“What are you doing?” inquired my beloved as I attempted to push the cart from the store to the parking lot. Apparently, she couldn’t fathom my erratic behavior. “I never take the cart out. I just carry everything,” she responded to my dumbfounded look. “But, we have six bags,” I reasoned. Her response to that silly assertion was to perform the Loaded Arm/One-Trip carrying technique. I decided to simply acquiesce to her desires and allowed her to carry all the bags out to the truck.
I was under that erroneous assumption that it was a unique quirk of my bride to muscle all the bags from the store to the car rather than be bothered with having to put the cart away in the corral. That was my thinking until this morning when I witnessed another woman doing the exact same thing. The lady in question loaded both of her arms down with grocery bags and used her foot to push the now empty cart toward where its comrades were standing by.
Why does this matter and why should you care?
Use a Cart, Free Up Your Hands
It’s hard enough to get our wives to carry a self-defense gun all the time rather than just occasionally. Despite what I do for a living, it took me several years to convince my bride to do the right thing and tote a gun when she leaves the house.
Husbands, I am perfectly aware of the Naked Principle when it comes to serious matters, such as firearms training, tactics and mindset. For those uninitiated, the Naked Principle is this, “No person who has ever seen you naked will take you seriously when it comes to critical matters such as self-defense, firearm training, etc.” When my wife decided to get her concealed carry permit some two decades ago, I referred her to a friend who taught such things.
She came home with much newfound knowledge and shared the advice from that other instructor. The fact that I had said or offered nearly all of the same advice during the several years of our marriage mattered not.
“I don’t remember ever hearing you say that.” She replied. Of course she didn’t. The Naked Principle was in effect when it came to such things.
And so, husbands, I’m going to do you a favor. I’m going to say it because she won’t listen to you.
Despite the fact that you are strong and can carry all the bags in one trip, we use the cart to keep our hands free. If your arms are loaded down and constricted by grocery bag handles, how can you possibly expect to get to your concealed handgun if you need it?
Gun or not, a shopping cart can be used in a pinch to put physical distance between you and a shady person. If you’re pushing a cart across the parking lot and see a suspicious person, maneuver the cart so that it’s between you and them. In the worst case scenario, if they want to get to you, they will have to get around the cart. That gives you precious time to react and prepare yourself. You can’t do that if your arms are tangled up and weighted down with grocery bags.
Mindset and Mirror Thinking
Concealed carry pistol or not, loading down both of your arms — or even one for that matter — with grocery bags is tactically unsound. The way folks carry their bags with their arms through the handles, they can’t just open their arms and let them go.
“Who cares, Paul. What do you think is going to happen?”
I don’t “think” anything is going to happen. I know that you don’t get to decide when someone singles you out as a victim. All you can do is be prepared to deal with the situation.
This is where mindset comes into play. Nearly all people walking around operate in a mirror thinking mentality. Whether spoken or unspoken, conscious or subconscious, the majority of humans act and behave as though everyone else thinks and behaves as they do. You would never attack a woman who was burdened by a half-dozen grocery bags in the parking lot, therefore you cannot imagine that someone else would.
Here is some cold reality. The monster who is planning to attack you would prefer that you are distracted and helpless or at least burdened. They are not about playing fair.
Shooting vs. Fighting
I would venture to say that somewhere between 90% and 95% of all those who are walking around right now with a gun concealed on their bodies would tell you, if you asked them, that they “know how to shoot.” Of course, the “knowing how” part could be as rudimentary as understanding how to load the gun and then press the trigger so that the gun makes noise. Some folks are satisfied to be able to hit the giant B27 silhouette at five yards with most of their rounds.
For decades, we’ve been trying to help people understand that there is more to Armed Living, than buying a gun and knowing how to make noise with it. Yes, fundamental knowledge of firearms is an important first step, but we should not stop there.
There is a tremendous difference between knowing how to shoot a gun and knowing how to fight with a gun in your hand. The shooting part doesn’t cover the mindset and tactics that are critical for survival in a lethal force encounter. There are lots of places you can go to learn how to shoot. It’s the “when to shoot” and the “what now” parts that are too often glossed over. In our “Martial Application of the Pistol” two-day program, we focus on all three; How, When, and What Now.
Parting Thoughts
For those who think I’m bashing women, guys, you aren’t off the hook here either. Men have this macho, “I don’t need a cart” mentality as well. They will walk around loading up their arms with stuff to the point that they can’t hold one more item. Stop being a rock head and use a cart.
