Riley Bowman: And welcome to the Concealed Carry
Riley Bowman: Podcast, part of the ConcealedCarry.com network, brought to you by HK.
Riley Bowman: Today is Thursday, May 7th, 2026, as of the live recording of this episode.
Riley Bowman: I am your host, Riley Bowman, and I'm joined today by Jacob Paulson.
Jacob Paulsen: Howdy, howdy, howdy.
Riley Bowman: He is the man who likes to say howdy, howdy, howdy on the podcast.
Jacob Paulsen: It's true.
Riley Bowman: And sometimes on the phone.
Jacob Paulsen: Every time I say it, I picture that shark in Toy Story.
Riley Bowman: Howdy, howdy, howdy. Well, howdy, everybody. Glad to be with you for another episode.
Riley Bowman: We've got, I think, an excellent topic planned for you today.
Riley Bowman: We're going to be talking about carrying in your vehicle, what to do in your
Riley Bowman: vehicle with your gun. All right.
Riley Bowman: Best practices, biggest mistakes.
Riley Bowman: We're going to break down all of it as best we can in roughly the next hour
Riley Bowman: or a little less than an hour.
Riley Bowman: So glad to be with you. We'll get into that topic momentarily.
Riley Bowman: But first, we've got a couple of episode sponsors today we're going to talk about with you.
Riley Bowman: First things first, we are talking about vehicles. Okay, so we've got the Vehicle
Riley Bowman: Firearm Tactics course, a video
Riley Bowman: course, online course at concealedcarry.com. We want to point you to.
Riley Bowman: That's a great place to go for kind of your next steps, I guess,
Riley Bowman: or at least some next info on stuff with firearms and vehicles and all that.
Riley Bowman: But that's a little more tactics oriented.
Riley Bowman: You can check it out at concealedcarry.com forward slash VFT.
Riley Bowman: Vehicle firearm tactics concealed carry.com forward slash
Riley Bowman: vft it's actually one of our oldest video
Riley Bowman: courses that lives in the guardian university library
Riley Bowman: filmed that in 2017 i
Riley Bowman: think i think so early early 2017 yeah it's
Riley Bowman: a long time ago now something that we uh hope to
Riley Bowman: revisit at some point but uh you know
Riley Bowman: we've had some trusted folks review that for us
Riley Bowman: and and say it's still pretty good info so uh
Riley Bowman: we keep uh pushing people to watch vehicle farm tactics hope you go check it
Riley Bowman: out uh you can find it again at concealedcarry.com forward slash vft or if you
Riley Bowman: just go to concealedcarry.com and go to guardian university you can find it
Riley Bowman: listed in the courses there as well it's available for free or at least included
Riley Bowman: in guardian nation membership
Riley Bowman: where you can buy it a la carte that's the other way to go anything else you
Riley Bowman: want to say about the vehicle firearm tactics course yeah
Jacob Paulsen: He should be a member of guardian nation so you can get access to it and all our other courses.
Riley Bowman: Absolutely
Riley Bowman: And for our second, kind of a big, this is actually a new sponsorship we're introducing to you.
Riley Bowman: Jacob, you want to take the lead on that? Sure. What do we got?
Jacob Paulsen: Vara Safety. Vera? Vara? I assume it's Vara. I guess I never asked.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I probably should have asked before we went live.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. So Vara, we're going to go Vara. Vara Safety.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't know. I always read it. I never talk to them about it.
Jacob Paulsen: But Vara Safety actually, this is really interesting. because I was actually
Jacob Paulsen: a little bit hesitant about this product.
Jacob Paulsen: Matthew Marrister reviewed the original VAR Safety Reach, which is kind of a
Jacob Paulsen: handgun mounting system, many years ago.
Jacob Paulsen: And I thought, oh, that's interesting, you know, kind of thing.
Jacob Paulsen: But I've never touched it.
Jacob Paulsen: And so then when we decided to kind of play with this and learn about it more,
Jacob Paulsen: and we got it in, you and I spent, I don't know, probably an hour just fiddling with this thing. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: And I was pleasantly surprised. I think, to understand VAR's approach,
Jacob Paulsen: you have to understand this is not a gun safe.
Jacob Paulsen: It's a firearm securing thing, but it's not a gun safe in the traditional sense.
Jacob Paulsen: And it's all about, I think that the premise around this product is,
Jacob Paulsen: Make the gun as accessible fast, like scream fast.
Jacob Paulsen: Speed is like at the core fundamental of the belief of this product,
Jacob Paulsen: but still make it secure.
Jacob Paulsen: Like don't allow kids to walk in and pick it up and walk out with it.
Jacob Paulsen: Don't allow the bad guy to grab it and yank it out of you, yank it out,
Jacob Paulsen: but make it so that when you go to get the gun, it's like Speedy Gonzales speed fast.
Jacob Paulsen: And so try to describe this for someone who can't see it or has never seen one before.
Jacob Paulsen: Imagine it's like like a holster box
Jacob Paulsen: thing that you mount against something like
Jacob Paulsen: maybe against your bed or your nightstand your desk or
Jacob Paulsen: whatever it is uh we'll talk about the vehicle more and
Jacob Paulsen: once it's it's mounted the gun goes
Jacob Paulsen: into it and it's it's locked in there and while the gun's
Jacob Paulsen: in there it is it is very safe in fact that was one
Jacob Paulsen: of the first things me and riley we looked at right it's like is this a situation
Jacob Paulsen: where someone could stick a knife in here a pen in here and still get the gun
Jacob Paulsen: to fire while it's in the thing the answer seems pretty clearly no like it's
Jacob Paulsen: pretty they're they have these shells that are kind of gun specific anyway i'm
Jacob Paulsen: getting maybe too detailed.
