For most of the United States, we have settled into this uncomfortable seasonal state where from day-to-day we do not know what to expect. Is Spring finally here? Are we going to get a foot of snow tomorrow? Honey, do we have flood insurance?... The weather can be incredibly unpredictable until we finally clear the hump of winter, and that makes for difficult concealed carry because you simply never know what it will be like when you step outside.
For that reason, it is good to have a few different holster options available to yourself so you can tailor your concealed carry situation to not only the events you have planned for yourself every day, but also the weather you expect to endure as well. If you train enough and are proficient enough, you can also employ one or two pistols depending on the weather and your situation. My daily carry is typically a Glock. Cliché? Yes, but it has served me well and I am familiar with the platform. I am not advocating everyone go buy one. What everyone should do though is carry what you are most trained on, most proficient with, and most comfortable manipulating under stress. In those most tense moments, we all fall back to our most gross motor skill, primitive training. So, carry what you are confident with.
As far as clothing and attire, in the winter we obviously want to be warm if we are journeying through everyday errands and it’s a polar vortex outside, but you also want to be able to draw from underneath your heavy clothing. If we have a $1K CCW gun plus a $200 fancy holster and we think we are Joh Wick, but we cannot draw our movie star pistol in any reasonable amount of time, then that is a problem.
What my typical attire looks like living in Minnesota where -20°F is not uncommon is a very heavy coat that can be left unzipped in the middle plus an OWB (Outside-the-Waistband) holster. This affords me the ability to stay warm yet I can easily swipe my coat to the side and draw my firearm if the need should arise. When winter rolls around every year I do not need to engage in additional training as far as drawing my sidearm because this is a very common and easy draw stroke. Swipe… Draw… Press Out at Chest Height… Obtain Sight Alignment… Soft Trigger Press… BANG!... Assess Surroundings…
Even if I am doing more manual labor work like shoveling snow, I still make sure I am wearing loose fitting gloves that will still keep me plenty warm yet can be easily thrown off to draw quickly in the rare event that I may need to. Just because the temperature starts to drop does not mean that we should compromise our safety by no longer carrying. Conversely, we work hard to find clever solutions on how to carry when it is really hot out, and we should do the same when it gets unbearably cold. Let us know all of your thoughts in the Comments below about how you try to carry when the thermometer begins to reach the single digits! We love it when you participate in our articles and keep the conversation going!
