Concealed Carry Mistake: Don’t Adjust Your Gun

We highly recommend that you not adjust your gun in any way once it’s on your waist. There are a couple of different outcomes that tend to happen when you do adjust your gun or your gun’s holster, both of which should be avoided. 

The first thing that can happen is an unintended discharge from somehow coming into contact with your gun’s trigger. Second, is giving up your tactical advantage by bringing attention to the fact that you’re carrying a firearm for self-defense. 

We’ll tackle each of them in turn. 

Unintended discharge

First and foremost, whenever you touch your gun the chance of having an unintended discharge goes up. There are documented incidents where an individual thought it was a good idea to adjust their gun, only to have shot it because something came into contact with the trigger.

This is one of the reasons why we recommend not taking your gun or gun/holster combo off your hip when you’re getting into or out of your car. The truth of the matter is that whenever you administratively handle your firearm, the chances of you having an unintended discharge go up dramatically. 

It’s not a good idea to handle your firearm when you may be distracted by, say, passersby, as you remove your gun. If you’re distracted, as you attempt to remain discreet, you may unintentionally come into contact with the trigger. And, as you can imagine, that’s not a good thing.

Here’s the thing, though, these things don’t just happen while you are in the car. A story comes to mind of a concealed carrier who was fidgeting with his firearm, attempting to get it in the spot he wanted and somehow came in contact with the trigger, firing a shot into the ground. 

Sadly, the shot ricocheted off the ground and a piece of the bullet hit a little boy, putting him in the hospital. 

Had the concealed carrier not made an attempt to adjust his gun things would have gone differently, and that boy wouldn’t have a piece of a bullet hit him. Thankfully the injuries were minor, but those incidents don’t do anything but hurt our cause as we push responsible gun ownership. 

While we don’t know the type of holster, or if one was even being used, we always recommend using a high quality holster. We obviously recommend our own holsters to fill this role, but whatever you choose, make sure your gun is in a quality holster that won’t move on you to the point you feel you have to continuously reach down and adjust your gun to get it where you want it to be.

Today’s guns aren’t meant to just fire on their own. There are safety devices built into each firearm manufactured, which means that more often than not it’s operator error that causes a negligent discharge, and not the gun itself. 

Tactical advantage

There is another negative aspect of adjusting your gun that we also want to touch on, and that is announcing to everyone within looking distance that you’re carrying a gun just because you’re uncomfortable and can’t keep your hands off of it. If you’re constantly adjusting your gun because it is uncomfortable, has moved, or is driving you nuts in some other way, you need a new holster, a new gun, or perhaps both. 

We say this because a good holster won’t move around on your body. And, if your gun is too big or too small, it can also wreak havoc on your concealed carry success. There is a delicate balance between comfort and concealability that you should be able to have with the proper setup. 

If you’re unable to keep your gun where you want it, you may want to consider buying a new, quality holster that should do a better job. (Here is a link to our online store if you want to check our selection of holsters out.)

One of the reasons why some of us practice the concealed carrying of our self-defense firearms is because we want to have a tactical advantage should we need our firearms in defense of life. If we’re constantly adjusting the position of our guns, or making sure they’re still there, it could tip someone off that there is a gun there, leading to a different set of problems. You can read more about the importance of carrying a gun and stacking the deck in your favor here.

Conclusion

Adjusting your gun could have a disastrous outcome. You could unknowingly give yourself away to a criminal or someone just looking to pick a fight, or have an unintended discharge of your firearm. Neither are ideal, and you should do everything you can to prevent this from happening. This includes carrying your gun in a comfortable position, in a holster that won’t move around on you once you put it on.