Spokesperson Wanted
If the concealed carry lifestyle is going to expand out of the niche where it currently resides in, it’s going to have to be personality driven. This is a heresy too many people who currently carry concealed. For them, the decisions surrounding concealed carry are focused on the hardware and the technique, not people who carry on a daily basis. This is great, if we want to continue the current trend of most gun owners NOT having a firearm with them on a regular basis.
People follow charismatic leaders. It’s what we do, and that is not likely to change in the near future. However, that idea is absolutely heretical in the firearms world. Two of the most significant media events in the last 20 years in firearms marketing were Top Shot on the History Channel and Shootout Lane on the Outdoor Channel. Both of these TV shows emphasized the personalities of the firearms industry, not the firearms themselves.
When you think about it, the same is true for firearms-related YouTube channels but once we watch we watch on the basis of personality. We like Hickok 45’s folksy, down home approach to guns, Ian McCollum‘s nerdery, and Grarand Thumb‘s occasionally over-the-top antics. We like to see these people be engaging. We like to see them perform. Yes, the guns are part of all of that, but there are 10,000 channels out there which have guns on them. However, only a few of them have personality, and that’s what drives the big channels.
In the same way, we’re going to need some kind of personality driving the shift towards everyday concealed carry. It has to be someone from outside of the firearms industry because they can speak normal person and make the case for concealed carry from a lifestyle change perspective, not a “Hey, this is a cool gun!” perspective. Who will that be? I don’t know, but there has to be somebody out there who is known in pop culture who carries a firearm with them on an everyday basis and who can make it normal to do so. The closest I can think of is tv chef Alton Brown, who has openly stated that he carries on a regular basis and as a big fan of the Browning HiPower. Someone like that, an artist or a actor or some other part of our culture who says “Yeah this is what I carry, and I do so everyday,” will be an essential part of making concealed carry a lifestyle and not something only that gun nuts do.
