"Concealed Carry and Printing"

Tactical Professor writes about the problems of printing while carrying a concealed weapon; and, in particular, how it presents a problem when in the white collar and retail environments. Why should it be a problem? He notes that someone may see the gun, and call the police: embarrassing at a minimum, potentially deadly if the officer decides you pose a threat. My concern is that I don't necessarily want a threat to know that I'm armed, or where, because it makes me a specific target. Lima, writing at Limatunes' Range Time Diary, recently related this in a post on whether to announce you have a firearm. She observed:

When the bad guy knows you're armed and decides to fight you anyway he will target your weapon or attempt to overwhelm you with such violence you are unable to use that weapon. If you don't have retention skills, a very good retention holster and the skills to resist that kind of violence you will likely lose your firearm and/or your life.   

All you have to do is watch altercations with police officers. One of two things happen: 

1) The violence of the attack is so brutal the officer rarely has opportunity to defend himself with his firearm, if at all.
2) The gun is immediately targeted and fought for. 

What ends these scenarios is death or defeat on the officer's part (at times resulting in the firearm being stolen), a competently trained officer being able to retain his firearm and regain control and fight through his injuries (make no mistake about it, there will likely be injuries--possibly severe) with skill and aggression, the officer using a hidden weapon the bad guy didn't see, or the force of other responding officers ending the confrontation.  

You retain a small advantage if you have not revealed the firearm's location (i.e. saying you are armed but not indicating where it is by either touching it or displaying it) but you lose any advantage of surprise. 

And here is where I will refer back to the Extreme Close Quarters class I attended in the fall of 2013. 

In the final force-on-force scenario with Greg Ellifritz, Greg decided to try to disarm me even though he hadn't seen my weapon. He knew I was armed but he didn't remember where I was carrying my gun (if it was appendix or behind the hip). While we fought, if you watch the video (NSFW, btw), you can see him searching behind my hip for where I would normally carry my Glock. That little bit of confusion on his part allowed me the opportunity to simulate stabbing him in the groin with my trainer knife. I never actually did get to my gun until after I broke contact but neither did he. Had Greg known exactly where my gun was I'm not sure how things would have played out. I prefer to never find out. Or to find out, but in the safety of a training environment because I'm morbidly curious like that. In real life, however, I prefer not to have people trying to take my gun away from me. 

I do not think one has to be a skilled fighter to carry a gun but I do think anything less than a skilled fighter trained in weapon retention is taking undue risk by advertising a weapon they can legally conceal. 

Back to the Tactical Professor's article, though, he explains that it is more difficult to carry in the white collar or retail environment, explaining:

Guys, if you think a woman like that [able to describe a high fashion purse down to the number of stitches] , and there are many, doesn’t notice everything that is the slightest bit out of place with your clothing, you are ignorant and uninformed about how conscious most women are about clothing and style. Now, I have no doubt that People of Walmart don’t notice your T-shirt is pulled down over your full size service pistol. OTOH, the moment you walk into any White Collar business environment, you may as well assume you’re busted. That woman might not say anything to you because she MAY want your business, at least initially. However, don’t labor for one second under the illusion that she doesn’t notice something out of place, even if she’s not quite sure what it means. ... 

... One of the major problems in the training community is that almost every trainer with a Mil or LE background has not spent one single day actually working in the White Collar or Retail Business environments. Unfortunately, what this means is that although they can teach you how to run a pistol well, they are utterly unqualified to even speak about Concealed Carry, as it pertains to most people, much less teach it. Even Jeff Cooper admitted that when he wore a suit, he carried a J frame revolver, not a 1911. Of course, Jeff actually owned suits and knew how to tie a tie. 

If we really want to extend the opportunity to ‘always carry’ to an expanding percentage of the American populace, we’re going to have to come up with a better concept than ‘dress around the gun.’ Every time I hear that phrase, it makes me cringe. Whenever the vast majority of people who don’t buy their clothes at WalMart hear it, they think “that’s not me,” as my psychologist friend William Aprill  clued me in to several years ago.

Unfortunately, he doesn't really discuss how not to print. I have used various methods of concealed carry, which change according to circumstances and clothing, in my post on "Concealed Carry--No Elegant Solution." The reality is that in many cases, rather than dressing around the gun, the gun will have to be selected according to how you are dressed. Many concealed carry options that work with an untucked T-shirt do not work in a white shirt and tie--especially if you are going to be removing your jacket.