What I Carry
Rock and a hard place describes my concealed carry situation. Oklahoma legislation is actually pretty good, it’s not that. It’s rather the kind of clothing I’d tend to be wearing. For the forseeable future (roughly the next 8 years…blech), I’m going to be wearing either button-downs or scrubs when I’m in crappy neighborhoods. While scrubs are suitably baggy, they don’t exactly come equipped with beltloops. And while slacks and a button-down work for many people, they don’t for me. I’ve got that big shouldered/chested small-waisted thing going on. Which means my shirts have to be practically tailored if I don’t want to look like a douchebag. Apparently a 48″ chest means that I must necessarily have a 60″ waist, to look at the cuts on most shirts you can find (but that’s an issue for another rant). Having 28-30″ of extra fabric gathered around your waist makes you look like a tool. So my shirt won’t have much room either.

So neck, ankle and pocket seemed my most viable options. I wasn’t too happy with the quality of most of the pocket guns out there. And am not a big fan of DAO/No Safety because it tends to give me the shivers. I can shoot a .44magnum without flinching, but actually carrying it in a holster tends to turn me into a whimpering little girl. I, my friends, am a pansy.

Anyway, I’d skimmed an Ayoob article where he mentions that Bill Jordan had no problem with .22mag as a concealed carry round. As far as he was concerned it was more than good enough. I’d also heard about the mini revolvers from North American Arms. In addition to being neat looking little guns, they fit the bill for what I need perfectly; they’re the kind of guns I could throw on dogtag chain and hang around my neck, stick in an ankle holster, or just drop in a pocket.

I ended up getting the Black Widow

It’s a bit bigger than the ‘regular’ mini magnums

But it has real Millett sights and a one piece barrel/frame forging that lends itself to better accuracy. I’ve heard anecdotally that these will do an inch at 25 yards, which is a hell of a lot better than my nerve-damaged arm will ever do (or much more expensive revolvers for that matter). This makes it not only a good concealed carry gun but also a decent plinker, although the Mini Master would be better. I’ve handled, but not yet shot, this little revolver. The basic design comes courtesy of Dick Casull, creator of the eponymous magnumized .45 Colt. The quality of materials and craftsmanship is first rate, and it is a smooth little gun. NAA also has a great relationship with the customer, including a policy which makes repair work and upgrades very easy. Another factor in my decision. Also, they’re completely American owned and operated. Nothing against the furrin stuff mind you, just that when I can, I like to buy American. Especially when it comes to firearms, since apparently the US Government no longer will.

There are a couple of accessories I’ll probably get in the future.

I really like this folding holster grip:

But it seems kinda gimmicky, and the set of grips that the guns come with (shown in the 1st picture) are just too bulky for carry. So I’m getting a set of red wood grips just like the one on the regular .22mag in the 2nd picture. All accessories are interchangeable between the two. I mspainted something up so I could end up with a rough idea of what it’d look like, which is this:

Looks just a touch awkward, but it’ll get the job done.

There are other NAA products that interest me as well, though. My gun is convertible between .22LR and .22Mag. But the .22 Short gun is a must have when i’ve got money to burn:

Yeah I can fire shorts out of my .22LR cylinder (although it’d be pretty nasty considering it’s a revolver). That ain’t why the little short is so cool. This is:

And the design of the buckle is such that it’d actually be a pretty low-key think. People would have to look a bit to spot it. But if you wanted to go fancy (and shiny) there’s always this:

Now, there’s no denying that the .22 Short would be a total ‘mantoy’ purchase. But one option I might look into after I get over my DAO/no safety girlyman willies is their .32ACP pocket automatic that looks like the son of Browning’s Own Colt Vest Pocket:

Strangely enough, when I handled one of these at the gun store, it turned out to be the most natural fit gripwise I’ve ever had in a gun. Well, for the 2.5 fingers that actually fit on it. I thought this was pretty strange, given that my 9 inch long hands have never held onto a gun comfortably. Same logic for this gun as for my Black Widow purchase, just a bit more refined, a bit quicker to use, and a bit more capacity. And like the Black Widow, it’d be a pretty good plinker as well thanks to these 1o shot magazines:

Why I Carry
Ok, enough fanboyism. Why exactly do (will) I carry? As I conveyed in the thought for the day further down the page, just a matter of insurance. It’s stupid not to, honestly. I’m 5′10″ 210lb of mostly muscle, wrapped in a scary-looking minority face; not the kind of person that makes a good target. But I’ve already dealt with assault situations several times by the ripe old age of 22 (all in England or at parties). But myself? meh. I’m pretty stupid when it comes to self-protection no matter what we’re talking about. Family and friends on the other hand, are something entirely different. I feel it’s my duty to do what I can to protect them. Whether it’s walking them back to their place even if it adds a mile or two to my own journey, or stepping up to a thug, I tend to do it. I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself if someone I was with was hurt because I didn’t do enough to protect them. I don’t ever want to be in that situation. So I’ll carry.

But there is no denying that one of the major reasons I’ll do it is because it’ll upset the kind of person who’d ask why I needed to in the first place to. I could talk about practical reasons all day, but as I’ve said, I’m probably the last person that someone would be stupid enough to attack (unless I was in England where criminals have no fear thanks to their draconian policies on self-defense and their nonexistent punishment of criminals). No, the real reason I’ll carry isn’t for protection, it isn’t for insurance. It’s because I can. It’s because the right and ability to do so separates my great nation from the collectivist bullshit that other Western nations are founded upon. And it’s because the children in adult bodies who are scared by such things deserve to be needled as much as possible.

Hell, the truth is, the only reason I have an interest in guns is because of the GFW’s. I was your typically Republican slightly hickish kid for years, but simply had no desire to go shooting when I could have at just about any time or place back in West Texas. As I got older and started actually thinking about why I felt the way I did, that’s when I saw the ludicrosity of gun control. And only at that point, at the age of 20, in New York State, did I say “Huh, I should go shooting. Leftists don’t like that.”

You can tell a lot about a man’s political and personal ideology by the way he views firearms. It’s often enough a signal of how they feel about the role of the state and whether they ascribe to negative or positive liberty. I felt the way I did literally years before I ever picked up that first gun. And now I own a couple as a more visible testament to how I feel about leftists.