Off-Body Carry, Part 2 - Purses

Click here for Part I - The Basics

I left the course in the spring intending to find a good purse and give off-body carry a try, but never quite found the right purse. Gun Tote'n Mommas purses are probably the best-known, and are really the standard among concealed carry purses.  Their purses are gorgeous, but they're far more fashionable than I. I had a hard time dropping the money for a GTM if I wasn't 100% sure I was going to use it.

In the most recent class, I had the opportunity to use a few bags I'd missed the first time through. I tore up my hands during the spring class on the zipper access pockets, but didn't have the chance to try a magnet-closed pocket, so I jumped at the first chance I had. Turns out, I hated it. While it was easy to access, reholstering was a problem. I managed, but didn't like it.

I also had the opportunity to try a ukoala bag, which I've seen good things about, but it tore me up and had no place to store a readily accessible extra magazine. It was okay to draw from, but it felt like drawing from a thigh rig, which is essentially what it is.

One of the best things to come out of sitting through the class the second time was finding the Travelon Concealed Carry bags. I immediately fell in love, not only with them being pretty utilitarian (which fits my 'style'), but also with their access.

Travelon, being a luggage company, has put a lot of thought into the security of all of their bags, not just their concealed carry ones. The material is slash-resistant, the zippers have an anti-theft device, and they're sturdy as all get out. I don't know who they tasked to help design their concealed carry purses, but the gun compartment is excellent. The compartment is large with a good hook and loop backing to secure the included holster (not a great one, but we'll get to that in a minute) and mag carrier. The 'locking' zipper is actually pretty easy for the carrier to defeat with minimal practice.

I loved the bag so much that the day following the end of the class, I ordered two: the Slim Bag and the Tour Bag. I've linked directly to Travelon above, but I found my purses on Amazon for a fraction of the price, and I'm reasonably certain they're not knock-offs. 

Since I don't usually carry a purse, I didn't have to worry about finding a purse that would carry all my daily crap and a gun and trauma kit. As I'm trying out this form of carrying, I find comfort in having an IFAK with me, as I've never been able to carry one in the past. 

Travelon Slim Bag

"Locking" zipper

Knife or flashlight pocket

Easily fits a Glock 43x and spare magazine with included holster/mag carrier.

Room for pepper spray, flashlight, and IFAK

The Tour Bag is bigger than the Slim

The gun compartment is the middle compartment in the Tour Bag

It holds the M&P 2.0 nicely. The mag carrier, though, is a bit tight for a double stack.

The included holster and mag carrier are okay, in fact, I like them better than the GTM ones because the mouth of the holster stays open, which allows safer reholstering. It's sufficient, but I decided to order holsters from CROSSBREED that would hold my guns more securely. The beauty of their modular system is that I can move my holster from purse to purse, or from purse to get-home bag, or to one of their belly bands.

I ordered a holster for the Glock 43X and my M&P 2.0

The CrossBreed modular system is a perfect replacement for the Travelon holster

I fully intend to utilize my Instructor's Certificate and teach off-body carry, but felt like I needed to have some more experience with actually carrying in this manner, so I've spent the last couple of months carrying in a purse. Part III of this series will be a reflection on my change to purse carry.

DTI's Off-body Carry Instructor's Class

Due to the 'Rona, I got moved from DTI's February Instructor Development course to their Off-body Carry Instructor's Course. While I was disappointed to miss the chance to learn under both John and Vicki Farnam, I jumped at the chance to take Vicki's Off-body Instructor's course.

I don't think I've ever been the instructor who says, "NEVER carry off-body". I've always tried to be aware that there is a time and place for it, and that additional thought and training needs to occur. I'd been meaning to sign up for Vicki's straight off-body carry course, but hadn't gotten around to it. Getting moved in to the instructor's course was a happy side effect of catching Covid from Jay and having to miss the February class.

