Enhance Your Carry Loadout For Holiday Volatility

Preparing for an increase in crime and terrorism during Jewish and Christian holidays.

The holidays are here and bad guys are gearing up to take your stuff, and your life if you allow it. We know there is an increase in criminal activity during the holidays, but Obama's “Hope and Change” America has added societal stresses uncommon to times past.

Leftist acrimony toward state law enforcement, based on the artificial narrative of racism, has emboldened criminals and created a defensive pullback of once proactive policing. 

Intentional flooding of the US with criminal aliens and Muslims hateful of western society have placed more Americans in the cross hairs of opportunistic crime and Islamic attacks.

It's Too Cold For Your Subcompact.

Jacket and coat weather is a good time to change that Spring and Summer EDC for something more substantial, yet comfortable under layered winter clothing. A larger pistol offers improved sight radius, higher ammo capacity, and combat sustainability should a deadly encounter involve more than a knife-wielding meth junkie collecting "donations" at your local Walmart.

My personal cold weather ritual is to switch out both gun and ammo. Spring and Summer's subcompact takes a break for Fall and Winter's full size service pistol, which is easier to access under heavier clothing worn in and outside of retail outlets where “wolves” hunt unsuspecting holiday goers. 

Warm/Hot Weather Carry: Glock 30 w/ 31 Rounds 230gr JHP

Cool/Cold Weather Carry: Glock 17 w/ 54 Rounds 147gr JHP Standard Pressure

First Change Your Carry Ammo.

Unless a practitioner of OWB carry, concealed EDC ammo riding close to the human body is exposed to greater levels of humidity than, say, ammo carried externally on a law enforcement duty belt. In other words, six warm and hot months riding next to your sweaty mass of humanity is enough for those prized JHPs to be escorted to the range burn box.

While modern factory loaded ammunition better withstands tests of time, than its predecessors, loading your mags with new ammo, after six months of carry, ensures every round goes “bang” if needed in a life or death emergency. 

Watch This: Reid Henrichs On Choosing Appropriate Carry Ammo

 

Ammo Porn Has Replaced Gun Porn

Assuming you have the smarts to buy a Glock, Sig, or Smith, choosing the right carry pistol was easy. Choosing the “right” ammo, however, is another, far more subjective matter.

Ammunition choices have never been better and are seemingly endless. Between modern JHP, hard cast +P, and products like “Xtreme Penetrator” there is not much walking on two or four legs than cannot be taken down with a single stack 9mm. (See ALASKAN GUIDE, PHIL SHOEMAKER, USES 9MM OUTDOORSMAN ROUNDS IN A S&W 3954 TO STOP AN ATTACKING GRIZZLY)

While one can argue the merits of any reputable load, a wise rule of thumb for self-defense carry is filling your mags with ammo widely adopted by state and federal law enforcement agencies that also meet FBI standards for interior, external, and terminal ballistics. 

EDC Enough Legal Protection

In today's world carrying a gun is not about piece of mind. In addition to unaffordable healthcare and unabashedly corrupt government, the crime and terror legacy of the Obama Administration has increased the likelihood of armed citizens using deadly force to survive an assault or terrorist attack. 

In addition to ample training and weapons competency we need an automated legal plan of action that takes effect immediately after we are involved in a defensive use of deadly force.

Even brandishing your firearm to ward off an attack can invite criminal legal scrutiny, especially for armed citizens living in anti-gun regions of the country. 

Having comprehensive legal representation working on your behalf before police arrive on scene is essential to ensuring your rights are protected and freedom maintained after you pull the trigger. 

Situational Awareness Is Everything, Until The Shooting Starts.

Knowing what is going on around you is vital to not being caught off guard during a criminal encounter. Whether it is two or more men approaching from different directions or a panhandler distracting you while his accomplice moves in from behind, things out of place feel out of place for a reason.  

Human instinct is very adept at telling you when something is wrong. Listen to your "gut" this holiday season and decisively act to protect yourself and loved ones.  

Carry A Backup Gun?

$3 part shuts down $600 gun: broken slide lock spring (under the C) cuts short training with Gen 3 Glock 30. *

Interesting how many of us will bring two or more guns to a tactical weapons course, in case one breaks, keep loaded firearms strategically placed throughout our homes, top off every magazine we own, and have battle rattles for a moment’s notice (pay attention Hillary gun grabbers), yet carry one gun when armed in public where we are more likely to encounter criminal deadly force.

The Glock 30 pictured above has been a carry gun for thirteen years, running thousands of rounds without fail, until yesterday when its $3 slide lock spring broke on the 18^th round. A philosophical moment since, until then, I did not have a visceral attachment to  carrying a backup gun.

Guns break. That we know. Question for armed civilians and law enforcement carrying only one gun is, why do we plan for our guns to break at the range, during controlled training events, but not during life and death situations in public or on the job?
  

*$600 to $1000 generally gets you home with a quality pistol, meaning “Glock, Smith, or Sig”. After market modifications can run a few hundreds to thousands depending on shooter preferences.

CPPA's Loomis Should Resign For Cleveland Open Carry Ban Request

Recently Stephen Loomis, President of the Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association, called on Ohio Governor John Kasich to violate state law and United States supreme law by demanding a ban on open carry of firearms in Cleveland during this week's GOP convention. 

For years Loomis has been an advocate for law enforcement, not to mention a roaring critic of Obama's war on state and local police, however his emotions overpowered his brain, and his sworn duty to uphold and defend the US Constitution, when he promoted an executive order outlawing open carry in Cleveland. 

“I don't care if it's constitutional or not at this point,” Loomis said, also stating, “I want him [Gov. Kasich] to absolutely outlaw open carry in Cuyahoga County until this RNC is over.”

What Mr. Loomis overlooked, in his understandably emotional reaction to targeted killings of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, is that no open carry demonstration in the United States has ever devolved into an active shooting incident. 

The Black Lives Matter terrorists who murdered police in Texas and Louisiana were not open carry demonstrators exercising their natural human right to possession of firearms. They were murders intent on defiling the very principles outlined in and protected by our constitution and Bill of Rights.

Loomis, by calling for an extralegal ban on open carry, promoted the very criminality he sought to prevent by demanding the legally-protected rights of American citizens, rights bestowed by virtue of our humanity not government, be sidelined for security purposes despite no active shootings associated with open carry or evidence of an imminent confrontation involving open carry demonstrations in Cleveland.

Although I am not an practitioner of open carry, for purposes of tactical efficiency, I strongly support Americans who exercise their liberty to demonstrate as armed citizens, just as I strongly support all five precepts of the First Amendment.

We cannot have a country based on human rights and the rule of law if we, as civilians, policy makers, and policy enforcers, do not understand that a usurpation of our natural rights, and laws protecting our natural rights, is a crime.

Stephen Loomis, as a senior advocate of law enforcement and law enforcement officers, has lost sight of what makes America special in the world and distinct in history of the world.