It's an absolute truism in the CCW community that if you wear a covering vest of some kind, especially one festooned with pockets, then every member of The Great Unwashed will divine the fact that you are carrying a pistola. This view is so entrenched that the garments are frequently referred to as "Shoot Me Vests".
I think most folks give entirely too much credit to the perceptive abilities of their fellow h. saps.
I was in line at my local inconvenience store the other day, waiting to pay for petrol and cancer sticks, and dressed to go to work. I was wearing a black 5.11 Shoot Me Vest, so as not to spook the straights with the pistol on my hip. I was wearing a Coal Creek Armory baseball cap, Adidas GSG-9 boots, and a black nylon rigger's belt. I was sporting a T-shirt from the local DOE SRT team, complete with butch-looking logo and lots of hooah-sounding Latin over the left breast. I was idly twirling my keychain, which is a Monadnock Persuader, and the pocket clips of knives were visible in both my front jeans pockets. I was wearing Wiley X SG-1 shades, fergawdssake, and the guy next to me in the line looks at me and, in an attempt to chat me up, asks...
..."Are you a photographer?"
"No, sir, I'm a tactical poser."
This answer left him puzzled, and so he plowed on in an attempt to land a date by regaling me with his days as a photographer for his college paper.
I'm beginning to think that you could walk through the middle of the mall with a neon-pink STI Open Class racegun in a drop thigh rig, wearing a tee-shirt that says, in four inch fuschia letters "I AM CARRYING A GUN", and maybe one in ten people would pause their cell phone conversations long enough to notice...
Imagine my chagrine.
ReplyDeleteI wake up in the morning and "Ooh! Look! A comment!
No, wait..."
My first spam comment, and my first use of the itty-bitty trash can icon. It was a special moment.
In Kansas (my humble state of residence), CCW is still just a dream. Our governer has decided to vote it down yet again, even though it was passed by our house and senate. If only I had the opportunity to wear a 'shoot me' vest in earnest... ;)
ReplyDeleteOne time I was at the local Krystal getting some death squares. I had ordered through the window, specifically requesting that they be sans cheese (they always ask if you want it). Of course, they were dripping cheese when I got them. I go in, stuffing my SIG 229 lazily into my IWB holster. Some fossil who probably fought in the Spanish-American war absolutely insisted that I requested cheese. A guy standing beside me with his girlfriend looks down at the SIG (which I had forgotten to cover with my shirt) and told the old man, "dude, that man has a gun, if he says go get him a loaf of bread I suggest you do it!" At that point I was so pissed at the fossil that I almost said "damn right!"
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wear a bright green t-shirt with 5 inch tall white letters on the front which scream "MY MASCOT CARRIES A GUN" (my mascot is Joe Miner, for UMR, and he does carry a gun - he is pictured on the back). I have worn it in like three different states, where people are presumed to not know who my mascot is. Not a single person has looked at me funny. Even if the shirt doesn't say that I carry a gun, it's got most of those words on it.
ReplyDelete