Concealed Carry on a Motorcycle?

[chris in va]

In my tight-ish leather riding jacket, I slip my P11/IWB holster in the right pocket. I've been told wearing on your hip could cause problems in a crash.

However, I *have* been known to open carry my Sig 220...just to see the looks on cager's faces at stoplights.

 

[busy_squirrel]

I always wear leather coats of one type or another, so the 4013 goes under the shoulder. Plus I havn't yet gotten a place on my bike to put one.

I have ridden on a Gold Wing with bucket built into the fairing where the CB used to be. The Glock 17 fit well in there, and Honda supplied the snap-down leather cover for the hole in the fairing. That was pretty....um...convienient.

Ease of removal is important on a bike without generating any extreme movements to keep control of the bike at highway speeds when someone tries to use you as a cue ball.

Yes...very convienient.

 

[Stretchman]

tuckable holster. Shouldn't need to access it while riding. I have carried OWB when I had a vest that was long enough in the front to cover it. A decent vest and some of the snap chains wieghs it down enough so that normally it'll stay down over the weapon in about the 2 o clock position. Helps to not have too much of a beer gut while carrying that way though, cause your butt will stick out in the front, as well as the back.

Course the best way is to ride in a large crowd of people carrying way too many weapons than their permits allow, then hide in the middle. This seems to work best in small towns, especially when you outnumber the local LEOs.

Stretch
Quit cigs 2W 3D 22h 16m ago. So far saved $107.56, 717 cigs not smoked and counting ...

 

[razorburn]

Ninja, by your screen name, are you another sportbike rider? I ride a '01 zx-9r, so I lean a lot. A simple uncle mikes shoulder holster works fine.

 

[Steven1281]

J-Frame IWB 4:00, no change from normal carry. Shirts are usually long enough that I can sit on the tail of the shirt to hold things in place. The small windshield on mine keeps things down to a more tolerable level than you would think though. (1985 Honda Magna 700 Sport cruiser). Steven

 

[CajunBass]

I haven't ridden motorcycles for years, but what I did then was put the handgun in a tank bag or saddlebag for riding, then transfer it to a body-carried holster when dismounted. I can think of few situations where you would want to shoot while actually riding - but if you do it would be more accessible in a tank bag - and would rather not have a hard object on my body in the event of a crash.

+1 that. I crashed my bike last year and came down on a Smith & Wesson 39-2. Not only did it leave a darn good sized bruise on my hip, it's not good for the gun.

Now the gun goes in the topcase on my Beemer (K1200LT). I'll put it on when I get where I'm going.

Oh, the same thing would go for anything you wear on your belt. Cell phones, pagers, flashlights, knives. Best to store them in a tankbag or saddlebag. It hurts to fall on stuff.

 

[Nortonics]

Why do ya think quality motorcycle coats often have that odd shaped diagonal cut interior pocket that won't much hold anything else?

Do ya wear a vest while riding? Here's some high quality, decent looking, well designed motorcycle vests made just for CCW purposes:

Concealed Carry Outfitters

Particularly I like and own their "Holster Vest" design:

Holster Vest

This is the nicest, highest quality, all-around motorcycling CCW vest I've yet to find. The materials and workmanship are impeccable and the fit is perfect-O. Ain't cheap, but you know what they say...

P.S. - If you shoot right-handed normally you'd best start getting better at left handed shooting with your firearm holstered on your right side of your coat or vest - after all, where's your throttle located?

 

[razorburn]

Does the vest offer any advantages over a shoulder holster? It looks to place the gun in pretty much the same area. I always wear a jacket, a vest won't prevent the road from ripping the skin off my arms in the event of an accident. But that logo on the back would keep me too embarassed to put that on anyway. I love american muscle cars and am a regular member at a couple fbody-vette boards, but the state of performance "American" motorcycles is one of my personal pet peeves. This excerpt from a long running internet article basically sums up my feelings about the bikes.. though I'm not so harsh on the owners.

Image and sound are nothing, they are meaningless, without performance, but you can't convince people of that today. Performance. You can't have image and sound without performance to back it up. You just can't. If you try, you've got a facade, a hollow shell and you're just a wannabe hiding within it.

As Americans, we live in the greatest country, the greatest country in the entire world. We, as Americans, are driven to be the first in everything. It's our nature. We're not slackers. We take second best to no one. It's a national point of pride. No one can beat our military, our pride, our technology, our determinedness, or our ingenuity. There is nothing in the world, no problem, no tragedy, no foe too great that America cannot triumph over them.

So, then, I'm afraid to inform you that, in one very important regard, we ARE willing to settle for second best or even worse, last place. America has become complacent in the world, we are content to sit on our fat butts and watch others whiz past at breakneck speed and yet we do nothing. We're getting left behind because we can't keep up. Why? Because we are stuck in a misunderstood and ill-conceived mental rut. I'm talking about motorcycles, American made and built motorcycles; Harley Davidsons to be exact. You see them everywhere, and you know the kind of rider that is usually aboard one. Leather chaps, leather jacket, combat boots, the very epitome of a bad ass biker.

But, that's just a wishful image. All that stuff came out of a corporate catalog... One Harley rider looks like another, pretty much, yet they all claim that they are 'individuals'. Seeing a group of Harleys go past is like watching a cut scene from the movie "The Stepford Wives". They're all identical, they look alike, and they all ride the same thing; junk.

