← The Colion Noir Podcast
The Colion Noir Podcast
The Truth About Conceal Carry
00:37:35
Colion tells his story when he first started to carry a firearm and how he didn't carry one in the chamber.
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Don't feel pressured to have to carry with a round in the chamber. Get there when you get there. But just understand you are limited. Whether you like to believe it or not, you may lie to yourself and tell yourself that, oh, I have enough time. You don't know that. This episode of the Cole on Noir podcast is brought to you by Vetter Holsters. All right, so this is me in the future or the past. Something like that. Long story short, I started recording this video beforehand and forgot that I didn't switch my mics. I have two set. I have two setups here. I have this mic that. That you see in front of you, and then I have a shotgun mic above me, and I always have to remember to switch them on my little switcher. So the first six minutes of this video are gonna be from this mic, which isn't going to be the greatest audio. It's decent, but not the greatest audio. And I finally switched it to this mic, and this is how it be. So I'm just gonna start off where I left off in the first six minutes. So the first six minutes of this video is gonna sound a little different than the rest of this video. So just bear with me. What's going on, folks? Welcome to another episode of the Coleon Noir podcast. Now, if you're wondering why I look like this, meaning like, kind of tired, these allergies in Dallas are kicking my ass right now, so bear with me. Luckily, I'm not congested, right? I don't have any of the sinus stuff. I thought comedy. I saw a comment on my last podcast episode where someone was like, ugh, well, couldn't you blow your nose before you did the podcast? This is gross. I'm sorry. It's a 30 minute podcast and I was already dealing with allergies. I did blow my nose right before I got on, and then it kept happening. I'm sorry. Anyway, today's topic today, what I want to talk about is my first time carrying a gun. Not necessarily the first time I carried a gun, but just the mental thought process that I went through and just the change that I saw in myself as I carried a gun. I did a video not too long ago where I talked about the fact that when I'm carrying a gun, I. I have two. I have two modes. It's. It's bitch or John Wick. That's it. And what I meant by that is the things that I could have done before when I was carrying a firearm, when I wasn't carrying a firearm, or things that I guess would do when I wasn't carrying a firearm, I wouldn't do while carrying. So there's a weird kind of effect that takes place. This is if you're doing it responsibly. Right. I know some people. I know there are people out there who carry a firearm for the first time and it emboldens them and it makes them more aggressive and they start doing things they otherwise wouldn't do because they got, you know, they're getting amped up by the fact that they're carrying a gun, but that's not the way that I think should be. Personally, I became more docile, I became more passive. For me, I understood that and I think a lot of it had to do with just my inherent knowledge of the, of the laws when it comes to self defense. And I understand what you can and can't do, generally speaking. And I understood that if I found myself in a situation where I had to go to my gun, it better readily be justifiable, like absolutely justifiable. And yes, there's an aspect of it that is kind of unique to me. Of course, if I ever found myself in a self defense situation, I'm going to be scrutinized to the highest extent by people who may not really like me. But I wanted to do this podcast because I just wanted to more so do it for people who are kind of new to carrying a firearm. I've done a short video. This was back when I was like with the nra and I put together this little time, this like maybe five minutes, maybe three, five minutes long, about what it was like to carry a gun for the first time. But I want to do something a little more expansive and just kind of talk about some of the things that kind of come with it. Because if you've gone, especially if you're someone who's gone a large part of their life not carrying firearms, but a lot of people, a lot of maneuver newer followers don't know is I didn't really get into guns until like my twenties. Now the OG followers know that because I've talked about it before in the past, but I didn't grow up with guns. They weren't a part of my life at all. And so the idea of carrying a firearm was totally unique and different to me. You know, that that time I went to the range for the very first time I went to the gun range and then I just fell in love with the shooting component. There was nothing like the idea of actually carrying a gun never really crossed my mind at that point, I just love shooting the act of shooting just in the actual the mechanics of a firearm and the guns themselves. Like guns are really works of art to me. I love them. Like I love looking at them. They're beautiful. To me, they're very much in, in liking with how I am about cars. Cars for me. All right, so I've got to give a quick shout out to Vetter Holsters. They're now sponsoring the podcast. I've been using their light tuck Kydex inside the waistband holster. And what I really like is how adjustable it is. You can tweak the ride height and can't to get it exact how you want. Plus they've got holsters for over 450 gun models in 75 different colors. So you can pretty much find whatever you need. But here's the thing that really sets them