gun safety

Yesterday, aside from getting into a tag team pissing match on the House floor over wearing masks, Lauren Boebert, the new member of Congress from Colorado’s 3rd congressional district, released an ad on social media explaining why she’ll be concealed carrying her GLOCK in both Washington, DC and in the Capitol. Here’s the ad:

Let me tell you why I WILL carry my Glock to Congress.

Government does NOT get to tell me or my constituents how we are allowed to keep our families safe.

I promise to always stand strong for our 2nd Amendment rights.https://t.co/E75tYpdN4B pic.twitter.com/qg7QGenrNo

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 4, 2021

There’s some issues here. Carrying in the Capitol is not one of the legal ones. It is legal for members of Congress to carry in the Capitol under a House rule created in 1967. Washington, DC, however, is another matter. In order to carry in Washington, DC one must have a Washington, DC conceal carry permit. Here are the eligibility requirements:

1. Must be 21 years of age or older (18-21 with the authorization or a parent or guardian)
2. Not convicted of a weapons offense, or a felony in any jurisdiction (including a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year).
3. Not under indictment for a crime of violence or a weapons offense.
4. Not convicted within the past five years for narcotics or dangerous drug offense, a threat to do bodily harm, or for assault.
5. Not acquitted of any criminal charge by reason of insanity or adjudicated a chronic alcoholic by any court within the past five years.
6. Not voluntarily or involuntarily committed to any mental hospital or institution within the past five years.
7. Not suffer from any physical defect that would make it unsafe for you to possess and use a firearm safely and responsibly.
8. Not found negligent in any firearm related mishap causing death or injury to another person.
9. Not convicted of a misdemeanor intrafamily offense.
10. Not dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces.
11. Not a citizen of the United States who has renounced his or her citizenship.
12. Not legally blind.
13. Not convicted of two or more violations for driving under the influence within the past five years.
14. Not the subject of a civil protection order within the past five years.
15. Not convicted of Stalking within the past five years.
16. Not convicted of negligent storage of a firearm or a violation of the Firearms Registration Act within the past five years.
17. Not had a history of violent behavior within the past five years.
18. Has completed firearms training provided free of charge by the Metropolitan Police Department.

And here are the suitability requirements:

In addition to meeting all of the Eligibility Requirements to Register a Firearm, an individual applying to carry a concealed firearm must meet the follwing suitability requirements:

1. Meets all the requirements for a person registering a firearm.
2. Completed a firearms training course by an instructor certified by the Chief ( You may apply for an exemption based on previous training within the past 2 years)
3. Is not presently an alcoholic, addict, or habitual user of a controlled dangerous substance, unless the habitual use of a controlled dangerous substance is under licensed medical direction.
4. Has not exhibited propensity for violence or instability that may reasonably render a person’s possession of a concealed pistol a danger to the person or another.
5. Does not currently suffer nor has suffered in the previous five years from any mental disorder, illness, or condition that creates a substantial risk that he or she is a danger to himself or herself or others.

What you can’t just do is show up in DC, regardless of one’s professional status – say a member of Congress – and just stroll around while strapped. Depending on whether Boebert actually filmed that strolling around DC or the whole thing is green screen, she has likely already committed a felony in DC. That is actually one of the least concerning things in that video. Let’s run a few down.

1. Given the way she is carrying her GLOCK – and it appears to be a GLOCK 19 – at around the 5:00 to 5:30 position on her strong side with the holster outside the waistband and inside her belt, there is no way she didn’t muzzle herself while holstering. She’s high waisted and her butt is sticking way out because of the very high spike heels she’s wearing. There also isn’t a lot of cant on the holster either. The only way to get the muzzle of that GLOCK, which is a compact/carry size handgun, into the top of that holster is to tip the muzzle towards ones own lower back in order to get the muzzle into the holster before straightening the gun out and pushing it down into the holster. I’m almost 100% sure she did muzzle herself because if she hadn’t, the video wouldn’t have been edited to obscure how the gun gets into the holster as she holsters it. And given that this is a GLOCK and does not have a frame/thumb safety, just GLOCK’s Safe Action trigger safety – aka the trigger dingus – this isn’t like holstering a 1911 or a classic P Series or a Beretta FS92.
2. She’s printing. Even if she and the video producers hadn’t bothered to highlight where she was carrying, because her heels push out her butt, which increases the arch of her lower back ,you can clearly see that she has something large under the back of her jacket.
3. She’s carrying under a buttoned cover between 5:00 to 5:30 on her strong side. She’s not inside the waistband carrying, which would be impossible in jeans that tight. Not wearing jeans that tight is not something she would do because what she’s selling – both to her restaurant’s customers and to her potential voters is the sexy and hyper-sexualized gun bunny – there’s no way for her to get the cover garment/jacket out of the way, get the gun unholstered and unlimbered, and then presented on target before someone who was close and menacing her was on top of her. I teach martial arts. When I had my own dojo at USAWC I was teaching colonels, lieutenant colonels, generals, and spouses. The bulk of my students had spent the better part of the past 15 years deployed and carrying both sidearms and carbines in war zones. I would teach defenses against rushing attackers. Every one of my students, all with multiple deployments to Iraq and/or Afghanistan, got flummoxed when I’d charge them from within 30 feet. It takes a lot of training to be able to actually respond properly when someone is charging you. Basically she’s advertising to everyone she’s carrying, where on her body she carries, and because of where she’s carrying and how she’s dressing around the gun to carry she can’t get the gun out in the few seconds it would take for someone to get hands on her from within 30 feet.

There are a few other issues here. She carries a GLOCK 19. The standard magazine for the GLOCK 19 takes fifteen rounds, though it will take larger magazines. DC only allows 10 round magazines. So she’s either going to have to modify her magazines or buy the special 10 round magazines that fit the GLOCK 19.

I would also like to argue that contrary to her claims, Washington, DC is not particularly dangerous. I’ve walked all over DC while I’ve been on Temporary Duty there. Day or night. In business attire or in casual clothes. And while I realize I’m a 5’11, 268 lbs white male who is built like the guys who do Strongman competitions, I’ve never felt even remotely unsafe doing so.

What remains to be seen is whether Boebert has 1) already broken DC law by actually filming most of that video of her walking around conceal carrying in actual DC instead of in front of a green screen before she has gotten a DC conceal carry permit, 2) if she has violated the DC law regarding the size of the magazine in her GLOCK 19, and 3) whether she has actually bothered to get a DC permit yet.

One of the whole points behind conceal carrying is the phrase “concealed means concealed”. Specifically you don’t talk about, advertise, or otherwise acknowledge if you are or are not armed at any given time. This includes doing everything possible to make sure you aren’t printing. Not because printing is illegal per se (depends on the jurisdiction), but because the idea is that if no one knows if you or anyone else is carrying, no one has an advantage if they decide to attack you. Everything that Congresswoman Boebert has done in this ad, which is designed to bring in donations and rile up her constituents back in Rifle, Colorado, is tactically stupid. She’s advertised to the entire world that she is and will carry, where on her body she is carrying, and having the weapon print because of how she carries. Anyone who wants to basically take her gun from her and feed it to her now has the upper hand.

Moron Labe!

Open thread.

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