Many things conspire to put the context of the Carry Life “out there.” A late night at the office, an early shift at the hospital or a malfunctioning vehicle on a lonely road are just a few of the scenarios that come easily to mind. Plausible scenes for trouble, at the very least?
We applaud the folks who conscientiously plan for the best, but credential and train for the worst. Now and again, however, we find ourselves mildly alarmed by the “switch off” we see in the more agreeable confines of home. This is certainly understandable: The very word conjures almost every good thing—family, respite, comfort and perhaps most of all, security. The likes of these, however, ought to demonstrate the perils of de-tuning your awareness or preparations.
We applaud the folks who conscientiously plan for the best, but credential and train for the worst.Given the percentage of our lives we spend at home—sleep time counts too, remember—trouble may, perversely, be more likely to find you at home than when you’re out and about. This is good and bad news: Good, because the “ground” of any confrontation will be ultra-familiar to you. Good, too, because a few elementary (and inexpensive) expedients can improve that home field advantage, even to dissuasion. And good because detailed knowledge of your security arrangements are difficult for strangers to acquire.
But as we implied, there’s a downside, too. In addition to the reflex to relax, home is a fixed/known target. The likely presence of family compounds the risks and the difficulty of flight—or fight. Keep-the-unwelcome-out expedients can suddenly become a barrier to retreat or flight. And to where do you flee? Home is everybody’s default.
In a word, “Ugh.”
Perhaps the conclusion we’re angling for is already clear. Meaningful security at home may mean just what it means in the wider world—fully conscious attention to your surroundings (despite their ever-so-lulling familiarity) and acceptance of the notion that, in rare extremes, a firearm will be utterly essential. If this sounds suspiciously like we’re advocating carry around the house, we answer “maybe,” or “sometimes.” Or even “Er, yes.”
Meaningful security at home may mean just what it means in the wider world …What is often startling about such an epiphany are the complexities. Carry outside the home comes with the presumption that we’re rightly responsible for positive control of a carry arm every single moment, and we accept fairly wide accommodations will be necessary in order to have this actual personal security (not to be confused, progressive Left, with a cellular telephone). Attire, carry method, environment and legal niceties hone one another, and—with a few false starts—we generally get to reasonably versatile and comfortable modes that are workable, safe and actually protective. No hack on our police here, either intended or implied: There are simply a lot of us, and fewer of them.
It’s a tooth-clincher of sorts when you realize that the same will be required at home. Some plain upsides are the decisively more effective home toolset—pistol caliber carbines, or even a trusty pump shotty—but not without limits. Mow your suburban lawn, for instance, with a slung CZ Scorpion, and you’ll likely discover what we mean in a hurry. Sirens, we hear.
Mow your suburban lawn, for instance, with a slung CZ Scorpion, and you’ll likely discover what we mean in a hurry. Sirens, we hear.But also don’t expect to transmogrify every aspect of your daily out-in-the-world methods. (If you actually can, call/write immediately: You’ve discovered the grail, and we’ll split 50/50.) Plus, if it ever gets to actual shooting—which we always and emphatically hope it doesn’t—every trigger press has consequences that are qualitatively different at home, if not quantitatively so. In the coming weeks, we’ll nail a bunch of these down for you. And better still, some unimpeachable experts will weigh in with advice quite literally beyond value. Or so we believe.
In the interim, think seriously about defending “hearth and home” on short notice, and Carry on.
Frank Winn has been studying arms and their relationship to tyranny, meaningful liberty and personal security all his adult life. He has been a firearms safety/shooting instructor for more than 20 years, and earned state, regional and national titles in several competitive disciplines.
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