Jacob Paulsen: But the the gun's locked in there but the grip of
Jacob Paulsen: the gun is exposed so if you walked if i had this set up in my bedroom and you
Jacob Paulsen: walked in and looked at it on my bed you'd be like oh like that's a gun like
Jacob Paulsen: you can see the grip of the gun exposed and you can you can acquire your grip
Jacob Paulsen: in your hand as you're going to unlock it and release it from the system.
Jacob Paulsen: And it is a biometric system. So, you know, you're, you're, you're putting your
Jacob Paulsen: thumb down as you're acquiring your grip on that gun.
Jacob Paulsen: And it is as advertised speedy fast.
Jacob Paulsen: It's just the gun and you can pull it out.
Riley Bowman: I mean, so the way I think of this is this is essentially a holster for your
Riley Bowman: gun because, you know, it's customized holster type inserts that,
Riley Bowman: you know, you need to order the one that's specific to your gun.
Riley Bowman: So if it's a Glock or an HK or whatever, Smith & Wesson, you order the one for your gun.
Riley Bowman: To be clear, unfortunately, there are some models that are, you know,
Riley Bowman: some of your more obscure models are likely to not be supported.
Riley Bowman: But I know that that's important for them to have as many as possible.
Riley Bowman: And you'll see there's quite a list when you go to the website.
Riley Bowman: But you choose the one for your gun. And to your point, we looked at that very closely.
Riley Bowman: Hey, how securely does this fit the gun?
Riley Bowman: Does it truly prevent access to the trigger? Which, of course,
Riley Bowman: we know is the most critical component here as far as safety goes with that.
Riley Bowman: And, yeah, we're very confident that it's safe, that it meets that standard of that.
Riley Bowman: So anyway, you've got a holster that fits your gun that now it locks into with
Riley Bowman: a biometric fingerprint scanner that you can program to just be you or any number
Riley Bowman: of trusted individuals that could theoretically have access.
Riley Bowman: And that scanner, by the way, reads your fingerprint.
Riley Bowman: You don't have to push a button. This was really important to me,
Riley Bowman: Jacob. We talked about this.
Riley Bowman: That there's some biometric, actually virtually not all, but most of the biometric
Riley Bowman: scanners I've seen on similar type products or pistol vault products require
Riley Bowman: you to like push a button to essentially turn it on and start reading a fingerprint.
Riley Bowman: And in this case, you just touch that little fingerprint pad and boom,
Riley Bowman: 0.2 seconds is how quickly it registers and says yes or no and unlocks your gun.
Riley Bowman: That's how fast. And so that was really important that, one, it is actually fast.
Riley Bowman: Number two, that it's reliable, which we've tested in as long.
Riley Bowman: I mean, it's pretty good.
Riley Bowman: If you do your part and put your finger in the right place, it'll read your fingerprint.
Riley Bowman: It's possible you don't quite get your thumb or whatever on there just right.
Riley Bowman: But if you practice this, just like you practice grabbing your gun in your holster
Riley Bowman: on your body, like that's, you know, part of training. You do it,
Riley Bowman: you practice it, make it so that it happens consistently. It'll work for you.
Riley Bowman: So holster, biometric, locks it in, releases it only when you need it to or
Riley Bowman: want it to, and you can mount it to, like you said, your bed,
Riley Bowman: the frame of your bed, your nightstand, or in your vehicle.
Riley Bowman: There's a vehicle mount, which we're excited to get our hands on and play with
Riley Bowman: as well, just to see how that works.
Riley Bowman: And that's kind of the relevance to today's episode, as we talk about what do
Riley Bowman: you do with your gun, carrying a gun, whatever, staging your gun in your vehicle.
Riley Bowman: And I think we'll probably reference back to this Vara Safety Reach 2S, the name of the product.
Jacob Paulsen: I was just going to add a couple other little quick data points before we get off of it.
Jacob Paulsen: The handgun one, the Reach 2S, it says it withstands 350 pounds of force.
Jacob Paulsen: You and I didn't test it up to 350 pounds. But, I mean, you're not.
Jacob Paulsen: Like, if you try to grab the gun and just yank it out, by manhandle,
Jacob Paulsen: force it out, that's how much force it would require, 350 pounds.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's pretty significant. Like, it feels pretty locked in there.
Jacob Paulsen: And, you know, I wanted to add.
Riley Bowman: So if you can do a 450-pound deadlift, you should be able to.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, sure. For those of you who are listening who can do that.
Jacob Paulsen: The other thing, of course, those people probably could also just peel open my gun safe.
Jacob Paulsen: But you mentioned as long as you get your thumb in the right spot for the biometric.
Jacob Paulsen: And we did a lot of testing with that. And there is some margin of error.
Jacob Paulsen: It's a circle. And so I felt like if I got my thumb...
Jacob Paulsen: And 70% over that circle, I could get it done. 50% starts to get like,
Jacob Paulsen: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Jacob Paulsen: Less than half, I felt like that was the margin of like, nope,
Jacob Paulsen: we're not reading enough of your finger.
Jacob Paulsen: And we could not get a false negative. We tried opening it with a lot of fingers
Jacob Paulsen: that are not the fingers we programmed, and we couldn't get it to open.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's noteworthy too.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, that false positive thing, that is something that's been a huge problem
Riley Bowman: with biometric readers on similar products in the past.
Riley Bowman: And some that I, I mean, I've got one that at home that is just,
Riley Bowman: it's probably at least once, if not two times out of 10,
Riley Bowman: you know, it might be worse than that even like it is not one I rely upon for quick access to my gut.
Riley Bowman: It just happens to be a convenient pistol vault, you know, that sometimes it
Riley Bowman: needs to, you know, need to stash things in there.
Riley Bowman: But yeah, this one, as long as you do your part, like I said,
Riley Bowman: it is impressively reliable.
Riley Bowman: Uh i don't have a percentage on that but it
Riley Bowman: is highly reliable if you get your finger in the right spot uh
Riley Bowman: which by the way is you naturally grab the gun your thumb ends up really i mean
Riley Bowman: it's not in my ideal location but again with some practice and and you know
Riley Bowman: doing that repetitively it is really close to where your thumb wants to end
Riley Bowman: up as you're grabbing the gun so that's cool yep
Jacob Paulsen: Last comment uh we've been primarily talking about the reach 2s yeah but they
Jacob Paulsen: also have a rifle thing called the r-a-c-t it stands for something i already
Jacob Paulsen: forgot the racked it's it's an acronym though well.
Riley Bowman: I'll have it here for you in a second
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah i i remember that i know what
Jacob Paulsen: i knew what it was and i already forgot but the uh the racked is cool too and
Jacob Paulsen: it's you know kind of a wall mount similar concept you know and and they actually
Jacob Paulsen: have that one available the digital keypad or a biometric the one we got for
Jacob Paulsen: testing is biometric and just as you know effective just as quality just as
Jacob Paulsen: durable you know all the things.
Riley Bowman: I did not come up with the answer on what racked stands for,
Riley Bowman: but I'm going to guess like, I don't know, ready access something.
Riley Bowman: Anyway, no, it's cool. It is super cool product.
Riley Bowman: And to have a AR or a shotgun or a rifle mounted right there on the wall within
Riley Bowman: arm's reach of, say, where you sleep or whatever at night.
Riley Bowman: And that one, yeah, same thing. Works so fast.
Riley Bowman: 0.2 seconds. You just touch the keypad or the fingerprint pad and it unlocks right away.
Riley Bowman: I'm quite impressed with how that's designed. There's a lot of thought that's
Riley Bowman: gone into it to make sure that it is, again, properly and securely protecting
Riley Bowman: that firearm from access from people you don't want accessing it.
Riley Bowman: Preventing it from being able to be taken because of the way it mounts to the wall.
Riley Bowman: Preventing access to the trigger guard again. So all of that seems like a really
Riley Bowman: well done product. It's actually sitting right over here.
Riley Bowman: Just, you know, in the corner there of the room I'm in here. And it's a cool product.
Jacob Paulsen: And for those who are, you know, most of you are listening, not watching,
Jacob Paulsen: but Riley did record kind of an unboxing video review that was really a nice
Jacob Paulsen: walkthrough of this product.
Jacob Paulsen: And that'll get published later today on the site. So you can watch for that.
Riley Bowman: Cool. Yeah. So where should people go if they want to learn more about Vara Safety's products?
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, you should go to Vara, V-A-R-A, VaraSafety.com, V-A-R-A-S-A-F-E-T-Y.com.
Riley Bowman: We appreciate them sponsoring this episode today of the concealed carry
Riley Bowman: podcast and uh they would not be a sponsor if
Riley Bowman: we did not get our hands on their products and come away thinking okay those
Riley Bowman: are actually really good products if we didn't believe in them
Riley Bowman: we would not be uh mentioning them on the podcast here today
Riley Bowman: let's now talk about carrying in your vehicle jacob mistakes
Riley Bowman: best practices uh we're i
Riley Bowman: mean okay i'll set it up this way you and
Riley Bowman: i i know are in agreement on this as
Riley Bowman: a general practice the best way to carry
Riley Bowman: a gun in your vehicle is on
Riley Bowman: your person just like you do all the
Riley Bowman: other times right 100 and so like that's that's where i would start with this
Riley Bowman: is that like that's the optimal that's the ideal that's like that's what i do
Riley Bowman: i mean i don't i just i've got a gun here in my holster on my waistband and
Riley Bowman: you know whether i'm in the car out of the car, that's where it lives.
Riley Bowman: That's where it lives all day long for the moment I get up and get dressed to
Riley Bowman: them, you know, when I go to bed.
Riley Bowman: So that's my approach. That's how I do it.
Riley Bowman: But are there times and places where maybe there's other considerations or things
Riley Bowman: that, you know, we need to do?
Riley Bowman: I mean, just one simple example would be if you need to exit the vehicle
Riley Bowman: to go into some kind of secure space, whether it's a federal building of some
Riley Bowman: kind, and you're Like, let's say the post office, let's say,
Riley Bowman: although that's kind of, you know, we've got a court case that's,
Riley Bowman: you know, but anyway, you know what I mean? Like you go somewhere,
Riley Bowman: you need to disarm yourself.
Riley Bowman: I mean, the daily thing that I typically experience is having to pick up my
Riley Bowman: kids or drop them off at school each day, right?
Riley Bowman: And I don't have, you know, the authority, you know, unfortunately under the
Riley Bowman: law to carry on school grounds.
Riley Bowman: So I've got to, you know, remove my gun for me and secure it somehow.
Riley Bowman: And so how would we go about doing that? out what are the best practices and
Riley Bowman: what are the mistakes people make so there you go that's that's the setup yeah
Jacob Paulsen: I think that there are exceptions. You mentioned just needing a place to secure
Jacob Paulsen: it in the car, and that's relevant.
Jacob Paulsen: I know at least two people are listening to this, loyal listeners of our podcast,
Jacob Paulsen: because they've emailed us in the past, who are long-haul truck drivers.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I'm not a long-haul truck driver, never been one, never hung out with
Jacob Paulsen: one, never been in the truck with one.
Jacob Paulsen: But I guess the point I'm trying to make is that there could be situations or
Jacob Paulsen: scenarios where there is some sensible like reality of it makes sense to have
Jacob Paulsen: a kind of designated staging spot in the car for the gun like as a potential best practice.
Jacob Paulsen: I think for the average person who's you know in the car for 10 minutes,
Jacob Paulsen: 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour here there yeah I just leave it on me where it
Jacob Paulsen: is and I you know that seems to be the viable option it works just fine,
Jacob Paulsen: but I'm allowing that, you know.
Jacob Paulsen: People who have different lifestyle, different situations, it might make sense
Jacob Paulsen: to have a gun staged in a car.
Jacob Paulsen: That's not the one that's on my body or that I'm, you know, potentially move
Jacob Paulsen: from the body to that, that staging system.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think we have to discuss that more. I think, you know, first, yes.
Jacob Paulsen: Like I want to disclaim, like I, if you're telling me that your lifestyle is
Jacob Paulsen: such that that's, that's important or makes more sense.
Jacob Paulsen: It's cool. Like, I believe you. We're not here to argue that point,
Jacob Paulsen: even though for me and Riley, we've just never gotten there.
Jacob Paulsen: You know, I'm happy to take a 12-hour drive in a car and just keep my gun in
Jacob Paulsen: my holster, in my pants, and I'm fine.
Jacob Paulsen: But I get it. Teach their own. But there are some considerations that I think
Jacob Paulsen: we have to talk about in that respect.
Jacob Paulsen: And then I'm going to talk about the Philster video eventually here.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think we have to consider the danger of administrative handling.
Jacob Paulsen: So in an ideal world, if you have decided that you really do need to transfer
Jacob Paulsen: a gun from on body to off body every time you get in out of a car,
Jacob Paulsen: then the number one concern is going to be a safety concern of administrative handling.
Jacob Paulsen: Like, are we removing an entire holster with gun in it? That would be safer.
Jacob Paulsen: At least now we're not exposing the trigger guard.
Jacob Paulsen: It continues to basically be a safe gun at that point. Or are we removing the
Jacob Paulsen: gun from the holster and transferring it to a different holster?
Jacob Paulsen: That's less ideal and certainly would require a higher level of caution and care.
Jacob Paulsen: Many years ago, and I'll leave this story and then I'll send it back to you.
Jacob Paulsen: But many years ago, you and I were invited to be on a radio show.
Jacob Paulsen: And the host of that show off the air when we were not recording shared with
Jacob Paulsen: you and I a story about how he had shot himself in his car during some administrative handling,
Jacob Paulsen: put a bullet in himself.
Jacob Paulsen: So, and we've also reviewed stories before where people have died while driving
Jacob Paulsen: home from work because they did some administrative, well, presumably,
Jacob Paulsen: I guess we didn't know, but we assumed they probably must've been doing some
Jacob Paulsen: administrative handling with their gun and shot themselves.
Jacob Paulsen: So it is a legitimate safety concern.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, for sure. I'm going to go back a little bit where you started.
Riley Bowman: You mentioned having some listeners of the podcast who are employed in the trucking business.
Riley Bowman: That's something I can speak to a little bit. Now, I have not been as my career or in any way,
Riley Bowman: shape, or form a trucker, but my mother and stepdad both have been truck drivers
Riley Bowman: for parts of their career or all or most of all their career at different times,
Riley Bowman: including my mom and my stepdad team driving together for a portion of their career.
Riley Bowman: I've spent time in SMI, you know, in the cab right there with my stepdad going
Riley Bowman: down the road for hours and hours and hours at a time. And this is a long time ago.
Riley Bowman: But so I understand the lifestyle.
Riley Bowman: I understand the job probably, you know, differently than many people do.
Riley Bowman: I can understand it. If your job is day in, day out to be seated driving,
Riley Bowman: you know, you end up doing in the course of your career millions of miles,
Riley Bowman: hours and hours and hours at a time, day in and day out, I can see where that
Riley Bowman: starts to get a little bit, you know, of a pain point potentially.
Riley Bowman: I'd like to still think that even if I was driving a truck today,
Riley Bowman: I would still just do what I do.
Riley Bowman: Carrying the appendix position right here in front of my waistband in a comfortable
Riley Bowman: holster ksg armory holster of course uh that because you and i have shared a
Riley Bowman: lot of time on the road driving in fact i remember you and i coming back i think
Riley Bowman: it was from the pittsburgh show that was
Riley Bowman: Was that carry guard or maybe it was a concealed carry expo.
Riley Bowman: But anyway, one of those, and we drove back and we only stopped for a few hours
Riley Bowman: to sleep in like Hayes, Kansas, but that whole trip all the way from Pittsburgh,
Riley Bowman: all the way back here home to, you know, the Denver area, uh,
Riley Bowman: I never once removed the holster from my body.
Riley Bowman: And when we, when we slept for a few hours, we just leaned the chairs back in the car.
Riley Bowman: Right. So like point is I ended up calculating that and we spent,
Riley Bowman: I spent, you know, and then And I ended up carrying all that next day because
Riley Bowman: we slept a few hours in the night, got up the next morning, drove the rest of the way home.
Riley Bowman: I got home. I didn't take my pants off until the end of that day.
Riley Bowman: So it was like 33 hours or something straight that I was carrying in the appendix
Riley Bowman: position, in a seated position most of that time and was perfectly comfortable.
Riley Bowman: So it can be done. But, again, I understand that, you know, if that's your profession
Riley Bowman: and that's what you're doing day in, day out, you might want another option perhaps, right?
Riley Bowman: So, anyway, I just wanted to share that little bit of context there from my
Riley Bowman: point of view on that subject.
Riley Bowman: Without getting into, because I know some of you are probably thinking,
Riley Bowman: but what about these, you know, like legal specific ramifications of truck,
Riley Bowman: you know, carrying a gun in a commercial vehicle, crossing state borders and so forth?
Riley Bowman: We're not here to get into that today, just so it's clear.
Riley Bowman: We are here to talk about how to carry a gun or stage a gun or have a gun at the ready in a vehicle.
Riley Bowman: And to your other point, Jacob, of people making mistakes with administrative
Riley Bowman: handling, that is, from a safety standpoint, the biggest problem.
Riley Bowman: Because if you get in a vehicle, pull a gun out of a holster,
Riley Bowman: stick it in some other thing in the vehicle, then have to take it back out and
Riley Bowman: stick it back in your holster. there is
Riley Bowman: There are ways to minimize risk, but it is dang near impossible to do that without some kind of risk.
Riley Bowman: And it is really hard to reholster, whether you are in the appendix position
Riley Bowman: or some other position on the waist.
Riley Bowman: It's pretty dang near impossible to do that in a vehicle while seated without
Riley Bowman: kind of, you know, muzzling part of yourself somewhere in some way.
Riley Bowman: It could be done, I suppose, but it's very difficult to do.
Riley Bowman: And I don't think that most people are going to actually go through the day-in,
Riley Bowman: day-out rigors of unholstering, holstering, unholstering, holstering,
Riley Bowman: you know, safely like that.
Riley Bowman: So it creates a major safety challenge.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I think that's fair. I
Jacob Paulsen: think that the best way to mitigate risk is just leave it in the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: You know, don't remove the gun, remove the gun in the holster, right?
Jacob Paulsen: And that's that's the answer the legitimate consideration let's let's talk a
Jacob Paulsen: little bit about carry positions and the role they play here not that long ago
Jacob Paulsen: in the last you know something like 10 episodes ago or something we did an episode
Jacob Paulsen: dedicated to carry positions so i don't want to rehash all that right but i
Jacob Paulsen: do think that it has a role here in this conversation,
Jacob Paulsen: and then i think we have to talk a little bit more about some tactics as it
Jacob Paulsen: relates to guns and cars but,
Jacob Paulsen: Up until now, I think we've made our position pretty freaking clear throughout
Jacob Paulsen: the recent years of the podcast, and certainly in that most recent episode,
Jacob Paulsen: that Riley and I, we carry in the appendix position.
Jacob Paulsen: That's our go-to spot. And in the car is a place where that position really
Jacob Paulsen: shines. I mean, really shines.
Jacob Paulsen: It is one of those like, boom, like, look, here you go.
Jacob Paulsen: Like, this is a perfect place for appendix carry because it takes nothing to
Jacob Paulsen: get to the gun, right? I mean, assuming you're like sitting properly and you
Jacob Paulsen: carry in a normal appendix position, the seat belt really shouldn't be an issue.
Jacob Paulsen: The seat belt should be over where your belt of your pants would be.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's not inhibiting the draw of the gun.
Riley Bowman: It should be below where the actual grip of the gun is.
Jacob Paulsen: Right, right. Yeah, correct. On like where your belt on your pants are,
Jacob Paulsen: like where your belt loops is. Belt loops are, well, I'm struggling.
Jacob Paulsen: So that should be a non-issue. You potentially, you know, we've kind of trapped
Jacob Paulsen: a shirt, but, you know, grab the shirt and untuck it in advance,
Jacob Paulsen: or in the moment you need to draw, grab that shirt and get it out of the way
Jacob Paulsen: like you've been trained to do.
Jacob Paulsen: So it's just a position that works really well for the car.
Jacob Paulsen: We actually have a little mini course on the site called Vehicle Draw that just
Jacob Paulsen: talks about this one thing, just how to draw the gun from different positions when you're in a car.
Jacob Paulsen: And obviously that is great, but in other positions, it does get more challenging.
Jacob Paulsen: So, you know, I know people who don't like appendix or can't carry appendix.
Jacob Paulsen: That's a smaller group, but maybe some medical reason or other thing,
Jacob Paulsen: you can't carry your gun in the front of your hip.
Jacob Paulsen: That's cool. I get it. Or maybe you just, for whatever reason,
Jacob Paulsen: just think it's terrible and awful and dangerous or whatever the thing is.
Jacob Paulsen: You choose to carry it on the hip or around the hip.
Jacob Paulsen: That does have an impact both on comfort in the vehicle and on speed and ability
Jacob Paulsen: to access and deploy that gun safely.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think that's a relevant thing here. that has to be discussed.
Riley Bowman: Absolutely. I wanted to mention something,
Riley Bowman: you know, since we are talking about best practices and mistakes when carrying
Riley Bowman: a vehicle, since you mentioned that your preferred method, my preferred method
Riley Bowman: of carrying is in that appendix position,
Riley Bowman: one very common mistake I see that is made or that is discussed, I've seen people
Riley Bowman: Actually mention online, whether in a comment or even in a video,
Riley Bowman: where they talk about how I get in, I'm carrying the penetics position,
Riley Bowman: and I put my seatbelt on, and then I move the seatbelt over top and behind the gun.
Riley Bowman: And that is not, I'll just call it out right now,
Riley Bowman: that is one of the mistakes we're talking about in this episode here today,
Riley Bowman: is that that is not a safe way of doing it because where is the seat belt supposed to be, especially,
Riley Bowman: you know, the lower portion of the belt, the upper portion obviously is going
Riley Bowman: up and across your shoulder, right?
Riley Bowman: But the lower portion is intended to be right across your hips.
Riley Bowman: Your pelvis is one of the largest structural parts of your body, right?
Riley Bowman: And I mean, of course, yes, we can break the pelvis and all that,
Riley Bowman: but I mean, what do you have below the pelvis? Your femurs. What do you have above your pelvis?
Riley Bowman: Nothing. You know, you got a bunch of guts. Of course, you got your spine in the back, right?
Riley Bowman: So, so you want that belt across that structure of your body,
Riley Bowman: which is the pelvis, okay, your hips.
Riley Bowman: If you move the belt up and over and behind the gun, right, what will happen
Riley Bowman: is you get in an accident and that belt tightens down, it is going to not have
Riley Bowman: anything really securing you in except your guts.
Riley Bowman: And now you're going to probably end up with a bunch of internal injuries that
Riley Bowman: you might not otherwise have because your belt is now squishing your guts,
Riley Bowman: your lower abdomen, rather than the hips that it is designed for.
Riley Bowman: And so, you know, some people have wondered, okay, but hey, when I have the
Riley Bowman: belt over top of the gun, is that not going to squeeze the gun into the...
Riley Bowman: My guts and cause problems that way. And that's a fair question and concern.
Riley Bowman: However, there have been a number of people that have talked about this and have expressed,
Riley Bowman: and including, I'm talking people that have experienced it firsthand as well
Riley Bowman: as people have witnessed it,
Riley Bowman: meaning they've been a responder, a first responder on the scene of accidents
Riley Bowman: that have talked about when it's worn in the correct place is not likely to
Riley Bowman: result in severe injuries to your internals by having that belt across your, your belt line,
Riley Bowman: including on top of your gun and holster.
Riley Bowman: I can also testify to that personally on now it wasn't the most severe of accidents,
Riley Bowman: but I was in one that caused my belt, the tensioner, you know what I mean?
Riley Bowman: Like when you have an accident and it's not just the belt holding you in place,
Riley Bowman: but the actual tensioner where it goes and sucks in tight,
Riley Bowman: Um, I've experienced that from being rear-ended and I was wearing my gun and
Riley Bowman: holster and did not even think about or realize anything comfort wise,
Riley Bowman: discomfort wise, anything like that.
Riley Bowman: Didn't have any bruising or anything from my gun and holster caused by that
Riley Bowman: tensioner going off, uh, in, in, in the vehicle, uh, from that accident.
Riley Bowman: So just mentioning this because the proper procedure, and you can go see a great
Riley Bowman: video that John Houtman at Philster did that talks about this very thing.
Riley Bowman: And they actually test this.
Riley Bowman: They test the proper placement of the belt.
Riley Bowman: They test airbags going off, everything.
Riley Bowman: You can find it on the Philster Holsters YouTube channel. It's a great video.
Riley Bowman: So anyway, I wanted to make sure we got that out of the way.
Riley Bowman: That is one of the mistakes that I want to make sure people avoid as far as
Riley Bowman: carrying the gun and where it is and related to the belt, seat belt.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I think John's video is great. He takes a very scientific approach.
Jacob Paulsen: He measures the force of these things.
Jacob Paulsen: And I'm glad that he did it so that I don't have to do it because it didn't
Jacob Paulsen: look very fun to get punched in the face by an airbag on video.
Jacob Paulsen: But good job.
Riley Bowman: And I'm glad he did too because not just because he is a practiced or experienced
Riley Bowman: practitioner of carrying concealed,
Riley Bowman: which he certainly is. And he's an instructor and everything too.
Riley Bowman: But also because in his past career, he was a certified mechanic.
Riley Bowman: And so you could speak to it from both sides, you know, of understanding mechanics
Riley Bowman: and how the components of the vehicle work and also how that interfaces with
Riley Bowman: you, the concealed carrier. So it's a great video.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, excellent.
Jacob Paulsen: I think that, I guess I want to make sure I state, because I feel like you might
Jacob Paulsen: have put, you might have let a little air out of my balloon.
Jacob Paulsen: Sorry about that. So I'm trying to puff it up a little bit more before we get off this topic. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Just by reiterating that to each their own.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Like our task is to explain the potential concerns with choices that you
Jacob Paulsen: make, but also understand that everybody has their own set of circumstances
Jacob Paulsen: that have to guide your decisions.
Jacob Paulsen: So if your decision is, no, I am going to transition from my body to some sort
Jacob Paulsen: of in-vehicle system while I'm in the vehicle. Okay.
Jacob Paulsen: Like we've talked about the safety concerns. There's some tactical concerns
Jacob Paulsen: we might talk about as well.
Jacob Paulsen: In the same line, your decision might be that,
Jacob Paulsen: no, I'm going to have a gun on body, but I'm also secondarily going
Jacob Paulsen: to have a gun stage in the vehicle okay like
Jacob Paulsen: we have to talk about some things there too but it's it is there like there
Jacob Paulsen: are reasons and situations where that those could be acceptable decisions but
Jacob Paulsen: there are some incremental risks that you're taking on and we just need to mitigate
Jacob Paulsen: the problems the you know the risks that come with those decisions yeah.
Riley Bowman: You have some people will talk about you know having a truck gun,
Riley Bowman: you know, quote unquote, uh, or, you know, a gun in the, in the glove box, right.
Riley Bowman: So to speak, uh, in fact, I have a family member, I don't know that they still
Riley Bowman: do this and I haven't checked or bothered them in quite some time,
Riley Bowman: but I remember discovering because, well, they asked me to get something for
Riley Bowman: them out of their glove box or whatever, you know?
Riley Bowman: And, uh, it's like, oh, there's a gun in here, you know?
Riley Bowman: And that was just normal for them that, yeah, I, I always keep the gun in there.
Riley Bowman: You know, like, uh, and, uh, you know, so, uh,
Jacob Paulsen: So that's, that's.
Riley Bowman: What are the problems with that? Like, I understand in some areas,
Riley Bowman: particularly culturally, it's like, you got so many guns and guns are just a
Riley Bowman: part of, you know, kind of a way of life.
Riley Bowman: And it's sort of like, yeah, I've got one on the nightstand.
Riley Bowman: I got one, you know, in the kitchen drawer. I've got one in my glove box.
Riley Bowman: Like, why wouldn't I, you know, kind of thing. um and i
Riley Bowman: understand you know people that kind of come from that sort of
Riley Bowman: i guess lifestyle or cultural background uh but
Riley Bowman: there is one of the risks since you're
Riley Bowman: talking about risks is that that you know is not
Riley Bowman: a secure gun um so we have potential problems as far as unauthorized access
Riley Bowman: from within the vehicle by other occupants of the vehicle referring to children
Riley Bowman: and you and i have covered stories of people you know getting out of their vehicle
Riley Bowman: running into a store or into the bank or whatever, and their kids are in the vehicle.
Riley Bowman: Now, you know, we're not here to debate leaving kids in or whatever of the vehicle,
Riley Bowman: but, um, kids are in the vehicle and while mom or dad or whoever's in, you know, the store, uh,
Riley Bowman: Kid gets into a gun that's underneath the seat. I know we covered one that was
Riley Bowman: just left under the seat.
Riley Bowman: That's a common, another common thing too, right?
Riley Bowman: Uh, or, you know, mom left her purse in the car and they get into the purse
Riley Bowman: and find the gun, or they get into the center console or the glove box or whatever
Riley Bowman: and find a gun that way. So there's that problem.
Riley Bowman: Then, of course, there's the theft problem, which guns are one of the most targeted
Riley Bowman: things for theft in this country.
Riley Bowman: And one of the most common ways that they are acquired is through vehicle theft
Riley Bowman: or break-ins into vehicles.
Riley Bowman: And I promise you, and I've been the victim of a vehicle break-in,
Riley Bowman: unfortunately, that is one of the key things that every...
Riley Bowman: Person that's committing those kinds of crimes is that like they are hoping
Riley Bowman: oh man i hope there's a gun in this one you know
Riley Bowman: like because there's there's so such value to obtaining
Riley Bowman: a gun as you know through a theft like that because one nobody knows you have
Riley Bowman: it i mean as long as the crime isn't traced to you like nobody knows you have
Riley Bowman: that gun uh and i mean whether you intend to use that for crimes yourself that
Riley Bowman: you intend to commit or street price like whatever that is but like that carries value.
Riley Bowman: You can sell it to somebody else on the street and that's a very valuable thing on the street.
Riley Bowman: So theft is a big, big, big issue here and is a major concern of ours because
Riley Bowman: that has become, I'd say it's like an epidemic basically in this country.
Riley Bowman: You see, especially in large cities, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands
Riley Bowman: of guns stolen from vehicles every year, even just in one little,
Riley Bowman: you know, metropolitan area, thousands of guns.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, we don't have like a definitive study on this, but if you're willing to
Jacob Paulsen: go through a patchwork of different research and try and kind of draw conclusions from it,
Jacob Paulsen: it's pretty suggestive that the number one method to obtain a gun illegally
Jacob Paulsen: in America is to steal it from a car.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: So that should be highly concerning for any of us.
Jacob Paulsen: And so we're trying to mitigate risk. We mitigate risk by trying to make the
Jacob Paulsen: car not be a targeted vehicle.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't put an HK sticker in my truck window because I don't want people to
Jacob Paulsen: think, oh, there could be a gun in there.
Jacob Paulsen: We lock the car and secure the car. And then obviously, to the best of our ability,
Jacob Paulsen: as Abel, we try not to leave unattended guns in the car.
Jacob Paulsen: Again, understanding that there's exceptions and to each their own based on
Jacob Paulsen: your circumstances and whatever.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think we, again, have to understand what the risks are. this
Jacob Paulsen: this vehicle car mount thing from
Jacob Paulsen: var safety i think is quite interesting yeah because
Jacob Paulsen: you know john's video going back to the video we mentioned from philster and
Jacob Paulsen: maybe we'll put a link to it in the show notes but john's video before he discussed
Jacob Paulsen: you know is are you going to get injured by the seat belt you know across the
Jacob Paulsen: the you know with the holster in the iwb position before all that The first
Jacob Paulsen: major portion of this video,
Jacob Paulsen: he basically buys every traditional vehicle holster system and barrel blocks a bunch of guns,
Jacob Paulsen: sticks guns in all of them, and then drives the car.
Jacob Paulsen: I think he does like three or four tests to see what will withstand it.
Jacob Paulsen: One is like a really bumpy road.
Jacob Paulsen: He marks it up, up, up, up until I think the last one is like a rollover. He rolls the car.
Jacob Paulsen: And long story short, everything he tested was a train wreck.
Jacob Paulsen: Some of them failed like with very little effort, like they just,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, it's just a joke, you know, the magnets of the world.
Jacob Paulsen: Others took a little bit more to unseat them and cause them to,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, come, come apart or to throw the gun or whatever the thing is.
Jacob Paulsen: And this virus safety thing looks pretty viable because, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: The mount, basically, you remove the bolts that are holding your seat down to
Jacob Paulsen: the chassis, and you slide this mount in, and then you reapply the bolts,
Jacob Paulsen: and that's what actually holds.
Jacob Paulsen: It's not like you're mounting the Reach 2 thingy to plastic or under the dash or something.
Jacob Paulsen: It's in this metal bar bracket thing.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, it's actually mounted to something structural in the vehicle.
Riley Bowman: Well, John talked about that in the video, you know, talking about there's a
Riley Bowman: couple of solutions out there to, you know, basically vehicle holsters.
Riley Bowman: And one of them I know came as a kit.
Riley Bowman: He described it as standard drywall screws or wood screws, which aren't even
Riley Bowman: like the appropriate thing technically to screw into the plastic paneling in a vehicle.