apart. Their customer service. I've heard so many stories about how they've gone above and beyond to make sure you're happy with your holster. And with a lifetime Warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee, it's clear they stand behind their products. If you're in the market for a great holster, check them out@betterholsters.com are also mechanical works of art. So when I got into guns, that was it for me. I loved just the guns itself. I wasn't thinking about carrying and honestly I was a little bit intimidated by the idea of carrying a firearm because again, guns were new to me. Now putting a gun on me is carrying a gun on me. I don't even, I don't even second guess it. Like it's so normal to me that it's almost hard for me to really bring myself and put myself in the shoes of somebody else. But I'm using my story as a way to kind of do that right now. And for instance, like I. There were a lot of things that kind of came into play and it was overwhelming one because now I knew I'd be walking around with the ability to take a human life like that. Yes, there are other means in which you can do that, but there's just something. There's a certain immediacy. Perceptively, whether or not that is true or not is a different story. Perceptively, there's immediacy that you attribute to a gun in terms of its ability to take a life that you don't really do with anything else. You can to a certain degree do that with knives too, but carrying a pocket knife is so common and there's so many other things you do with a pocket knife, like open letters and open boxes, and you probably do more stuff with that than anything else. So you can pull out a pocket knife or a knife and have a good reason to do it. There is no me being in public and pulling out a gun. Like, I can be in the middle of a government building and I can be in the middle of a government. Yeah, in the middle of a government building, pull out a knife. And before anyone says anything, it's going to be. The question is going to be kind of. It's going to be like, what is he using it for? That would determine, you know, how people react. Now if you pull out a gun in public just kind of randomly, everyone's like, hey, yo, what the. You know what I mean? Like, it just, it signals something entirely different. So from that perspective, I definitely was a little overwhelmed about the idea of carrying a firearm because of the immediacy of death that I perceived it to have. Even then when I was kind of really getting into firearms. Do I still kind of have that same thing now? No, not as much. I don't even really think about it now. But I think by and large the one, the one, if I had to say I was self conscious about anything still to this day is printing. Printing for me was a big deal. Big, big, big, big, big deal. I went out of my way to figure out how to avoid printing the best way possible while not completely altering the way that I dressed. I was. I got into guns and started carrying back during that time where wearing schmedium shirts was all the rage. So my had a little muscle tight tee on and stuff like that. So I was always trying to figure out like the most minimal style of carry into this. To this day, I'm still kind of like that. I'm very minimal in the way that I like to carry my guns. Even the holsters that I. The, you know, my better holster that I use when I carry my Springfield Hellcat Pro, it's. It's kind of more. It leans more on the minimal side more than anything because I like. I just really like trying to hide my gun. I don't want anybody to know I have it. And I'll be honest, when I first got into guns, part of the reason for it was just because I was black at the time. You got to remember where I come from mentally when it came to firearms. Initially for me, firearms were. The only people who had them were criminals or like if you were selling drugs or you were a gang banger or something like that. And what I didn't want and I didn't. Since I wasn't into guns, I didn't know anybody else who carried them. I didn't know anybody else who looked like me that carried them. So for me, I thought if anybody found out I was carrying a gun, I'm done for. Even though I did it legally, I went through the whole process, got the license, did all of that shit. There was still a part of me that felt like I was doing something wrong, like I didn't deserve to carry a gun, or like I was doing something illegal. And I felt like if anybody ever discovered it, I'm. And I think a part of it too, came down to my familiar structure, like the way my. My mom is. So my mom was very anti gun. She doesn't even know why she's anti gun. She just Is now. She anti gun now? No, not anymore. She's kind of had like my existence and what I do has forced her to become less anti gun, so to speak. Do I think she likes guns? Absolutely not. My aunt is a different story. My aunt, my aunt likes guns, but my, my mom. And the reason I bring up my aunts, because my aunt's like my second mom, but my mom, not so much. She's. She's like, guns get them. Yeah, she gets all weird when I kind of bring it up, even though she has one. But for me, I had that insecurity because again, the perception, the way people who carry guns, what it looked like to me always, I always saw it as a street life, part of the street culture, not some lame kid who's going to law school. It just didn't in my brain fit. But I had this new passion and a love affair for firearms. And then the logical part of my brain is like, well, if you can legally carry it, why not go through the process of legally carrying it? And so that's, that's what I did. And even though