During the previous century, when I went through the police academy, one of the tactics that was reinforced, over and over, was not to burden your gun hand with anything if it could be helped. Ticket books, clipboards, flashlights, etc. were always carried in the support hand in order to keep the gun hand free. If you’re carrying a gun, you should be using your off-hand/support hand as much or more often than your dominant/strong hand. Make a habit of using your support hand to unlock the car or front door or to pick up, grab or carry things.
Concealed carry handguns aren’t good luck charms or some kind of magic talisman to ward off bad people. It doesn’t do you any good to carry a firearm if you are putting yourself into positions where you can’t get to it.
Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.
“I know that you don’t get to decide when someone singles you out as a victim. All you can do is be prepared to deal with the situation.”
100% correct… the bad guy is actually the one that determines who, what, when, where, why, and how. There are things you can do to somewhat a little ‘lessen’ the odds of being a victim but you can never really be sure you are not being targeted and even if you can somewhat a little ‘lessen’ the odds of being a victim you really don’t get to decide those odds because the bad guy is the one that determines who, what, when, where, why, and how – and not you. All you can do is be prepared to deal with it if it happens.
At a minimum, in today’s world, for every six hours a person spends in public spaces they are targeted as the potential victim of a violent crime at least 4 times – and the potential victim doesn’t even know they were targeted as a potential victim. If that violent crime happens or not is 100% decided by the bad guy. Its even worse in large cities, especially cities with ‘blue’ leadership running things, for example, in New York City and Chicago and Memphis, an average person during their commute to and from work daily is targeted at least (on average) 12 times as the potential victim of a violent crime even in the work place sometimes.
All you can do is be prepared to deal with it if it happens.
I like the idea of keeping a shopping cart in hand because a defender can use it as a barrier between him/herself and an attacker. Such a barrier would be invaluable if an attacker employed a knife for his/her attack. A defender with a shopping cart could even hit the attacker with enough force/pain to knock the attacker down or at least persuade the attacker to break off the attack.
There is even a slight chance that a loaded shopping cart could function as cover and reduce/eliminate the lethality of an attacker’s handgun bullet.
By the way, crazy stuff can and does happen in grocery store parking lots–even in “very nice” areas.
Several years ago I was waiting for my spouse in my car in a grocery store’s fire lane when a man targeted me for armed robbery. Fortunately, I registered him before he even exited his car and my response to his approach on foot convinced him that he had made a serious error in his helpless victim selection process.
Just a few weeks ago, I encountered a potentially dangerous situation at a grocery store parking lot. I noticed a young and fairly attractive woman crouching next to the front passenger tire of a car. She appeared to be in distress–crying and exhibiting very limp muscle movements. A young man was engaging her and, after about a minute, somewhat dragged her to the front passenger door and then proceeded to shove her into the front passenger seat where she “sat” sideways in a semi-fetal position. I confronted the man at that point, concerned that this was a kidnapping or human trafficking and the woman was drugged. Escalating the tension, while I am challenging the man’s portrayal of the situation, the woman cries out, “help.” Fortunately, a fire truck was already onsite for some other reason, other people had noticed and directed the fire truck to my location, and the firetruck came over to investigate as well. Seeing how sketchy the situation was, the firemen summoned an ambulance (suspecting that the woman had a significant medical emergency or was drugged) as well as the County Sheriff. I left the scene after deputies had the situation under control and was happy to learn later that it turned out to be a very sad domestic situation without any abuse, violence, or criminal component. Needless to say, it could have easily been a criminal situation instead.
Both of these events happened in the very nice parking lots of very nice grocery stores in very nice locations. Stay frosty even in “very nice” locations.
Keep your head on a swivel and help your body avoid the funeral home.
be kinda nice if we could all just take shopping carts everywhere. maybe the homeless are onto something. i could see throwing one at an attacker.
around here, if the store charges for bags i’ll take the cart out. if they don’t i’ll hand the cart off to someone coming in with the ol’. “this one’s all warmed up.” the attacker can have both armfuls fast and hard and then we’ll see what goes from there.
good article, reinforcing mindset.
Unfortunately I witness people armed out in the world all the time living in what I call the 1 meter bubble. Head down usually gawking at their cell phones oblivious to the world around them. Even if they are armed they have no situational awareness and can become a willing victim for a determined attacker. The ones acting in this manner who have decided open carry is the way to go are even more vulnerable because their own weapon may well be used against them. Regardless of whether a person is armed or not the most important weapon they possess is their brain. The problem even with that is so many haven’t figured out how to use it.
wow; open carry while looking at a cell phone in public? that is a special kind of stupid. this is another reason i generally loathe open carry. not saying it should be banned; just saying it’s generally a very poor choice.