…neither one of us wanted to go out, so I had to punt on dinner. Luckily, I had tomatoes, anchovies, capers and garlic on hand, so of course "puttanesca" popped up in my head. My Sweetie had baked a loaf of Italian bread, so it made sense. I cooked it up — red pepper flakes are absolutely critical in a puttanesca sauce, IMHO — added some wonderful old vine Zinfandel from Ravenswood (loved visiting that vineyard!!!) that I opened,threw in she shrimp and served it all over rice. Would have been better with kalamata olives, but hey, you go with what you got.
I had an interesting lesson in concealed carry yesterday. It was a grey, yeechy day, but we decided to take the Newt-ster on a new trail. We also had a handful of errands to run in Ft. Collins. Because the trail was icy and muddy, my plan was come home, shower and run the errands. Yeah, I know…stupid. My Sweetie correctly pointed out we were half-way to Ft. Collins, so why didn't we just go ahead and run the errands, mud and all? Snap! So we did, including running to the Whole Foods in Ft. Collins…Rivendell to Boulder's Caras Galadhon as the center of Hippie-dom on Earth.
I bring this up because I was wearing my dog-walk gun, the 2.75-inch Redhawk .44 Magnum in the Ted Blocker trail holster. So I threw my shirttail over the cannon, kept my jacket on and did all the errands, including Whole Foods. Nobody broke into hysteria, pointed and ran screaming for the exits. Nobody noticed at all, even though the big Redhawk probably printed on my jacket. It reminded me that CCW is mostly in your head...in general, most people simply don't notice. You could be carrying an S&W .500 Magnum and a Bichon Frise stuffed in your pants and 99% of the people you interact with won't have a clue…unless the Bichon whines a lot.
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9 comments:
Great post. So much comment on CCW and self-defense revolves around "notional" problems.
As you point out, in the real world, you can go a long time before you ever confront them.
You probably could have *open* carried the cannon not have been noticed.
Most people are so self absorbed that the world around them only intrudes when their cell phone battery dies.
5 1/2" Redhawk in a Bianchi #5BHL plus a Duluth Trading Company "Trim-Cut" (or "Full-Cut" if you need it) heavy-weight flannel shirt equals a good combination too!
The Duluth shirts are cut longer in the torso, so all of them make good CCW shirts, even their pull-overs and tees. AND they're great quality.
(www.duluthtrading.com)
Life Member
cut longer in the torso
Thanks Life Member.
I was looking at some of the stuff on their site a while ago and wondered about that.
Another option was that it was noticed, but not commented on. I see people wearing a Safe Packer, but I don't engage them about it.
This past weekend, in spite of the long untucked polo shirt that I had on, I unfortunately revealed for a few seconds the XD subcompact that I had in my IWB while tiptoeing and reaching to get an ornament from the top of one of our church Christmas trees. I felt my shirt "hang" on the XD as soon as my arm came down and I quickly pulled my shirt down. When I looked at the lady I was helping she was either looking right at my hip and saw the gun or was very focused on an ornament in her hand and her eyes just happened to be looking toward my hip. Either way, she didn't make any comment about it and we finished tearing the tree down. I think that's the second time I've accidentally (and knowingly) revealed over quite a few years of CCW, but it still made me a little nervous. I try to be very careful and not accidentally show anything.
Overload...once I went into Mountain Sun, a hippie-esque restaurant in Boulder, with a SafePacker. In the middle of the room was a table of cops. How did I know they were cops??? Awwwwww, c'mon! One dead giveaway was that in a hippie restaurant , that table looked like a floating penicillin culture in a petri dish of bacteria...surrounded by an empty dead zone. One of the cops looked at the SafePacker and did a double take. Then he punches another cop on the shoulder, and one of them even *points* at the SafePacker. Pretty soon they're all huddling up, on their cell phones, dialing for instructions.
My Sweetie asked me what I was going to do. I almost laughed out loud. It's a concealed weapon, I said, and I have a permit. QED. If the boys have a problem with it, I said I'd just uncover the gun and carry it openly, as is legal in CO. They eventually settled down, but kept cutting glances at me all through the meal...
Just before that incident, the City of Boulder had to pony up $25k for wrongful arrest on an open carry beef.
mb
Shredder,
You bring up an interesting aspect of our culture, that many people don't even know that there is a right to carry, including concealed. They may not even know that they're looking at a gun when one is "flashed", or it "prints".
In my state, local and state governments recognized early on that the "2A" is for real and most of the state went "shall-issue". That was many years ago. In spite of that, many regular folks, the ones that are outside of our culture, weren't even aware that many, many people do carry guns.
Once, also at my church, the CPL conversation came up and a loving senior female commented something to the effect "people don't really carry guns, do they?" She had no idea that she was surrounded by "people" carrying concealed pistols. She also wasn't aware that at the counting of the donation money table, there was 1, perhaps 2 pistols laying on the table, just in case.
Our responsibility is to be, well responsible as gun carriers and teachers. Once this woman heard our casual and rational explanation, she was at ease. And no one revealed who was carrying.
Life Member
P. S.: Thanks kmitch200! Sign up for Duluth's email flyers and you'll enjoy buying at sale prices and often with free shipping. I swear by their stuff. It gives good value, utility and good old-fashioned durability.
agree on duluth as great ccw wear.... ball room jean are great for iwb, and the LONG tea shirts hide the plumbers crack AND the dcg... breaking in my break wind fleese now, and that is generous long and warm!
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