I felt insecure about it, I wasn't going to let it stop me. I still was going to carry it because I felt the benefits outweighed the negatives. And I'll be lying if I didn't say when I first left the house with that gun that I didn't feel more confident. And when I say confident, I'm not talking about like this bravado or egotistical, like, I hope somebody tries buys me type. I'm talking like now if something like my whole game plan on what to do if I found myself in a situation where I needed to defend my life Completely changed. It went from being dependent to independent with help. So before, I mean, what more could you do except fleet. Fight, flee. But even your fighting is limited. Can't box bullets, right? So if someone tries to rob me, someone's trying to stab me, someone's trying to kill me. Like, I. I can only do so much with these. And the other option then at that point is to flee. And I've always naturally kind of had this awareness about myself. I've always been kind of. The word I'm trying to avoid saying is paranoid, but I've always kind of had this, like, astute awareness of what's going on around me and being cognizant of my safety and where I'm at and who I'm around and what's going on and things of that nature. I'm a little skittish in that way. I've always been that way. And I think it's because I just understand the world for what it is, and I understand the possibilities. Like, I never saw reality and rejected it and said, it's not going to happen to me. I was the opposite. I saw things that happened to other people and thought, damn, that could happen to me. So I was always kind of in a mindset that kind of prepared myself to be ready to deal with whatever may come. So when I first got that gun and I stepped out of the house and I started carrying it, it changed my. It changed the confidence level, because again, I went from being dependent to independent. What that meant is, now if something were to happen where someone tried to attack me, take my life, so forth and so on, I had. I had something immediately in my possession that I can do something about. Absolutely. I can do it. I can deal with it right then and there. And it was the best feeling in the world. Best feeling in the world. Because the other alternative was helplessness, right? Like, again, you can only do so. You can train, you can learn to fight, you can do all this stuff. But at the end of the day, when you're dealing with someone that has a weapon and you're confronted with them, you got to go mono a mano. Or you're like, it just. This is what it is. So having that as another option, having that as a main option really, really made me feel good. And I don't think that's a bad thing. And I think there are going to be a lot of people who, when they first start carrying a gun, they're going to feel that way. They're gonna. They're gonna feel this confidence because there's a part. There's a guilty part of you that. That will start to feel bad about feeling like that. Like, it almost. You'll start to question a lot of stuff about yourself, like, am I a bitch? Like, is there something wrong with me? Like, that I feel like I got to carry this gun. They're gonna be all of these thoughts in your mind that they kind of plague your thoughts, but there's nothing wrong with it, because at the end of the day, it really is. It's just a tool. It's just another tool and repertoire, things that I can have to possibly protect myself. And so it did take me some time to get used to that. Like, I didn't completely. I wasn't completely comfortable with the idea that everywhere I went, now I had a gun on me. And, you know, like, it could weigh on you a little bit, but as time goes on, as you start to carry more and more and more and more, and then as you start to learn about different methods and ways of caring, it starts. It just kind of fades to the background, and it just becomes a part of your life. It just becomes a part of what you do. Like, grab the keys, grab your phone, grab your gun, grab your wallet. Boom, out the door. That is the one thing I can say is the more you do it, the more normal it feels, the more regular it feels. Now they're going to become times where you run into people who do find out that you're carrying a gun, and they'll start. They'll start questioning you, right? And they'll start kind of almost gaslighting you a little bit, like, why would you need to carry a gun when you think something's gonna happen to you? And it's like, well, not saying something's gonna happen to me. I just know things can happen to me. I'm confronting real. I'm dealing with the reality that's before me, right? And a lot of times, I think when people do that, it's not really about you. It's more about them and their insecurities. They're projecting an insecurity onto you that they're feeling like. And it could be from a myriad of reasons, that insecurity may be by way of them feeling like, you know what? Like, why didn't I think to carry a gun? Like, now I'm realizing, like, I'm realizing, like, how, like, you almost make them realize how vulnerable they are. And then the other side of it is like, ooh, like, can I really trust this person knowing that they always have a gun on them now. Right. There's something about people when they know you have a gun on you. It's kind of like they question now whether or not they trust you. It's like. It's like for the first time, they confronted the idea of, can I trust this person? When they found out now, it wasn't like I was running around telling people that I carried a gun. It didn't help that I had a freaking YouTube channel where I talked about