Guns: Mexican Carry

If the "Guns Magazine" article is correct, there's nothing racist or pejorative about the term "Mexican carry." Anyway, it's the term most people use for carrying a handgun without a holster, and it's the term I use, too. Ironically enough, Mexico has fairly restrictive gun laws, so the average Mexican citizen wishing to carry a gun for self-defense cannot do so legally.


The interesting FBI report posted at Xavier's place highlights what most people already know - the vast majority of criminals carry guns in their waistbands or tucked behind their backs, without any proper holster. I've often wondered how anybody could reasonably carry a gun like that for any length of time - my furtive attempts at carrying without a holster usually ended up with the gun beginning to slide down my pant leg.


I suspect that the main reason offenders carry weapons like that is because holsters, even the cheap nylon kind, are viewed as an unnecessary expense or perhaps even a source of social stigma (carrying a gun "like a pig does"). The actual position that the report cites as being the most common - tucked near the groin area (imagine a clock dial - if 12:00 was right in front of you, they'd probably carry at 1:00 or 2:00) - is a fairly handy position to draw a gun from, especially while seated in a car.

The "how to spot a gun" chart someone posted seems impractical. I'd rather police watch people's body language and hands to get information on an impending attack, not try to spot them running in the rain.