CLIPS

The other night we had a pre-ccw class.

After the class was finished I typically “hang out” in the lobby in case there are students that want to ask me questions one-on-one.

A student came up to me and thanked me for the class, and asked if he needed his gun for the actual day of instruction.

I informed he that he did, (you need to qualify on the actual pistol that you will be carrying.)  He was not particularly pleased with that, but he understood.

He told me that a friend of his that was a law enforcement officer was getting him a gen 4 Glock out of Nevada.  I was going to ask him about the specifics about that particular transaction, but with others around I figured I would just let it go.

Then he asked me about holsters that would be required in the class.  I told him that we require an outside the waistband strong side holster.  He told me that it was his intention to use a belt clip holster…. and what did I think about that.

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For those of you that have never seen these, they are literally clips that attach directly to the firearm.  The best analogy would be that they use the same technology to hold your gun in place as the clip that holds your knife in place in your pocket.

That’s it.

Just a naked gun, nothing over the trigger guard, snug between your underwear and your pants.

I told him that I thought the idea was dubious.

“Why?”

“Well… with nothing covering the trigger you increase the chances of a negligent discharge.”

“Do you have any empirical evidence to support that?”

“Well… um… actually no I guess I don’t… I’ve never really researched it before to be honest with you.”

We let the conversation drop at that point, but it stuck with me.  I googled reviews and incidents with these types of “holsters”, and was a little surprised to see that there were in fact more than one manufacturer out there.

I could not find any incidents of ND’s… so I guess that is a good thing… but there are definitely a few things about these guys that I think needs to be addressed:

First.  They instruct the user NOT to carry a round in the chamber.  We’ve talked about this at length… I think it is fundamental folly to be carrying an unloaded gun into battle.

Second.  The gun sits very low in the pants making a true master grip impossible to achieve, while the gun is “holstered”.

Third.  That trigger thing again.  I’m just never going to be comfortable with an unsheathed gun and an exposed trigger around a bunch of clothing that can worm its way into the trigger.  But wait… the gun is supposed to not have a round in the chamber!  Yeah… see above.

Fourth.  This comes from one of our members that discussed this with me.  He stated that he would never want to put something on his gun that was not intended to be there in the first place.  Now, if you ONLY fire your gun from your strong side position, the presence of the clip will not be felt.  If however you transition to two handed support side shooting you will have some problems.  The presence of the clip will prevent a proper grip.

We are a people that pride ourselves on innovation.  I get it.  That said, some “innovations” may have unintended consequences.