Concealed Carry Positions: Where to Carry and Why

So, you got yourself a brand-new gun, now you want to know the best place to carry it. We’ll solve that problem for you in just a minute.  I’m Kevin Michalowski, director of Content for the US Concealed Carry Association. And in this video, we’re going to talk about the best places to carry your gun on your waist. I’m not going to talk about shoulder holster or ankle holster, just the best places to carry your gun on your waist, for both comfort and accessibility.

I winna let you know that at the end, we’re going to give an opportunity to win a new gun. First thing we’re going to talk about is, the difference between inside-the-waistband and outside-the-waistband carries. And those are the two things that, very important to understand, when you’re carrying a gun, it’s not just about having a gun and tucking it in your pants, we call that felony carry.

We don’t winna do that. We are responsible, armed citizens.

So, we winna make sure we have a holster that covers the trigger of your firearm. And you can place that holster inside your waistband. And this is a composite polymer hybrid holster we’re calling this. It has a leather or cloth backing and a polymer on the outside, and it goes inside your waistband, behind your belt, down inside your pants. And then it hooks over your belt.

Notice now, I’ve said the word belt two times.

Carrying a gun means you should be having a good, concealed carry belt with you. Make sure that you have that. Outside-the-waistband. We’re going back to the same position, this is about four o’clock position over here on the strong side, this is called strong side hip carry.

Some people call it four o’clock position, but then it doesn’t add up for the left-handers on there. This one is just gonna go through your belt. The belt’s gonna go through loops on the outside. Notice, inside-the-waistband carry allows for you to conceal that firearm just a little bit better, okay? Because it is covered not only with your cover garment, but your pants, and the belt is holding it in place while you’re right down there.

So, notice that I’m doing all of these with the same firearm. This is just a Glock 19. It’s a very popular concealed carry gun. And showing you that, no matter what sort of gun you have, you can figure out where you want to carry this most comfortably. Another option for you to carry your firearm is appendix carry.

Now, notice this is a minimalist kydex holster. Very small. It doesn’t even cover the slide of the firearm. It just covers the trigger and trigger guard. It’s locked in there, making sure that nothing can get in and mess with your trigger.

Can’t inadvertently press your trigger, can’t get something caught behind your trigger so you can’t press your trigger. It’s all set up to protect that firearm. So I’m gonna remove this inside-the-waistband holster from here on the strong side hip position, set that aside. And now we set up for what we call the appendix carry position. Now, you’re hooking the clip over the top of your belt to make sure that your holster stays in place when you draw your gun.

Because this holster has a little bit of what we call retention on it. It’s holding the gun tightly to make sure that it doesn’t slip out during the day. Now, there we have appendix carry. This is on your center line. Typically a little bit toward the strong side, so that you can access that gun by moving your cover garment, getting your thumb down behind, and coming up, getting on target.

Now, lots of discussion about this type of carry. It’s getting very popular. But a lot of people will ask, well, you don’t want that gun pointed down at your junk do you? The gun’s not going to just go off. This gun in appendix carry is in a pretty good position, especially for access, because you’re not reaching around behind you too far or anything like that.

Right there in front of you. It allows you to defend yourself with your other hand if you have to, while you’re drawing that gun, and it allows you to get up on target pretty quickly. But you do have to learn to make the draw properly and effectively so you’re not pointing the gun at yourself. One of the drawbacks of appendix carry is that for a guy like me with a little bit more around the middle, might be uncomfortable when you’re sitting down or sitting down for a long time. This is a polymer holster from a company called Sticky.

Several different companies are making holsters like this. It’s basically a pouch that covers the trigger guard of your gun, protects your firearm. And then the properties of the material hold it in place. So, you can run this appendix, you can run this at strong side hip, or you can run something like this in what we’re calling a cross-draw position right here. This goes on the other side of the center line.

And this is actually very comfortable and providing great access for when you’re driving or riding in a vehicle.

As long as when you’re sitting, you don’t mind, the gun is adjusted so that it’s not pushing down into your hip flexor or your hip bone, or something like that. People always ask, well, what is the most comfortable? Well, I don’t know what’s the most comfortable for you, but remember this, carrying a gun all day is a pain in the butt. It really is.

It’s not supposed to be comfortable. It’s supposed to be comforting. It’s accessible. I pull the shirt up, I’m grabbing in here. I can get the gun out and on target.

Notice with this Sticky holster and other holsters like them, the gun comes out, the holster stays in place. If I want to re-holster, I take the holster out, I re-holster, and then I replace this as one unit so that it stays right there where it’s supposed to be going. One of the complaints about a cross-draw position is that, if you’re in a face-to-face confrontation with an assailant that gun is, check it out, handle forward, pointing right toward the bad guy who might be able to get his hand on it and grab it.

It is close to you, so you can defend that gun down here, and maybe get a hold of the bad guy’s hands with your hands and strike him with your forehead or strike him with your legs or knees, or something like that. But that cross-draw position does put the gun in a little bit of a compromised, indefensible position for you right there.

Moving the gun over to the appendix side, the appendix carry position. Again, it pretty much disappears under your cover garment. It’s held in place by your belt. The retention is good, the accessibility is good. It’s right there in front of you.

You don’t have to be reaching around for it. You can come up and come out on target very quickly if you need to. It’s a defensible position. If somebody is going for a gun grab, you can be striking with your legs, you can be protecting that gun with your hands. And the handle is not in such a position that it’s an easy grab for them.

They’re gonna have to manipulate the gun and get it moved around. Coming back around, we’re talking about strong side hip one more time. Inserting that gun here on the strong side hip, I like to wear it just a little bit behind my hip bone. So we have this gun in place right here.

For me, this is the most comfortable and accessible position.

I also happen to work part-time as a police officer, so my gun is on my hip, on my strong side hip on my duty belt, so I’m used to reaching back this way for my firearm. But access to this gun, move the cover garment, hand down in a firing grip. Notice, my hand is already in a very natural firing grip right here. We pull the gun straight up, and we turn it right to the target, and we’re in the fight. So.

This works very well for me. I cannot say whether or not it will work very well for you. I don’t know your body type, I don’t know what you do all day, I don’t know your positioning.

But the truth of the matter is to find the most comfortable concealed carry position, you’re going to have to buy a couple of different holsters, you’re going to have to try it out. How that works for you is going to be up to you.

And as I promised, I would talk about an opportunity for you to win a brand new gun. Not this gun, this is my gun. You get to win, you get the opportunity, it’s a chance to win a different gun. And the way to do that, is gonna click on the link in the description, down below here, or somewhere on this video there’s gonna be a link that you can click on. You, click on the video for your opportunity to win a new gun.

This is what we do at the US Concealed Carry Association, is we provide you with the tools to defend yourselves and your loved ones. We provide education and training to help you avoid danger and save lives.

I’m Kevin Michalowski, director of Content for the US Concealed Carry Association. Thank you for watching this video. If you really like these, subscribe to our page here.

We give more great videos all the time and click that notification bell. We’ll tell you every time we come out with something new. Stay safe, we’ll see you in the next video.

http://josebaezky.lspublish.hop.clickbank.net/?p=79