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I've become complacent....

T

Therapeutae

Alpha
I was raised around guns but only started carrying about 3 years ago. I've reached a troubling milestone and I'm hoping those with more years experience can share their wisdom.

I've recently become so comfortable carrying that I forget I am. I've walked into work with it (a fireable offense), I've walked into locations clearly marked 'gun free zone', and I've even left it on my desk at home rather than lock it away (I have a firearm within 10ft of me in my home wherever I go.) My youngest is 10 and knows what to do if he sees a gun, but damn I can't believe I've gotten so complacent.

With the ammo shortage I'm not training with it as much. I'm hoping this is my issue? So I bought some snap caps and practice quite a bit these days with them, but it isn't the same reminder of it's lethality as 'live fire.'

So my question to the group is this: What have you done/what do you do to refresh your awareness/keep you cognizant of the enormous responsibility of carrying?

I'm thankful my EDC is just a part of me now, but I want to keep my edge.

Thanks for any training tips you all have.
It's appreciated.
 
While the redundancy might bore you to tears, maybe take a safety course. In mining, we (all miners) whether outside contractors or guys who actually work the pits and quarries, have to go through annual refreshers. This might be just the thing. Under MSHA regs we have to satisfy annual refresher requirements or don't work on mine property. It is always pounded home that the fatalities are almost exclusively guys that are brand new green or ol timers who've been on the job for 20 years or more. Maybe, if we as firearm owners voluntarily engaged in such a practice, we could reduce the risk of becoming complacent. Complacency kills, comfort kills. It's when you regard that tool as a part of yourself, that you lose respect for it, forget what a danger it poses. Just like natural gas and electricity. We need it, it makes are life better, but if not respected, it can end the lives its intended to help or protect.
 
I would say that the majority of carriers have at one time or another carried their gun somewhere they weren't supposed to, before realizing their mistake. As long as you practice proper concealment, you should be able to discretely walk out before anyone notices. While I would never discourage additional training, the problem may be self-correcting. The fact that you are now thinking about the issue means it is more likely to be on your mind than it was before.
 
I don't know that being complacent is always the culprit. I am always very aware of my surroundings and very aware when approaching "gun free zones". Habit is sometimes the problem and not being careful can also lead to problems.

I have been carrying handguns for almost 50 years on a daily basis. For many years, I carried multiple guns. Over the years some rules have changed and so has my status and reasons to carry. When I first started flying commercially, the airlines were insistent that gun carriers must keep their handguns on their person when flying. Old habits die hard, and sometimes a gun that is so much a part of you can get forgotten when you are carrying so many.

When they first started screening people with metal detectors, I would always set them off because of metal in my body and because of my western belt buckles and steel toed dress shoes. Twice I set them off because of a backup gun I had forgot I was wearing but made it through because even I assumed it was the metal in my body, or the buckle or the shoes. One of those times I was in the security line with the Sheriff of our county. We weren't together but I was on his Merit Commission and was active in his political campaigns and were just talking like friends do. That might have helped, I'm not sure but the gun rode with me the whole trip out. Going back, it was in checked luggage along with the other guns.

After 911 everything changed. I was much more careful. However, as I was packing for a trip to Las Vegas one day, my son in college called me frantic that he had not done his income tax return and it was due in a few days. At the last minute I grabbed my laptop and threw it in an extra bag that I was not planning on taking and stopped somewhere to buy a copy of Turbo Tax thinking I would start working on his return while in the air. Unfortunately, the bag, long unused, had my HALO knife in it which I didn't know. Automatic knives were, at the time, illegal my state and any knife was illegal on a plane. As an active skydiver however, LE would normally overlooked automatic knife issues. I missed the flight that day and had to fly out the next. I also lost the knife and later paid TSA a hefty fine. While locals were called, a phone conversation with the State's Attorney and the Sheriff (not the same Sheriff or county) solved that issue. The guns and ammo, of course, had been carefully placed in checked luggage which ended up in Vegas a day ahead of me.

Over 600 flights and four years later, I was flying out again and needed to take a projector with me. I carefully put my carry guns and knives into checked luggage. What I didn't remember is I had used the wheeled briefcase on a driving trip several weeks earlier and had left four loaded magazines in that briefcase. The irony is I had both Trusted Traveler and Global Entry status and the TSA scanner almost didn't see them. TSA called the LEOs on duty and they, after a conversation with me, unloaded the magazines, put the ammo into a baggie, and allowed my assistant to take the ammo and magazines back through security and put them in a bag she was planning to carry on and check it.

Guess what? I don't plan on a third time ever again. We all make mistakes but we need to learn from them.
 
As others stated, it happens. Of what you mentioned, the most glaring, besides walking into work with it on you, is leaving it in the open or for that matter, unattended not under your control in your home.
This is what leads to problems and many end up tragic where kids and grand kids are around.
Sometimes just changing up the gun you carry reinforces that you have a sidearm on you rather than carrying the same gun every single day. Perhaps alternating holsters. The biggest thing is situational awareness. If you are forgeting that you even have a sidearm with you, chances are you won't be ready in the event you or someone around you will need it. It's a balance between enjoying the moments in life but keeping things around you in perspective. Some people are single focused. Some can multitask well. Some, as we all have seen, shouldn't be allowed to operate a vehicle. (Or walk among us)! Train. Train. Train.
 
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