It was immediately apparent that this was going to be a completely different class than anything I'd ever taken before. Vicki runs her classroom range with a compassionate, but firm, hand. I've only previously trained under men before, and it was striking to see the difference between her teaching style and others. There was no hand-holding, or patting on the head. She set standards and held us to them. It was refreshing. If she had to lay the smack down on someone, she did, but it was never personal.

Don't hate me too much for this analogy, but the way she corrected people was very similar to the way a good horse trainer corrects a horse. The correction is concise and immediate, then it's back to business as usual. No personal judgements or feelings involved, just a mild correction (or not so mild, if the initial correction didn't take). Incidentally, Vicki's daughter is a horse trainer, and if she learned this correction technique from her mother, she's probably a very good horse trainer.

But I digress ...

While I learned about drawing from purses, my biggest take-aways were in how to teach. In my past life, I was Associate Dean of a career college, and spent fifteen years teaching professionally. The skills I learned teaching adults in a career college have crossed over nicely to teaching adults in the firearms industry. I'm a good teacher.

However, watching and learning from a great teacher was a gift. I've always been a believer in teaching "baby steps", but Vicki breaks it down a bit more. We started learning the skills with blue guns, then practiced with dry (unloaded and verified) guns, before transitioning to live guns. We took copious breaks that allowed us to decompress and discuss what we were learning.

Her co-instructor, Gloria, was a wealth of information regarding the Gun Tote'n Momas (GTM) bags, and which accessories worked best with them. Rather than telling us which bag was best and why, Vicki and Gloria gave us some things to think about, and then allowed us to come to our own conclusions about whether or not a bag was going to work for us and why. 

Research shows that we learn more from failing than succeeding the first time out the gate (or even the second or third time), so by letting us fail using the blue guns, and then trusting us to figure it out with some gentle guidance went a long way. Often, instructors (myself included) tend to jump in and "help" someone who is struggling instead of just letting them work through the problem. When I jump in, it's not because I don't think they can do it, but rather to keep the class on track. However, in doing so, I'm robbing the student of the opportunity to gain confidence in their problem solving abilities. And, as we know, being able to confidently handle a gun is one of the keys to using one successfully in a defensive encounter.

For years, I would have never considered carrying off-body. Yes, it was a choice, but it wasn't the right choice for me. However, after spending three days learning the ins and outs, I can now honestly say, it's an option I wouldn't have considered for myself previously. There are pros and cons to each method of carry, but I'm now confident that I can present a gun safely from a purse. Can I do it as fast as from midline IWB? Not yet, maybe not ever. But, there is an advantage to the urban camouflage of a purse. Also, there are a lot of things I just flat-out don't carry as part of my EDC load-out, because it's cumbersome. I usually have my gun and a knife with me. Should I have a spare mag, pepper spray, trauma kit, etc.? Yes, but I don't. There's just not enough real estate to store all of that, and girl jeans are stupid with stupid pockets. Most days, the gun and a folding knife are all I have with me.

But ... man, the advantage of being able to carry a full EDC load-out in a purse? Now that's worth thinking about. Since I don't carry a purse, I'm not in the habit of living out of one. It wouldn't be a huge stretch to just fill my purse with the trauma kit and pepper spray, and just leave enough room to throw my phone and car keys in. It might even make it more likely for me to have my gun with me for quick trips to the gas station or grocery store without having to put on my belt and holster and make a big production out of getting ready.

The beauty is that Vicki and Gloria allowed me to come to that conclusion all on my own. They didn't tell me I had to carry in a purse, they didn't tell me to never carry in a purse. They said, "it's an option, you need to know how to do it safely, and you need to make up your own mind about it" (obviously paraphrased).

By the end of the weekend, my head was swimming with new content and teaching tips, but my biggest take-away from the entire class was Vicki telling us:

Claim Your Own Magnificence!

I'm not a motto-type girl, I'm not one who needs daily mantras or any of that touchy-feely stuff, but I left feeling prepared and eager to claim my own magnificence.

