Keeping it within reach
PEOPLE who have permits to carry their firearms outside their homes are free to bring their guns around for protection for so long as they do not enter establishments, like a bank, where the permits are void.
And while places like that have security officers to whom a gun owner can leave his or her firearm with, people don’t generally like to leave their guns with people they don’t personally know.
Most people simply go to covered parking lots and leave their guns inside their vehicles instead.
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In fact, most people don’t bother keeping their guns with them at all, preferring instead to place their guns in padded bags which they can just toss inside the car—most commonly at the front passenger-side seat if empty—before they drive off from home to wherever.
While in transit, the gun stays in the padded bag and is just conveniently within reach; conveniently within reach until that critical moment when the defender gets attacked and his car hits or is hit by something, that is.
The gun bag, with the gun in it, flies off and lands out of reach, probably bouncing all the way back to the rear seats or, worse, jumping out of the broken windshield. At this point, I think it is safe to assume that the defender has just had his goose cooked.
Prepared. I am not saying that carrying a firearm in a bag while inside a vehicle is wrong.
In fact, since PNP Chief Jesus Versoza took over and changed the guidelines governing carry permits, lugging a gun bag around is about the only valid way to carry a gun whether on a vehicle or on foot.
Gun owners should think about such issues as where to place their guns inside their vehicles, how to make sure that the firearm is securely in place and, equally important, how to access the gun in the most expedient way possible.
Then, also equally crucial, gun owners should incorporate these in their firearm training regimen. A lot of things can go wrong in a critical incident. They go wrong quite fast and, more often than not, with fatal results.
The gun owner who has taken the extra effort is more likely to survive because, in a critical incident, we all revert to our training. Thus, he or she that has trained the most is the most likely to survive the longest.
I know of people who drive their vehicles while keeping their gun, minus the bag, on the driver-side seat. They use their thigh to keep the gun in place, akin to almost sitting on the firearm. This is expedient.
Others put their guns in paddle holsters they can easily attach to their belts while driving. These rigs detach as one unit, meaning both gun and holster, from the belt.
This too is expedient provided that the gun owner is still able to draw the firearm from its holster despite the confined space of a car’s interior.
Gun retention is crucial in a critical incident. What good is the tricked out firearm, with all the bells and whistles, if it has bounced somewhere else when needed the most?
New shop. Speaking of needs, to those looking towards a gun as an early Christmas gift-to-self, a gun store based in Las Piñas has opened a branch inside the Century Plaza complex in midtown Cebu City.
Lock and Load is owned by the Uyami family of Northern Luzon and offers a sufficiently varied line of pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, as well as parts and accessories at the same prices these are sold in Manila. It’s been in business for over 15 years.
Pamela Uyami-Comia, marketing director of Lock and Load, said customers can have their purchased firearms within five days to one week if payment is made before cutoff.
I was able to attend the soft opening of the Cebu branch yesterday, upon the invitation of Richard Tan.
They don’t have much by way of displayed firearms, but Pamela assured me personally that they have a variety of weapons in stock, as well as accessories, parts and some common brands of ammunition.