“Your pistol is only meant to fight to your rifle.”
You ever hear that quote before? Well, I have some news for you.
Your vehicle is not a holster!
Yeah, back in the day we could drive around our small town with a shotgun and deer rifle in the back window. And maybe you live in a small town in Nowhere, USA and can get away with it. Cool.
Most of us live in the city, or the suburbs of a city and that’s just not the case here. Here, vehicle thefts, smash and grabs and carjackings occur every day. Leaving a firearm in a vehicle is setting yourself up for a stolen gun, especially if you have a gun/hunting/fishing related sticker on your car.
Granted, there is a way to properly secure a firearm in your vehicle for temporary storage. Police do this all the time with their rifles, locked in safes, or specially designed mounts. Our 5 Firearm Safety Rules dictate you must be in control of your firearm 24/7/365. Secure it!
If you must store a gun in your car, for whatever reason, keeping it out of sight (especially while unholstering and securing it) is a big concern. This includes making sure you don’t have any firearms, fishing, or hunting stickers on your vehicle, which are telltale signs that expensive things can be inside. Keep the gun locked, under a seat, in a safe that is either bolted, or cabled to the frame. Keep the doors locked, windows up, alarm on, and don’t leave the vehicle in sketchy places. If you park in your driveway at home, bring expensive items inside for the night.
What about a car holster?
Having a separate holster, or worse a magnet, attached to the underside of your dashboard has many issues.
- It increases your chances of a negligent discharge by needlessly unholstering and reholstering the firearm. The more we handle firearms the higher our chances of having a negligent discharge become. Conversely, if we never handle firearms, we will never have a negligent discharge. Keeping the firearm in your holster, on your person, negates this risk.
- It increases your chances of forgetting your gun in your vehicle and it getting stolen. Or even worse, if you forget your firearm when you have to bail from your disabled vehicle (a fatal funnel) in a fight for your life.
- It increases your chances of being targeted for your firearm, either by thieves, or heckling/harassment by your local neighborhood anti-gun activist. Keeping the firearm in your holster, on your person, concealed, negates this risk.
- It increases your chances of losing your gun in the event of a collision, even a minor one. The holster on your body has much better odds of retaining the firearm and preventing it from being lost, cast from the vehicle, or becoming a projectile itself.
Just keep it in your pants. If your firearm and holster are uncomfortable, that’s fine, but if it’s painful then you need a new holster or gun. Carrying a gun is supposed to be comforting, not comfortable.