guns. So it was kind of assumed. And one of the annoying things, if you have friends, especially friends who aren't really into guns, because I have. I have friends I grew up with that they're dicks, but they also didn't grow up around guns the same way I did. They didn't. So for me to then later on down the line, start carrying a firearm, everywhere I went, it was fascinating to them, almost comical, because I was the only one in the group who was doing it. And so what was kind of annoying is, like, I would go out somewhere, and now I can no longer just be me. I had to be the gun guy. And then, like, I'd show up, and then they just start patting you down, and it's like, yo, don't do that. I'm actually carrying a gun. It's not funny. So then now everybody else in the world, everybody else in the room is being alerted to the fact that I might be carrying a firearm when I'm trying to be discreet. And so you got to be careful with your friends and how they interact with you, because they could out you in a lot of ways. I just want to point that out. And so, for me, I really liked the idea of carrying the gun, but there was, like I said, also some insecurities that came along with it. One of the things that you also noticed, too, is guns are kind of like hair or, like, when. Like a female's hair or just anybody's hair, honestly. And I know that sounds weird, but here's what I'm getting at. You have good gun days. Yep. I'm taking. You have good carry days, and you have bad carry days. And what I mean by that is, depending on how you carry, some days, carrying a gun is absolutely, utterly annoying. Like, utterly annoying. Like, you. The last thing you want to do is to be carrying a gun right now. And sometimes you can't even explain why. Like, there are times where it's just, like, you could be wearing the exact same outfit that you've worn thousands of times and carry the gun thousands of Times in that outfit and it was perfectly fine. There was no issues, there was nothing. It felt great. It was comfortable, same holster, everything. And then this one day you're just like, this is annoying the shit out of me. Oh, this is terrible. And I can't explain it. I don't really understand it my damn self. I feel like I like just sometimes they just so sucks. Sucks. But that's part of carrying a gun. And another thing too is the interacting with police. Interacting with police becomes very interesting initially because again, if you were like me and you felt like you were doing something wrong, like you were doing something illegal, now multiply that times a thousand because now you're talking to a police officer, you're interacting with a police officer, you, you start like that interaction goes completely different, different in your head you are acting the same way, but from an internal feeling standpoint, you're just ready to be made. Like, oh, I'm gonna be made. But then as time goes on and you continue caring, you realize something. Nobody gives a about you. Nobody cares. Like, like printing, I think is like the idea of printing when you're carrying a gun is a little bit overboard overblown by me because even I still, I still subscribe to this absolutism where I'm like, you cannot know that I'm care. Like I don't want you to see any printing on me whatsoever. But nobody's paying attention. Nobody. It could be anything like when you start because you can kind of become a little solipsistic when you carry a firearm because you start, you become more internalized because you're running through your mind of everybody can see I have a gun on me. You're thinking about yourself all the time, not realizing when you step out of yourself and look at through other people's eyes, if they're not expecting it, they're not looking for it. So just walking around. Nobody's walking around now you're doing it because you're just now carrying gun. I remember when I first started carrying everything at that point now told me it was like, like a light bulb went off and I'm like, wait a minute. If I'm carrying a gun, that means there are other people carrying guns. I wonder if I could tell if they're carrying guns. So like I kind of went about my day for a lot of ways, in a lot of ways where I would like just be looking at people's waistline trying to see if they were carrying a gun. Can I tell are they carrying at three o' clock? Six o'. Clock. Are they carrying appendix? What kind of carrying. What's that? Is that something there? Like, I'm doing that. But 99% of the people aren't. 99% of people can get two shits about you. Everybody's in their own little world, kind of doing their thing. And so now, don't get me wrong, I've seen some ridiculous shit where it's like, come on, bro, like, I can clearly tell you're carrying a gun. Like, but then. And there's nothing wrong with, Like, I don't care if people print personally. Like, I don't care. I don't have a problem with open carry. So I don't. Clearly, I'm not gonna have a problem with somebody printing. But it kind of defeats the purpose of why you're carrying if it's blatantly obvious that you're carrying because you're printing like a woman who just got a breast done. Like, it's just, it's, it's. It's a little baffling to me, but nobody's paying attention. Nobody cares. Nobody. And that's something that I had to get used to. And like, again, everything is. When it comes to this of thing, when it comes to carrying a firearm, everything happens with time. With time. Time, time, time. Another thing too is, and that can be rather annoying, is the loss and understanding where and where you can't carry a gun. Because it can become a little frustrating