose, it can be fired from the pocket! What a shock to Mr. home invader, who now has a really bad feeling in his lower body!

I most always have my P3AT on me due to it being small and light enough to work in gym shorts. I have a Kydex holster that hangs from the neck for those intimate moments
Beyond that my G26 goes in a cabinet above the fridge and there are others available so I view the 380 as the gun I use to get to a better one.

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When I'm home I have no reason to conceal and more firepower in a more accurate package is welcome IMHO.

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Just cause I got a little gun in my pocket doesn't mean I don't have quick access to a bigger pistol, I just got tired of the OWB gun banging on the rocker arm or poking my side when laying on the couch.

There's a forum I sometimes read called Democratic Underground. Several (literally thousands) of their members are rabidly anti Second Amendment ( As in they would support an outright ban on ALL civilian firearms ownership) and they routinely post that if you own a gun at all you live in fear.

It's interesting to me when I hear supposedly pro Second Amendment posters expressing the same sentiment (with only a difference in degree) here.

I am currently sitting on my couch in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt carrying an M&P9C in a Galco pancake holster on my belt and I barely notice it's there. It's not inconvenient and as I said earlier it's cheap insurance so why not.

I read a post by Massad Ayoob on a different forum in which he said there's this idea among gun owners that if you carry les than I do you're merely low hanging fruit for the next criminal you encounter but if you carry more than I do you're paranoid and "living in fear". and that is no where more evident than here

If someone breaks in and your gun is "only" in the other room, it might as well not even be there. As soon as someone is between you and it, you're at their mercy.

Too many people treat a carry gun like an accessory, or they treat carrying like a hobby that's fun and all, but are clearly not serious about defense.