Very few Harleys are truly fast or powerful. Most are just loud rattletraps, over priced dealer wannabes or pieced together hope it works tomorrow wonders. They are paper tigers, all show and no go. You can get a hundred pounds of chrome on one of those motorcycles straight from the factory. Matching leather everything as well, even down to the little official HD logo which is oh so important to this flock behavior mindset. Studded, braided, polished, painted, chromed, but ... it's all flash. It's all custom parts and paint, all jury rigged and low tech. In anything else but a Harley, the extremes that most Harley owners go to would be considered tacky and tasteless, and probably laughable.

The roar of a Harley is really just the growling of a sheep in wolf's clothing, and the bleating of the image driven lemmings that ride them.

Sure, Harleys can be made to perform, but you have to rebuild them from the ground up and by the time that you get any decent performance out of a Harley, you could have bought two or three Japanese bikes for cash. Harley's fastest motorcycle, the Sportster, isn't anywhere near deserving of its name. There is no "sport" to the Sportster, and with a 883cc engine pushing out a meager forty seven horsepower, you have all the makings for a Black Angus set in motion by a mouse fart. As a comparative example, take the 1995 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R's 599cc in-line four which makes ninety-seven horsepower. How American is it to be big and slow? How American is it to be outdated and obsolete? More than twice as much power with two hundred cee-cees less displacement! That's sad and embarrassing. If the Harley Sportster made anywhere near what it's displacement could be, it would be a much better motorcycle. As it is, there are some imported single cylinders and some 250cc Japanese sport bikes that put out more horsepower than Harley's 883cc rolling excuse for an entry-level purchase into the whole flock mindset.

And what about price and cost of upkeep? A top of the line Harley costs many thousands more than a comparable import motorcycle, is less dependable, doesn't enjoy the quality or workmanship, and won't even perform as well. It isn't even close. So, why do so many people flock to HD dealerships and wait in line for months for a Harley? Because they are sheep. Why does a Harley hold its resale value so well when all the cards are stacked against it?

Because of one thing; image.

A underlying factor is also stupidity.

Harley Davidson's stupidity, you ask? Hell no. Harley Davidson is about one of the smartest motorcycle manufacturers in the world. The stupidity can be traced right back to YOU, the unwitting public who buys what Milwaukee is selling and Milwaukee is selling only one thing; image. Image with no substance, image at a price. Anyone can ride a Harley, it just takes lots of money and very little brains. How else can you explain paying so much and receiving so little in return?

Image.

Image is a powerful thing. We, as Americans, want to project a strong image to the rest of the world, but in doing so, we have become lazy. We are now willing to pay large amounts of money to buy an image, rather than go out and earn one for ourselves. We are lazy. It is easier to walk into a motorcycle dealer, buy a new Harley Davidson, and then tell ourselves, "I own a Harley, therefore I am a bad ass because a Harley is a bad ass bike. That movie I watched last night proved that!." than it is to go out and actually prove that we are bad ass. It doesn't matter that you're overweight, ugly, live in a trailer park, on your third marriage, and just lost your job at the cigarette packing plant. Hey, you're bad because you own a Harley. It doesn't matter if your bike is made up of parts from six or ten other Harleys, you are one tough bad ass. All because you own a certain type of motorcycle?

And you're wrong.



A Harley isn't a motorcycle. Not a real motorcycle. It is nothing more than a rolling image, a self-propelled personal public relations machine that you rent for your ego, a facade that you strap your legs over when you want to show off to the rest of the world that you are something that you really aren't.

"Hey! I ride a Harley! I'm bad! Don't mess with me or you'll be sorry!"

Whoopee. You and every other Peter Fonda Easy Rider wannabe.

How can you be bad when you don't have any performance? How can you be bad when everything else in the world will whip your ass and hand it to you on a silver platter? How bad are you when a 250cc rice rocket will eat your 883cc Sportster for lunch? I just don't understand the logic behind the image without any performance to back it up ... It's an empty threat. Since when did being bad mean that you got stomped by everything else in the world? I thought that being bad meant that you could take on anything and come back for more. Obviously, Milwaukee uses a different definition for the term "bad."

A scooter will get you from point A to B, and that's what I consider a Harley to be. A big, overpriced ego boosting scooter, geared for people too timid to make a statement to the world any other way than through noise and flash and by paying lots of money. Only posers and wannabes buy Harleys. Oh, and buy the required wallet on a chain, the leather jack boots, the German war helmet, and be sure that your HD comes with all the go-fast goodies like studded leather saddlebags, tassels, and a three square foot windshield. They're essential to the "bad" image.

I love my country but I hate the motorcycles that my country manufactures and I don't think that they come anywhere near being able to be compared to what America is all about or what makes America great. Harley Davidson is a wart on the ass of America. That's the bottom line, no pun intended. I hate Harleys and if you have to know, I don't even consider a Harley to be an American motorcycle. It is a sad, pale product that captures very little of the American experience and doesn't come anywhere near what a real American motorcycle should be. America stands for technology, ingenuity, performance and innovation. Harley stands for none of that. http://www.goingfaster.com/angst/noharley2.html