when it comes to carrying a gun, because you don't know. Oh, gosh, you don't know. Like, when you go out, like, everything now kind of has to be strategized. There's the strategy and the contingency for everything, right? Everything. So, for instance, like, if you're gonna go out for the day, you need to. You need to have a place where you can put your gun. If you get to somewhere where you can't bring your gun. And then. Or like, I ran into this quite a bit where I'd be out with my friends and we go to one place where I can't bring my gun, and they. And they want to go somewhere else. And then I'm like, ooh, I got. I can't. I can't go there. Or I have to go put my gun up because I can't bring my gun in there. And so that can get a little annoying or frustrating. And then you find yourself making decisions that you really shouldn't have to make. Personally, I don't think, like, because now I'm sitting there, I'm Like, I cannot bring a gun, find myself in a situation and wish I had it. Or I can bring the gun, possibly risk breaking the law, getting caught. And then it can get a little annoying in that regard, because now you're factoring. You're having to factor for things that most people don't ever have to think about. They just go where now you, you have an object on you that is incredibly discriminated against if you're just gonna be honest and that. And that's a firearm. So, you know, you have to think ahead. You have to plan things out. It's like, okay, I'm gonna be going here. I might be going here. Where can I put my gun? I want to put it here. I don't want to leave it there, and so forth and so on. So that's, that's, that's another aspect of things that come into play whenever you're carrying a firearm from day to day. At this point. Now, I'm not going to say that, like, you'll start to become a little complacent. I could have sworn I had this on. I'm not going to say that you start to become a little complacent, but you do definitely start to just become overly comfortable. But what it also does too, is it also teaches you how to function without a gun. In a very weird way, there was something about carrying a gun every day that then I started to start paying attention to things I didn't pay attention to before, where I sat, where are the exits, paying attention to what this person was wearing, what that person looked like. I'm watching hands. All of these things start to kind of come into play because the last thing you want to do is have to go to your gun. My mentality is still very much run first, gun second, if that makes any sense. I'm. I'm kind of. I'm. I'm a flight first person. And if you force me to, then I'll go to my gun. Now, that's very. Depending on the state that you live in, you may be forced to always be a flight first person, then go to your gun because you don't have stand your ground laws. Whereas in some places, when it comes to stand your ground, you don't necessarily have to do that. I'm not judging one way or the other. I just choose not to have a body on my mind if I don't have to. I just. That's just me. So I'm gonna avoid going to my gun as much as possible until I just absolutely, absolutely have to, like, you're gonna have to really have my back against the wall for me to do that. My first thought isn't to go to my gun. My first thought is, do I have my gun on me? Is the gun loaded? What gun am I carrying? Can I get to my gun fast enough if I can do this? Good point. All right, first, let's get the fuck out of here. That's. That's kind of where my mentality kind of comes in when it comes to processing potential danger while I have a gun on me. Everyone's not like that, a little different. Some people go to gun first. As long as it's justified, that's totally fine. I'm just not somebody that's like that. I'm. I'm kind of more so of. I'm going to remove myself first. And if you keep taking away my ability to do that, then. Then we can start talking about gunplay, especially, you know, of course, cons, assuming that I have a perceived lethal threat of my life in play at the moment. And another thing you're probably gonna start doing is you're gonna start depending on how active your life is, you're gonna start buying multiple guns, or you're gonna start. And you're gonna start buying. You're gonna start your guns gonna start progressively smaller and smaller. Because what you're gonna do is you're gonna start realizing that, like, initially, mine started very big, right? I actually tried to carry my. I had. My very first gun was a Ruger SR40. Got a holster for it and everything. And I started carry it and. And it was. It was all right. From a carry standpoint. It was pretty. It was kind of big compared to what I carry now. But it's this weird conundrum that you're going to face. Do I go bigger gun, harder to carry, or go smaller gun, easier to carry, but less rounds, less confidence? Inspiring. There's. I don't care what anyone says. There's something about. There's something that inspires a level of confidence when it comes to being able to defend yourself when you have a bigger gun. If I have a bigger gun, like, if I have. Like, in a perfect world, if I knew I was going to get into a situation where I had to defend my life, I'm not going to go with Glock 26. I'm not going to go with a small Springfield Hellcat. Like, I'm not. I'm going to go something bigger. If I'm going to go Hellcat, I'd go like an Echelon, like, I'm gonna go something full size that makes me, that inspires me and gives me confidence versus something that's smaller and gets the job done from a carry standpoint, but doesn't necessarily inspire a lot of