Why Do You Carry?

Why do you carry? Most people don’t do something unless they can answer a very simple question…. why? Why am I getting up at 5 am to work out before work/school? Why am I working hard at work when the lazy guy two down from me is getting paid the same way? Why do we have the politicians we have in office that want to disarm us?

Well, I can answer the first two, and those reasons usually boil down to wanting to take personal responsibility and be the best person you can be. Getting healthy takes hard work. Busting your backside at your job takes hard work but for both of those you can see a goal/benefit at the end of the tunnel. If I eat healthy and work out, I will be fit and have fewer health problems. If I work hard, I can fight hard for a raise or a new job opportunity which means better outcomes for you.

So why do you choose to carry? It’s harder to imagine the end state isn’t it? “So, I can protect myself and others” isn’t as easy to look at because it is hard to visualize that at the end. So why do you carry? Here are some of my thoughts.

I carry it because I am needed by my family.

Most of you have family or loved ones that rely on you to be there. I travel a lot for my job and I frequently go to unsavory places. My family relies on my income to provide for our home, food, and insurance the whole gambit. If I end up dead because I was unable to defend myself, I have done them no service. I love them, and I want to see my kids grow up, get married, and have kiddos of their own, and I can’t do that if I am at room temperature at a gas station because an armed thug wanted to shoot me for my car/wallet and I had no way to fight back.

I carry it because I feel it is on me, my responsibility to protect myself because I know that there is no one else coming to save me. The average response time is over 7 minutes nationwide, in an interaction that could be over in two minutes. The police will likely be there just in time to draw my chalk line as I leak out. It is the same reason I carry a bag filled with spare food, first aid, water, and emergency stuff because I want to know I can take care of most situations myself.

I carry it because I think there are those who are scared, too scared to do it themselves, or can’t and rely on me to be a protector. It is often touted that concealed carriers are “sheepdogs” and while I hate that overused phrase, I know that I am more capable than most. There are some people who shouldn’t carry because they would be a danger to themselves, or anyone else because they just don’t “get it”. That’s fine. But my kiddos can’t. Their friends can’t. The elderly lady at the grocery store can’t. So, I will. Because I want to support them just in case.

I carry it because it reminds me to be more mindful of my surroundings and to be more patient. If you are carrying in most states and you use your firearm in an incident you instigate and you’re armed, you are likely to get charged with murder. Carrying forces me to be present and levelheaded, keeping my anger in check.

So now why do you carry? If you do carry and you have your why, you better have a good “how”, and that would be our holsters. If I am trying to do all of what I just mentioned, I better be carrying the best genuine leather holsters on the market, because cheap imitations might be the reason, I can’t accomplish my “why.”

Author: Ian Bolser