Casual days make it easy to conceal carry your gun. A sweatshirt or sweater, jacket, or even an untucked t-shirt or button down keeps just about any way you carry your weapon under wraps.
But what about when you’re getting dressed up? Whether it’s for work or for a night out, looking polished shouldn’t mean you can go without protection. But a tucked in dress shirt hardly provides the coverage you need for most concealed holsters. And wearing a suit coat for an entire day can be uncomfortable and, depending on the time of year, hot.
There are ways to carry your gun without showing it to the world even when dressed in a suit or simply khakis and a tucked in polo. IWB concealed carry wearing business casual attire can be easier than you think if you have the right product!
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Garment Over Top
While wearing a jacket all of the time might not be realistic, there may be instances where you’ll only be dressed up for a short period of time. In these cases, it may be completely reasonable to use your Clipdraw and don a sports coat or blazer to hide your gun.
Another option for very dressy occasions, or for business dress, is to consider a vest. Button down vests are a common garment for formal occasions, but many men wear vests as a regular accessory. A vest may also help to conceal your weapon, but make sure to spend time practicing your draw with this slightly more constricting garment on.
Another option if you’ll be wearing your jacket 100% of the time is to consider a shoulder holster. However, a shoulder holster may cause more problems than it solves. Most people are unfamiliar with carrying their weapon this way, and more importantly, have little practice in drawing their gun from this location. Without practice, owners run the risk of pointing the gun at themselves or accidentally pointing it at others while they draw from a shoulder holster. Without a lot of practice, this type of carry isn’t recommended.
Make Room at the Waist
More realistically, though, you’ll want to wear your weapon in such a way that you can remove your jacket throughout the day or go without something like a vest. Even in these instances, you have options.
One option is to use an inside the waistband holster that also allows you to tuck in your shirt. These “tucker” holsters provide the option to tuck your shirt in over your gun, but behind the clips. You’ll want to make sure to purchase pants large enough to accommodate the extra bulk of the gun and holster at the waist and wear shirts with extra room so that they can be bloused over the clips.
This type of carry can be safer than the shoulder holster but still requires practice. Drawing your weapon means using your support hand to untuck your shirt while you draw with your strong hand. While this may sound complicated, with practice you will be able to get your draw down to under 2 seconds.
Another option is a pocket carry. However, a pocket carry may limit your choice of weapons you can carry, since a pocket holster and gun may produce a bulge if they are too large.
For safety sake, it is important with a pocket carry to use a holster designed for this purpose and not just place the weapon in your pocket. You should also plan for that to be the only item in the pocket. Accidents can and have happened to people who have reached for a wallet or keys in the same pocket their weapon was stored in.
It will take a little more planning but carrying a concealed weapon while wearing dress clothes or simply a tucked in shirt is achievable. Whichever method you decide to use, practice will be the most important thing you do to ensure safety and your peace of mind.
Add a Saf-T-Blok for extra safety:
