07/17/2024
I'm seeing these pop up in gun groups again (probably always will), so I'm re-posting this.
TL,DR: I'm publicly berating a product here, and by consequence the company promoting it. Do NOT use holsters like these, and PLEASE get TRAINING. The safety issues seen in this video are abundant and egregious! Please take the time to read the long version below 🙏🏼.
Long version:
I write this hoping my friends and family who are blissfully ignorant of the concealed carry training community will see, read, and hopefully learn something from this. I'm sitting at my gate waiting to board my flight, and I come across an ad for We The People HolstersI also see this same exact product from BravoBelt and everywhere on Amazon) promoting a belly band style holster. Unfortunately, it's impossible to keep the company anonymous with this ad while I publicly berate it (then again, they're ones who chose to both offer this product and use a terrible example of an end user actually using it).
The egregious safety issues that are blatantly visible to anyone with a partially trained eye provide a good educational opportunity.
Let's begin:
1. First let's address the "holster" (if you can even call it that) system being used here. It's made of flexible cloth, likely a neoprene of some kind, with a small piece of soft leather to hold a snap stud and conveniently placed directly over the trigger guard 🙄. This is problematic for multiple reasons.
- As you watch, you'll see the ONLY thing securing this gun at all is an elastic strap with a snap button that dangles and bounces freely when not secured. The amount of stretch in the apparently flimsy and weak cloth of the strap would allow an attacker to completely, at least nearly, remove the gun from the pouch without the snap releasing (which usually does end up releasing when pulled hard enough).
- The location of the snap, which seems consistently placed over the trigger guard regardless of the company selling it (they almost all seem to come from the same original Chinese supplier for pennies on the dollar and resold in the US at markups of nearly 1000%), adds an easy snag spot to get hooked on firm items in your environment, easily and accidentally causing you to depress that snap and hard(er) leather into the trigger guard. If done so hard enough, can depress the trigger itself and cause an accidental discharge while still holstered. It's also easy enough to stretch the adjacent neoprene enough to displace this half assed trigger guard protection to allow sufficiency access through the neoprene and around the leather. Again, accidental discharge while holstered. We HAVE seen this with this style holster and it WILL happen again to somebody.
- The ad claims to be "quick access." This is proven laughably false the very moment they make the claim as we watch the user sacrifice almost a FULL SECOND to get the snap removed and haphazardly tossed aside before achieving a terrible master grip on the firearm. Good holsters that are truly quick access do not have floppy material that must be manually removed and manually tucked away before one can achieve a good grip.
- Reholstering is a nightmare and an EXTREME safety isssue here. One must use their support hand to manually pry open the pouch, causing the hand to come directly in line with the muzzle of the loaded handgun. The snap strap must also be diligently controlled (which is NOT sufficiently accomplished by our shooter in the video) to prevent it from getting snagged by the pistol, causing inconsistent holster retention and getting in the trigger guard during the holstering process at best, possibly causing an AD on holstering then or unholstering later at worst.
2. Let's now address the egregious weapons handling promoted by this unfortunately popular ad. We'll start from the beginning and work through to the reholstering. Conveniently we're not allowed to see what kind of final grip is achieved, let alone the likely dismal target if any shots were fired. I have provided screenshots with markups for each of these.
- For the most part, our shooter clears his cover garment acceptably. But that's the ONLY acceptable thing I see in any of this. The rest of it is a train wreck you can't look away from.
- In the first picture, we have our shooter being forced to defeat the snap and get it far enough out of the way so as to not compromise his grip (which he fails to do). The amount of time that is swallowed up in this process is uncomfortably long for the standards any competent concealed handgunner should have (see Active Self Protection evidence based citizen standards).
- In the second, we see an abhorrent initial grip on the frame of his weapon. This was likely influenced by the floppy snap strap, but happens all the time with untrained shooters regardless of a strap (I'm doubtful the snap strap is what forced this, but I can't prove it). This weak and insecure first grip on the gun is dangerous, as it greatly increases the likelihood of losing control of the pistol on the way out of the holster and forces you to adjust your grip again at some other point of your draw; which screws up your sight alignment, resets your OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop by distracting you from the immediate threat to correct the grip issue, and creates miserable recoil control (which in turn makes fast accurate shots nearly impossible to maintain under sustained fire). Your grip with your firing hand should be high and tight on the frame, and should NOT need adjusting once your initial purchase on the frame has been made. This is why some call it your "master grip," as coined by John Farnam of Defense Training International.
