Dressing Around Your Gun

Dressing like an adult is a privilege, not a chore. Some in the modern gun community seem to think otherwise though. If you prefer to wear workout clothes everywhere, that is your business, but I will stick to real pants, a button-down shirt, solid footwear, and a good modern AIWB holster. I suppose that makes me a fudd of some sort.

In reality, I am an armed professional. That means that I don’t get to just throw on whatever small pistol I want and sally forth. I carry my full-size duty gun, spare mag, clinch pick, badge, flashlight, creds, cuffs, work phone, personal phone, and some more stuff I’ll skip over for now. None of this is very difficult to carry, and it disappears easily enough for me.

Even with all this stuff, I can move comfortably. I have gone for runs with it on, done CrossFit workouts with it, and been in actual fights. Pretending that you can’t do these things unless you carry a small gun, deeply concealed while wearing workout clothing, is just silly. Various pants and an Untuckit shirt or even a polo have allowed me to dress like I have a job and be comfortable too.

My Tenicor belt, either the original or the heavy-duty version, carries everything with ease. A Tenicor or JM Custom holster protects my pistol and allows me to do everything that matters as well as it can be done. Add a Tenicor mag pouch and the other odds and ends I carry and I am set for the day, whether it is 12 hours or 20 hours. I can wear concealable body armor with it and not be inconvenienced at all. Modern concealable body armor is quite a step up from what I started with in the 90s, and the stuff I had back then was pretty good.

Having said that, there is a good reason for civilians to carry a smaller pistol, more deeply concealed. It has nothing to do with how you dress. It has everything to do with retaining your weapon. An undiscovered weapon is a safer weapon. Internet nonsense aside, a sub-second draw is not what you want or need to protect yourself against street criminals. Timing beats speed every day of the week. I would happily trade a bit of draw speed for more weapons security. Having dealt with weapons retention issues a few times for real, it is high on my priority list. It is one of the main reasons I carried AIWB as a cop in the 90’s. A surreptitious draw was the other main reason, as mentioned in our AIWB history post.

Most men cannot put their control hand (you may know it as your support hand) on their pistol when the pistol is carried on the strong side. AIWB allows both hands easy access. This works out well for one-handed draws, as well as weapons retention. Back in the 90’s, when I wanted to deep carry, I used Thunderwear. It worked well enough for what it was and it allowed me to go places and do things I otherwise could not have done. I even have an amusing story about it from my college days, though it is not appropriate for publication.

Today, the Enigma from PHLster is a much better choice. I bought one for my wife about as soon as it hit the market, and then another for me very shortly afterward. It can be carried deeply, as a better version of Thunderwear, or it can ride about like a modern AIWB holster. There are reasons why a belt-mounted holster is still superior, especially for professionals, but for many people, the Enigma may do everything they need or want.

So the next time some young interneter wants to show off how well their micro gun setup conceals under their play clothes, you can smile and nod, while comfortably concealing your full-size iron. And look like an adult at the same time.