SPEAKER_01 0:22

What's up, y'all, and welcome back to another episode of Behind the Holsters, a Concealed Coalition Podcast. I am your host, Jody Piku, and I've got with me our National Director of Training, Mr. Austin Davis. Uh, you probably saw the last episode that we did. If you didn't go check it out, it has to do with alcohol and firearms, man. And very interesting from a uh different perspectives, I will say, for people who don't, you know, uh, we don't discourage, we're not against having an alcoholic beverage uh here and there, but your reasons why and where are very important. But today, this episode is even. I mean, this is just a good one. And let me title it first by saying, where do you put your pew-pew when you poo-poo? This is an interesting topic, man. And I've got a story that I've heard on it that we're gonna talk about. We're gonna go into this for the next, I don't know, 10 to 12 minutes. We're gonna talk about uh some things you should probably do uh throughout your day if you are planning on living a lifestyle of carrying a firearm. And I say living a lifestyle because I do believe once you make the decision to carry a firearm every day, it's not just that decision, it is a complete lifestyle change. And it is one that I would recommend. So in saying that, Austin, I want to welcome you back to the podcast. It's awesome having you. Truly appreciate you being here. Love learning from you. But let's let's talk about this. Where do we put our pew pew when we when we when we poo-poo? When we have to use the bathroom. Everybody does it, all right? Everybody does.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Let's say about this. For me, I I like thinking of being safer in an increasingly dangerous world in having systems, not tips. So part of my system is this. When I if I'm gonna be carrying all day, at some point in that day, I'm probably, or more than one point in that day, I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom. So I want to start thinking about this, but I want to think about it from people, place, and process. So, you know, when I have to go to the bathroom, first off, does does the way I carry the firearm um make this process easier or harder? Next thing is if I have a usual route that I go to, say you're in your place of work, your house of worship, the places you work, play, and hang out, you know, where are the bathrooms that that I feel more comfortable? I feel safer, I feel less exposed and not. And when I'm out and about, you know, is there a difference between going into a high-end hotel you pull over and going in their bathroom, or going into that gas station where it's on the side, the door's kind of like been kicked in and you see what they're prepared, and that got kicked in. You come in and you're like, oh my, there's some, there's some there's some wisdom of some sort all over the walls.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

The ones where you got to ask for a key in order to get in, and then the bathroom is outside, those are always the ones you go in and and you honestly do not know what to expect.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I like it when you go ask for a key and they go, Don't worry, lock don't work. Or thinking the key is tied to a cinder block. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yes. Uh actually it's funny uh traveling to Kansas uh a few months ago and stopped at a gas station, and that was like, hey, uh, can I get a key? And they're like, ah, it's over there. And I went over and picked it up, and it would weighed about 13 pounds to go unlock the door. But it is important. I think it uh a lot goes into it. Uh, like you said, your normal routes that you go or even your workplace. Most people tend to go, you know, if you work in an office or or some sort or some sort of job site, you're pretty much there all the time. Could be porter potties, uh, or could be, like you said, the high-class hotels or or just your the office that you work in. And I think holsters play a big role into this, where you carry on your body plays a big role into this. I know uh some people prefer the off-body type carry. I can't say I'm a huge fan of it. I think you know, people can make some arguments either way, but at the end of the day, using a toilet is something that every human being does or should do, uh, and potentially multiple times a day. So it's not like this is we're talking about a situation that, oh, well, that's never gonna happen. I mean, this is a regular thing that happens, even a place of worship or a church. When you go to church, typically you have to use the bathroom. And and I I know of a story, I'll I'll tell it uh when we get inside of our our uh our membership of firearms being left on the backs of toilets at churches. We had that's scary.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

We had a situation in Texas where a school resource officer left their gun in the toilet, came back, gun was gone. They had to shut the whole school down the next day to search for the firearm. Is it is time of filming this? I'm not sure they found the gun yet.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Shut the school down to find it. That's scary, man.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

