Who notices people carrying guns? Other people carrying guns. I’d mentioned this in last week’s post, and feel it bears repeating. The challenge is that most of us have difficulty coming to terms with thought processes that don’t mirror our own. Case and point: it’s unfathomable to those of us that carry guns that there are people out there that genuinely believe bad things won’t happen to them. It’s also hard for some to come to terms with the idea that true human ambush predators will use as much visual information as is available to profile their victims.

Dr. William Aprill of Aprill Risk Consulting does an amazing job in his Unthinkable seminar of articulating the thought process and motivators of Violent Criminal Actors (VCAs). One example he uses is that some criminals are so in tune with their predatory side that they are able to not only select a victim, but merely identify whether someone has been previously victimized, purely by their gait (how they walk)!

If they’re able to pick up significant info off of something that subtle, you can’t really believe that they won’t notice the hip-tumor under your shirt, the flashlight clipped to your pocket, or your operator-chic polo & 5.11 pant combo?

There was a fantastic podcast from Primary & Secondary where Varg Freeborn went into detail discussing degrees of concealment, and how they relate to the individual’s context and expectations. (It’s cued up to that snippit of the conversation, but I would strongly encourage you watch/listen to the whole thing.) The major point he made was that the kinds of people that we carry guns to protect against got much more familiar with a much higher degree of concealment at a much younger age, because failing to conceal whatever it was carried much graver consequences (loss of food, loss of resource, loss of freedom, etc. Survival level priorities). It’s comforting to dismiss the criminal element as stupid, uneducated, and unskilled. Sadly, it’s categorically false.

If a criminal predator is sizing you up and planning to ambush you, cues that you are armed in some form or fashion are not going to dissuade them. Chances are this is the type of person that has had more than one gun pointed at them at some point in their life. Basically all they’re going to do is read the defense, call an audible, and re-adjust their strategy to accommodate the new information they now have.

The preferred strategy is to keep your tools and abilities hidden. That way if you do still fail and end up getting selected, you’ve been underestimated.

When it comes to profiling off of visual information, who is more likely to be carrying a gun with which they’re proficient?  

This guy or That Guy?

And which one do you think your significant other would rather be seen with at a nice restaurant?

If you want to fly your “gang colors” as a gun carrier (and if we’re being honest, that’s exactly what they are: a way for members of a tribe to signal to each other that the general public doesn’t immediately catch) go for it. But don’t think that advertising yourself as such is going to help de-select you.

On top of all of that, in the event you do have to employ your firearm in public, how you dress may have an impact on the public’s perception of you and your actions (which may translate into a more (un)favorable 911 call or witness statement.

The next segment is going to touch more on the social impacts of dressing well.

I mentioned Dr. William Aprill’s work at the onset of the post, and I really cannot recommend his Unthinkable class enough. I call it a “Red Pill” class (a la “The Matrix”). Once you take that course, your eyes are opened to an entire other set of cultures and behaviors that you cannot un-know. It will absolutely make you uncomfortable, and you’ll never look at the world in quite the same way, but you’ll be much better off with the information than you would without. He also put out great regular content on his Instagram and Facebook pages, which you should also be following.