- As our shooter removes the gun with this insecure grip in the third screenshot, he begins extending the pistol with the compromised grip away from his body without the support of his other hand, and in so doing MUZZLES HIS OWN HAND. That's a great way to toss your pistol to your attacker or shoot yourself in the hand, folks. It also makes finding your sights once extended next to impossible without further hunting around trying to get proper alignment before getting an accurate shot off; without which of course you would simply end up firing off an entirely inaccurate and imprecise shot with no alignment at all. If you carry a gun, you need an ASSET to your community, not a LIABILITY (plug to Paul Sharp there), and being incapable of getting accurate shots off in a quick and dependable manner makes you more dangerous to your peers than much else by greatly increasing the likelihood of you shooting someone or something you didn't intend to. Rather, that gun should be kept tight against our body all the way up to our chest, and then extended with both hands away from our body relative the position of the threat. A good thumb-pectoral index helps with this (go familiarize yourself with Craig Douglas and the Shivworks team for more on this). Also, with the way he's leaning so far back during his draw, I would bet the cash in my wallet that if you gave this guy a slight push during this draw sequence, he'd fall over backwards.
- Unfortunately for us, we don't get to see how this cluster of a process turns out with his full extension, but we can assume he probably has one eye closed, neck pulled into his shoulders, and is still looking for his sights without his finger on the trigger. We can also reasonably assume he has adjusted his grip a couple times by then and, if any shots are fired, the grip is adjusted after nearly every shot and the sites re-acquired. My bet, he's got his firing hand sitting comfortably inside a big old teacup he's created with his support hand, as if to present his weapon as a gift to anyone close enough to reach it.
- In the fourth picture, we see the scary holstering process that this rig requires. One must use their other hand (who said you'd even have that hand available for use in the first place?) to PHYSICALLY OPEN the holster while having the muzzle pointed at that same spot of the pouch! This makes at least two seperate occasions this guy has told his hands he's ok gambling his fingers away in exchange for the spiff and the pat on the back he'll get for being in this video.
- In the fifth picture, he returns his hand to his cover garment that likely fell down over his gun while he was messing with the pouch and proceeds to muzzle his own FEMORAL ARTERY as he tries to keep the pouch from collapsing too much by using the muzzle to dig further into the only slightly firm surface that offers any support at all, his own abdomen. We also see he has reassumed the terrible grip of his weapon with his firing hand as he does this.
- With these style holsters, I've also seen that neoprene hook on to slide serrations, ejection ports, etc. and pull the slide out of battery. This grip offers no support to prevent this from happening and turning the weapon into a proverbial bar of soap the next time it comes out of the holster if the slide doesn't return to full battery on its own.
- In the sixth, we see that this guy is LUCKY that the free spirit of a security strap didn't get caught underneath his gun as he pushed it into the holster. These things get caught in the trigger guard way too easily in that scenario. The strap did, however, get smashed into the holster alongside the firearm. Thankfully, but at no consequence of his procedure, his slide did in fact remain in battery even with the added tension provided by the wedged snap strap (lucky him). BUT, he then proceeds to just grab the thing and PULL IT STRAIGHT OUT FROM BEHIND THE GUN!! This guy would do well in Vegas with his streak of luck so far, as that neoprene strap sitting dangerously close to the trigger inside that pouch could have easily caught the end of it, depressed an assumed trigger tab as it pulled rearward, and tragically caused 30,000 lbs (assuming 9mm) of pressure to go blowing into his leg in the form of a likely copper jacketed slug and hot gas. I also did not see any tourniquets nearby in this video.
Alas, it is safe to say I have strong opinions on holsters, and many friends and family likely roll their eyes hearing me comment on these subjects yet gain. But I really really hope and pray that at least some of you will take my experience seriously. I've made a point to seek learning from the best in this industry, and I continue to do so as my budget and calendar permits. I simply share what I learn in combination with their mentoring and my own experience. Some folks saw it valuable enough to pay for these services, and this spawned Defense Sense LLC defensive fi****ms training and Concealed Carry Coaching.
You cannot fix a software problem with hardware. Especially terrible hardware like this.
If you want the adaptability of a belly band system, but without the safety issues, go check out the PHLster Enigma system.
GET TRAINING! And keep at it!
And of course, REFUSE TO BE A VICTIM 🤙🏼