That's I mean in my own PD, I can think of I can think of three situations to where there's been a gun belt left in the bathroom. This has got spare magazines, the gun belt, your taser, as baton, just laying there. And in two of the three situations, when I confronted the officers, they said, Well, it's a it's a police station, it's it's safe there. I just left for a few minutes. I'm like going to me, when you have a firearm, it's like having a poison snake as a pet. So if I had a rattlesnake, I wouldn't just leave it in the living room and go, it'll be fine when I'm back there. It's it's gotta be cared for all the time. Yeah. And also, it's not uncommon for people to want to take the gun. You know, there's the hook on the and put the gun as a trigger guard there. Well, just think about your modern polymer pistol. Yeah. It'd be like one of those, it'd be like one of those reset triggers going off.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, I think that builds into also typically what you do in one place, you do in all places. And as a human, like it's very hard to differentiate those things. That's why I'm a person of one way every time, you know. When I'm when I if and I made an agreement with my wife years ago that if I ever took my gun and holster off inside of the of my house, that immediately goes in a safe. And I've had people, you know, of course, they want to bring it up. What if you're just changing your jeans? Like you wouldn't take your holster off and set it on your dresser and then walk into your closet and chain your jeans. Like, what's gonna happen? Well, the chances are, even though my kids, we we go over firearm safety, the fact that I leave the gun on the dresser is the problem. Because for me, it builds that it builds that thought in my head that says, okay, well, if I'm cooking dinner, I can set it on the counter and nothing's gonna happen. It's one way all the time. I think that goes into the same thing. It's a lifestyle that you have to change and decisions you gotta make.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Every morning when I put my gun off, on, I always think the same thing. It's I I say these words out loud. It's an inherently safe tool, it's completely unforgiving, of stupid or careless mistakes. Say that out loud every day. And the reason I do that is because it's an inherently safe tool, it's completely unforgiving, stupid careless mistakes. And the minute you set this down to go get genes, and all of a sudden you think, oh, I got to answer an email or something, you have any break of concentration, that thing is unsecured. And remember, we ideally bring a defensive firearm in our lives to make our lives better. The worst thing that could ever happen is that harms someone that you brought that fireman to protect.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah. So when we when we know these things, right? These are things that we know we're going to encounter every day, which is if we choose to carry a firearm, we're going to have to use the bathroom at some point. We know this. When we put the firearm on in the morning and we leave the house, this is a known fact. And so for you, what are some things that we can begin to put in place that prepare us for those situations? So we're not the ones who end up leaving the gun on the back of the toilet or hanging it up on the hook uh with the triver trigger. What are some things we could put in place in our lives prior to that that helped prevent those things?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

You missed my favorite one though, before we get into that. And that is, you know how that toilet paper thing on top that's only about that wide. So you put your gun on it, and it's it's hopefully you took the the gun and the holster off as one unit. So because remember, holstering and unholstering is probably one of the most dangerous things you can do with a firearm, defensive firearm. So I'm gonna take the whole holster off and put it on there, but it's kind of imagine that thing falling onto this sort of tile floor with a whole tile thing going, not even shooting, just banging off. Yeah. How about this? It hits when it falls off the toilet thing, lands right on the magazine, the base plate just explodes, and then your your magazine just pukes 15 rounds all over the bathroom, rolling from underneath the stall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

And you know what's funny is is while we can say, oh, if I put it right there, I'll never forget it. If I had a nickel for every time that I left my phone on the top of a toilet paper roll, I'd be I'd be a rich man, I'd be, I'd be in uh in Italy with you and we'd be hanging out because and your phone is is you know, in today's world, it's it's it's got everything you need, right? It's essentially your wallet and your communication device all in one. And I can't tell you how many times I've left it. So to for the mindset to say, oh, if I set it right there, I'll never forget it. Oh, if I put it on the back of the toilet, I'll never forget it. So many people in today's world are out of sight, out of mind, and it's not there in your hand attached to your body, the chances of you leaving it there are very high.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And you know, the minute you realize that you don't have your phone or your gun on you, you do the the tactical Macarena. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah. Yeah. You feel like your whole life like is yeah, is gone. Where is it?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

