Every concealed carrier has his or her own particular needs. That’s the reason why we always stress comfort, reliability, and safety as the chief components when considering holster options for concealed carry. But what if you’re a woman with legitimate issues keeping you from holstering a traditional IWB?
The last thing we’d ever advocate is going without your handgun. Carry everyday, everywhere you feasibly can do so. Wardrobe shouldn’t be the deciding factor on whether you can carry or not. In the video above, put out by the Patriot Nurse, we get to see a different system of holstering which has been casually adopted by many women who either can’t go the traditional gun belt/IWB approach or simply don’t find it useful for their daily lives.
For her video, she reviews the “Can Can Big Shebang” corset IWB holster system. It’s a fabric/woven-based holster system that takes an unusual yet intuitive approach to keeping a handgun accessible, protected, and comfortable.
Can Can Concealed, like many other holster companies with concealed carry holster systems marketed towards women, takes a big priority in finding places on a woman’s body that are easy for her to reach yet allow her to choose her own clothing.
The basic qualities for a gun holster simply need to be the following:
- Trigger guard — The trigger cannot be “accidentally” fumbled while still holstered. If it can, that’s VERY unsafe situation.
- Decent retention — The holster has to grip the gun so it doesn’t slide around. A gun that slides around all helter-skelter is bound to get dropped, lost, or worse.
- Accessible — What good is a holstered pistol if it can’t be grabbed at a moment’s notice?
- Concealable — For concealed carry purposes, this holster needs to help the gun blend seamlessly into the background. If the pistol grip is sticking out at an angle or your appearance looks extremely blocky and asymmetric, this isn’t really conducive to concealed carry.
- Comfortable — If your holster makes your gun uncomfortable to carry, you will eventually find excuses (especially early on) to not have it holstered. This is bad because it can develop bad habits in your daily concealed carry practices. Train with your concealed carry handgun and holster and if neither play well on the ride to/from the range, consider different holster options.
Let’s be honest — in traditional gunbelt/IWB set-up, your dress options are mighty limited. That’s not generally a big deal for guys because we tend to wear the same basic setup no matter the occasion. Wedding? Tuxedo and trousers. Work? Trousers and a polo. Outdoors? …You get the picture. We’re constantly wearing trousers and those trousers have belt loops so for 90% of our daily activities, we’re covered.
But not all women wear trousers every single day. Sometimes work actually requires them to wear other clothing options. Concealed carry continues on.
We’re not formally recommending the Can Can series of concealed carry holsters. We’ve personally never carried in a garter holster system… At least not that we’ll admit to on a website on the internet. What we can say is that women need to have options that support their daily concealed carry practices no matter their style of dress or even issues such as pre-existing back injuries.