"An Argument Against Ankle Holsters"

The Firearms Blog has another interesting post from "Claymore"--someone with a significant background in military and law enforcement. This article is about an incident that confirmed to him why carrying your primary concealed carry weapon in an ankle holster. It is an interesting story, and well worth the read. The gist of it, though, is that he was working on gathering intelligence on terrorist groups in Puerto Rico at a large protest, which involved mingling undercover with the crowd and taking pictures of the people attending. As his "cover officer"--essentially backup in case of trouble--he was assigned someone brand new from the U.S. Marshal's who insisted on carrying his weapon in an ankle holster. After they had finished taking pictures and were leaving the demonstration area, they were surrounded by the leader and henchmen from one of the groups...

I have always appendix carried my Browning BDA-380 when undercover just the the right of my belt buckle and had put on rubber Pachmayr grips that work perfectly to prevent the firearm from slipping down from the belt. 

The big dudes were kicking us in the achilles tendon, and calves, while wearing heavy work boots, and pinching the back of our arms. Let me tell you when a large full grown man pinches your muscles it hurts like hell. 

We were in deep deep shit but fortunately we had stopped right before the May 19th lady and I quickly got my firearm out because I could still move my forearms and it was a simple matter to just move my hand to my belt buckle area to draw. Danny on the other hand had seen me going for my weapon but when he bent over to get to his ankle mounted weapon they “bucked” up against his extended rear end preventing him from bending over and when he tried to lift his leg to get to it they jostled him so he couldn’t stand on one leg. 

HE COULD NOT GET TO HIS WEAPON TO SAVE HIS LIFE. 

I took my weapon out from under my shirt with just and inch or so of the barrel showing, so the rest of the crowd couldn’t see it, and told the May19th lady “I know who you are and you know who I am. Look down (she did) and in three seconds I’m going to start shooting, starting with you right in the stomach if you don’t get your goons off us” I told her “we are leaving so just get them off us and we are out of here” All this time they keep up the pinching and kicking and I could see Danny was having a hard time of it.

Claymore's conclusion was that ankle holsters are okay for a backup gun, but not your primary weapon. As I said above, read the whole thing--it is an interesting story.