confidence. It's kind of like, I hope I don't have to go to this because it's not that great. But you know, it is what it is. But from a day to day standpoint, it's kind of like if you're living a more dynamic life, especially if you live life in the city and you're constantly going to different places, you're moving, you know, you're up and down, all this stuff like that, you're going to find yourself going smaller and smaller and smaller. When it comes to guns, I've gotten, I consider myself exceedingly lucky. At the very genesis of me getting in firearms, there wasn't really much in the way of options in terms of guns that you can carry that were small for concealed carry. You had them, they just weren't very great to shoot. They were kind of what I like to call, at least I have a gun on me kind of guns. If I was going to go super small other than otherwise you're going to have to go with something bigger. You're going to have to go something that's a Glock 19 size. So like, for instance, let's take, let's take this Ruger here, right? This is about a Glock 19 size gun, right? Let's see if that. There we go. Yeah. So, so like the 19 was always like the kind of, the kind of golden child, the staple, the, the kind of compromise between being full size ish and then being compact ish. But now nowadays you have, you have guns that are so much smaller now and then carry the same capacity while still being ergonomic enough. And then a lot of times it's not even necessarily always going to be the guns that are like smaller in terms of like form factor and from a standpoint of like silhouette, for instance, let's take, let's take this gun, for instance, like this. The Reflex. The Reflex xl. The Reflex XL from a silhouette standpoint is pretty much the same. Look at them here, look. They're about the same. It's about the same as the Glock 19. Only difference is this is slimmer. This is slimmer. So that plays a big part in it too. Like, and that's the thing about, you know, as you progress, you're gonna start trying to figure out, you're gonna try to Find that balance between comfort and ability, right? You want a gun that makes you feel confident and you want a gun. But also a gun is small enough that it's not making your day to day life hell. And I feel like I got lucky because I came up in a time where you do have guns like this, like this Reflex xl. You have the ability to get these guns that are super small, but then you get them like with 18 rounds. Whereas before you had the Glock 19, it was like standard was 15 rounds. Now I'm getting a slimmer gun with 18 rounds, same size. It's freaking crazy. And then even more so you get even smaller guns where you're getting closer to 15 rounds. Guns like the 43X and stuff like that. And so. I grew up in the golden age. I came up in the golden age of the concealed carry guns. I remember when the shield first dropped, I was like, holy. Finally it has happened to me right in front of my face. And I just, okay, I went a little far with that one. But I remember thinking, perfect. This is exactly what I was looking for. The type of carry gun that can fit your life. Because before the thought process was you make your gun, you make the. You make, you fit your life around the gun. People used to say that. And I remember I was one of the first people that came on the scene. I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing it. I'm not gonna make my. I'm not gonna make my life. Am I gonna change the way I dress? I'm not gonna start wearing fishing shirts. I'm not doing that shit. I'm gonna have to figure out a way to make this gun work. So I started finding slimmer, smaller holsters. I started going into smaller guns and things, things of that nature. Now again, I got lucky because I, at that time we were starting, that was kind of like the catalyst for like the small concealed carry gun. So I had a lot of options to choose from at the time. And so. And nowadays it's even. There's even more. So that's something that you're definitely gonna, you're gonna start playing with, is playing that, playing a balancing act between your size and ability, right? And then, now there's the, then there's the, the how you carry your gun, right? The whole keeping around in the chamber. Now I can do a whole video about this whole video where I talk about how I like my genus, my like, kind of like my transformation from being somebody who didn't carry with the round in Chamber to someone who does. Now, I started off with not carrying around in the chamber. And I remember I would sit on YouTube and then look up different ways on how to draw and rack the slide. And you know, they call it the Israeli draw because they don't, a lot of them don't carry with the round and chamber over there in Israel. So they would literally teach you to draw, do this funky, like racking. It was, it was goofy for the time. It, it seemed normal. But now you look at it, you're like, what the hell is that? But it was called the Israeli draw. And the Israeli draw is essentially just carrying without one in a chamber and then having a structured way to kind of pull the gun and rack it. I didn't carry with the round in the chamber. It took me a lot of time before I hit that point where I was comfortable enough doing it because I didn't trust the guns. I didn't trust the guns at all. You gotta remember, I didn't have a background with firearms. So for me I was definitely, you know, very suspect when it came to the safety of firearms. And it was only after I carried for a particular amount of time that I started to realize, all right, these guns aren't just going off by