So it's uh For me, what I like thinking about is is it as predictable, it's preventable. You hear these platitudes from me all the time because after 30 some odd years of teaching law enforcement, corporation, every kind of group of manageable how to prevent manage recovery from crime, it is the most important concept. If it's preventable, predictable, it's preventable. If you think that, hey, it is predictable that somebody may want to try to kick in my door, I'm gonna reinforce that door lock to buy me 15 seconds, 20 seconds to get in. That's predictable and preventable. If you know you're gonna go to the bathroom, set your gear up for success and have to think about it. Now remember, there's different things. Um, if you are the type of person who has an option, uh I can stand up at a urinal or I'm gonna go find a little stall to get in, that's great. Um, I I think there's there's there's a lot of planning that goes into both folks. I think picking a urinal that's this that's safer than others is sort of a once you start breaking it down, think about it, there's there's probably one that's safer than the others. Um, if you got a urinal situation, probably more predictable. I like as much space to me and the urinal because I hate being in the middle of of having my little tinkle time, a guy looking over going, oh, nice watch.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

I think there's look, there's guide code behind that too, right? Like like if there's if there's an open one, you you never you never park right next to the to to uh to a uh occupied urinal. That's that's just you you just don't do it. Um but I think uh you know we can wow we can go a long ways with this, but it's uh it's I love it, you know. Where do I even go with that now? Uh but I I think it is is very important. And I think uh inside of our our next video inside the YouTube membership, we'll go into some ways, uh a system, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

That you can build a simple system that you can just adapt. And every time you have to do this, you just think I I just need these four letters. It's a simple word. I'm gonna run right through the process, and then every time it's consistent, goes back to your theory. If we can just do the same thing the same way all the time, we can refine this and get consistency. We don't have to reinvent it every time we go to the bathroom. There should be a simple mnemonic. Boom, just run through it and you're there.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah, I agree because I think it happens too much. I mean, one big thing that we push is the firearm, I'm gonna say security and accessibility. Me and you've talked about that a lot, the difference in right in what we're trying to achieve there. Um, and having it completely accessible is shouldn't be an option. We need to we need to guard that security and accessible effect. And so we'll go into that in our membership here. Uh click the link below, join us. This is y'all, this is gonna be a this is gonna be a real fun one that we're about to get into. We're gonna get into some detail on that because let's let's we're gonna wipe real hard on this topic. Yeah, we are because honestly, you know, the biggest details. It's the question, man. You know, uh, you know somebody who carries, go ask them, where do you put your pew pew when you poo-poo? Because we all need we all need a place to put it.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Okay, and what's gonna be interesting is if you ask them where you put your pew pew when you go poo-poo, they're gonna look at you like this is the first time they thought about it. But if they've been carrying from work today, they've already dealt with this, but they don't really think about it. And every time it's like, well, it's a new thing. Also, when I put my gear on during the day, I do practice straws to make sure none of my my cover garments are interfering with it, everything's working the way it's supposed to work. But also, I want to think about when I'm I'm doing this, is how my clothing's gonna help me. As we cover this in a little more detail in a minute, I'm gonna explain to you how what you're wearing can make a big difference in how you can safely and securely and without being observed go through this process.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Oh, that's great. That's great too. Like I said, I think earlier it's a it's a lifestyle change. And in that lifestyle change even becomes the clothes that you wear when you're carrying, because some clothes are just not appropriate for carry. I don't know about you, but in my honest, in my opinion, I feel like printing when you're when you're concealed carry and printing where people can see the outline of the firearm is worse than open carry. That's a whole nother discussion.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Just because it's almost I'd like I I'd like to do a whole topic about that because I've got some I've got some theories about open carry. Yeah. Um yeah, and I I'd like to I'd like to do a deep dive in about what actually is exposure to this, because I don't think a lot of people are really alert to whether you're carrying or not, even if you're printing, but I think the people that you are carrying a gun to protect yourself from, they are a lot more observant and know you're carrying one when you think it's concealed. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

All right, well, check us out. Click the link below, join our membership. $2.99. Leave some comments. I would like to know. Go ahead and throw in the comments where do you carry, or where do you put your pew pew when you poo-poo? And at Concealed Coalition to wrap this up. We always say be a guardian always. And a warrior when needed.