 Thank you to Suzanne Freehauf of Ladyfire, LLC for the pictures.

Movie Purse

This may surprise you, but I am not a purse kind of girl. If I can't carry something in a pocket, I don't carry it.

I do break my no-purse practice when going to the movies. How else am I going to smuggle all of my Dollar Store candy in during the summer? In the winter, it's easy, throw on the barn coat and load up the pockets, but in the summer ... well, it's just easier to carry a movie purse.

The movie theater we most often frequent (Cinemark) has implemented a bag limit of 12"x12"x6" and all bags are subject to search "for safety reasons". Now, if I was worried about someone smuggling in a gun, I sure the hell would have made the bag size smaller. I can fit my Para, Jay's full-sized M&P, and my G42, plus magazines for each in my size-compliant movie purse. This is another of those "feel good" rules. Whatevs, I carry on my body, not in a purse, so they can search it and take my $6.00 worth of Dollar Store candy out of my purse.

I bought a cheapo WalMart canvas purse at the beginning of the summer to use as my movie purse and it was adequate. I could fit two boxes of candy for each of us and a bottle of water if I forced it.

While on duty one night at our local venue, we were walking through getting the lay of the land and I saw this "concealed carry" purse ...

Yes, those are rhinestones and silver studs.

I didn't buy the purse that night (my shift was just starting), but I couldn't get it out of my head, so I dragged my husband back a few days later and bought it. I knew from the get-go that I wouldn't be using it for concealed carry, but I had to have it for my movie purse.

And what an excellent movie purse it is. Not only do I have room for a ton of candy, but I have room for a lot of other important things. Things like a flashlight, knife, tourniquet, gloves, etc.

Flashlight, sharpie, knife, tampons (traditional use only), gloves, CAT

The tourniquet and gloves slip down into the middle zippered pocket, which leaves ample room for other necessities.

Lots of room left for the important stuff - candy!

If my bag is searched, certainly the flashlight and knife will raise some eyebrows, but with the TQ tucked away, no one should give it any thought. However, if they unzip the middle pocket and see the TQ - and they know what the TQ is - they'll probably be suspicious that I'm carrying. I'm going to guess that the high school kids they have working at the movie theaters aren't going to know what it is, or aren't going to give a damn - they're just going through the motions.

There is a zippered area on the back of the purse that's supposed to be where you conceal your gun. Um, it's not very discreet and it's not lockable.

Nice try, but poor execution

This zippered pocket just screams "Look! Gun is in here!". There is no way to lock the zipper, so the bag must stay with the person At All Times to avoid little hands getting into it. Now, I'm not saying that if you have a proper concealed carry purse, with a discreet and lockable pocket, that the pocket should be locked all the time, because that's not feasible. However, if there are little hands around - ever - that purse needs to be under adult control At All Times and little hands must be kept away, or it needs to be locked. No one wants to be on the news for a child getting a hold of a gun and shooting themselves, a sibling, or a parent. (For the record, in case you hadn't figured it out, I'm not a fan of purse carry.)

Since this purse was sold as a concealed carry purse, and even though I have no intentions of carrying in my purse, I thought I'd slip my gun in and see how well it would do.

Wasn't sure there was room in the pocket for an actual holster, so went with trigger guard cover instead.

Slipped right in.

No printing, so that's good.

The inside of the concealment pocket is a basic lining material, so it's slippery. I wasn't sure that a holster would fit in there, so I used my trigger guard instead. If I was going to use this purse for carrying, I would either secure a soft holster (like a Remora or Sticky holster) in the pocket with velcro, or I would sew the paracord from the trigger guard in place.

There's no room in the zippered pocket to add an extra magazine without fouling up the arrangement. I suppose you could slip an extra mag into that small outer pocket, but that will print like hell, and if you put a mag inside the main part of the purse, it's not accessible.

This is a really well-made purse, but it is not a great choice for concealed gun carry. Concealed candy carry, though ...