themselves. And then I also understood, as I watched different, like self defense videos and things of that nature, I started realizing, you think you're going to have time to draw, but you may not. There are multiple scenarios where you may have all the time in the world to draw. Then there are other multiple scenarios where you may not. If I carry with a round in the chain, this is how I reason with myself. Sorry, I had to pause it and leave and I stepped outside to go do something and now my allergies are acting. I wake up again. But the, the thing is with, with the concealed carry, with this. Sorry, I lost my train of thought with, with withdrawing your firearm, right. I started watching different videos and trying to understand, okay, how much time might I have? My Thomas time I'd have. I always know for a fact if I do carry with the rounded chamber, all the scenarios I'll be able to get to my gun as quickly as possible. And then the other scenarios, I'm having to think, okay, maybe this might work or maybe this might not work. I may be able to draw and rack the slide, I may not. Or if I rack the slide and I short stroke it cause a malfunction, the gun doesn't work, all these things. So as time went on, I slowly started playing with the idea of Caring, I don't think. I think everybody should care what they're rounding the chamber. But I'm not going to say that you should do it while you're uncomfortable. If you're uncomfortable about it, don't do it. Just understand the limitations that come with it. Sorry. Just understand the limitations that come with it. Because if you find yourself in a position where you need to defend yourself, you need to understand, I don't have that much time to do this, so I need to position myself accordingly. Don't feel pressured to have to carry with a round in the chamber. Get there when you get there. But just understand you are limited. Whether you like to believe it or not, you may lie to yourself and tell yourself that, oh, I have enough time. You don't know that. No one knows that because you don't know what type of situation you may find yourself in. So don't lie to yourself. Be honest with yourself. Say, hey, I'm not comfortable enough to carry with the round in a chamber. So until I am comfortable enough to do that, I need to understand the limitations of speed and my ability to get to my gun and racked around. I need to remember, I need to really rack the gun so I don't short stroke it and cause a malfunction. All those things. Just don't lie to yourself about it. Don't feel pressured, but don't lie to yourself about it. And lastly, where you carry your gun, I go, like, I grew up during a time period where everybody took a gun and then just put it in the back of their pants. Like that was the thing. That's what you saw in the movies. That's how everybody carried or you carried at 3 o'. Clock. I started off carrying at 3 o' clock and I carried there because I thought that's where you're supposed to carry. However, I will say that it did make it harder to conceal the gun because you have this thing sticking outside and you just have the grip just sticking out in the back. And then over time, I realized I didn't like the way that I didn't know what the condition of my gun was. I didn't know if my shirt was covering it, if it wasn't covering it, if it was. I never really knew unless I looked down and try to make sure. And I was constantly doing this. I didn't like that. So over time, I switch from carrying at 3:00 clock to the 2 appendix. And I, like everyone else initially was like, hell no, I'm not sticking a gun in my pants. And pointing it at my pee pee. Not doing it, not doing it, not doing it. Now I do it almost exclusively. Actually, I do do it exclusively. I only carry appendix. And the reason why I do it, and I'm gonna do another video about this is I love the fact that I always know the condition of my gun. I know whether it's showing or not. And I also love the fact that I can conceal a much bigger gun with appendix carry. And so that kind of alleviates, that kind of gives me a lot more leeway in terms of the size of gun that I can carry is by carrying with an appendix. By carrying appendix. I'm going to do a whole whole podcast session just about that alone, because we can talk ad nauseam about that. But by and large, that's. That's been my experience. And the stuff, you know, the truth about, for me, carrying a firearm and how I. How, you know, what it was like when I first started to where I am now. Now it's pretty much like picking up my wallet and put it in my back pocket. I don't even really think about it, but for the most part, just give it time. Don't try to. Don't try to rush it. You'll get comfortable at your own pace, but just understand your reality. Don't lie to yourself about your reality and about the reality of how you're carrying. Don't lie to yourself about how you're feeling. Allow yourself to. To fill means you're human. And then it's good because you're thinking about these things. You start thinking about what you can and can't do while you're carrying a gun and understanding that you can't be as aggressive maybe as you would be when you weren't carrying a gun, which is the kind of irony behind carrying a fireman. Makes you more passive if you're doing it responsibly. So that's my take. I'm going to end this now because my allergies are coming back full force and I know the last thing you want to hear is me sniffing on the mic 24 7. See, so that's it. I will probably come back and do another episode about carrying appendix, but that is my reality of carrying a firearm. All right, folks, holla.