Riley Bowman: And he talked about a bunch of other concerns about, you know,
Riley Bowman: mounting things to panels and vehicles that weren't designed for that purpose
Riley Bowman: and how some of those panels might even be, you know, designed for things like, you know,
Riley Bowman: airbags, part of the airbag system that might actually now, you know,
Riley Bowman: turn that, the screws, the holster, the mount, everything into a projectile
Riley Bowman: when, you know, that airbag goes off.
Riley Bowman: And so anyway the you know so there's a
Riley Bowman: And then, of course, there's a problem with that mount just being screwed with
Riley Bowman: standard screws into a plastic trim of your vehicle, not actually withstanding
Riley Bowman: the forces that it needs to withstand.
Riley Bowman: So the VAR safety system, that's why this looks really interesting to us,
Riley Bowman: particularly their car mount solution, is because it is an actual metal frame
Riley Bowman: piece that is mounted to something structural, to the base of your seat.
Riley Bowman: And then, of course, the Reach 2S is mounted to it.
Riley Bowman: And that system is very robust.
Riley Bowman: I mean, I've been very impressed with the overall design, the engineering,
Riley Bowman: the structural integrity.
Riley Bowman: Like you can just tell holding the reach to us that it's very,
Riley Bowman: very strong, very well built and well designed.
Riley Bowman: It's actually quite heavy. You know, you're not going to notice that because
Riley Bowman: it's mounted to something in use.
Riley Bowman: But it's actually pretty, even though it's only about the size of my two hands
Riley Bowman: here, you know, it's chunky. It's robust.
Riley Bowman: Chunky boy. So the vehicle mount, I'm excited to get our hands on that and kind
Riley Bowman: of really, you know, see how that plays out.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, we have one on order.
Riley Bowman: Right, right. Now, you know, so there's, what I see here is kind of this sort
Riley Bowman: of this divide, Jacob, where there are some people where it is their practice to carry a gun.
Riley Bowman: Whether it's the one they have on their body and they administratively remove
Riley Bowman: it and then put it in this other holster or staging device.
Riley Bowman: In the vehicle, uh, just, you know, for access while in the vehicle or they
Riley Bowman: are leaving their firearm in the vehicle. Cause they, they, they have to,
Riley Bowman: for whatever reason, uh,
Riley Bowman: All of the products that I know that John tested in his video,
Riley Bowman: they were really more geared towards being like holster products,
Riley Bowman: like ways to have your gun carried in vehicle when it's not on your body for defensive use.
Riley Bowman: And so none of those would prevent your gun from being stolen from the vehicle. Right.
Riley Bowman: So we need to recognize like a lot of the vehicle holster type products aren't
Riley Bowman: intended, obviously, to prevent theft. And we understand that.
Riley Bowman: But the interesting thing from his video is that a lot of those also just don't
Riley Bowman: do a very good job of actually retaining the gun.
Riley Bowman: In other words, just from some of the rough driving, you saw some of those products fail.
Riley Bowman: The guns basically bounced out, came loose.
Riley Bowman: And so that's no good.
Riley Bowman: And then, of course, I don't think any of them succeeded once you started experiencing
Riley Bowman: things like something that would be akin to an actual accident or certainly
Riley Bowman: a rollover. And you need to understand...
Riley Bowman: Vehicle accidents are incredibly violent. If you've never actually been in one
Riley Bowman: yourself, they are incredibly violent.
Riley Bowman: And things that were fixed no longer are fixed. They become airborne.
Riley Bowman: Just from the one accident I was describing earlier, I found stuff that ended
Riley Bowman: up in places underneath seats and in corners and in crevices that I,
Riley Bowman: I mean, I couldn't even find my phone, right?
Riley Bowman: My phone was like sitting in the cup holder when the accident happened.
Riley Bowman: And I don't know where it went, right? It took me several minutes to find my
Riley Bowman: phone so I could call 911, right?
Riley Bowman: And that was quite telling to me. I was like, wow, that was eye-opening.
Riley Bowman: But I have been on the scene of accidents and I have had friends and family have been in accidents
Riley Bowman: to where you're going back to the scene of the accident to collect stuff or
Riley Bowman: you're going to have the vehicle towed someplace and you're trying to get your
Riley Bowman: belongings and things like I helped a friend do this.
Riley Bowman: They were in a pretty bad accident and he needed help to go to where his vehicle
Riley Bowman: was towed to and collect his things.
Riley Bowman: And he was specifically trying to find, he was still trying to find his wife's
Riley Bowman: phone. I think it was, he was trying to find, you know, a couple of important
Riley Bowman: documents and different things.
Riley Bowman: Right. And we dug and dug and dug all throughout that car, trying to find some of these things.
Riley Bowman: And, and so you think your, your gun is going to stay put in a quote unquote
Riley Bowman: car holster after, you know, any, honestly, any type of
Riley Bowman: Accident a moderate accident like stuff does
Riley Bowman: not stay put i would feel a lot more confident that your gun would stay put
Riley Bowman: if it was in a var safety reach to us mounted to your the frame of your seat
Riley Bowman: in your vehicle that that i could see actually um surviving something like that
Riley Bowman: but all the other things i'm familiar with no way
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah yeah i think there's
Jacob Paulsen: a couple other tactical factors we
Jacob Paulsen: have to consider in this conversation we do i'm reminded of a conversation riley
Jacob Paulsen: we interviewed a guy oh jeez this is hundreds of episodes ago yeah but he went
Jacob Paulsen: out for a quick soda at the gas station and he brought his gun in his holster
Jacob Paulsen: but left it in the console.
Jacob Paulsen: And just because i'm just gonna run in and get a soda you know so and
Jacob Paulsen: he was wearing gym shorts or sweats or something so he's like i had
Jacob Paulsen: no way to really put this on me so i just left it in the console so he
Jacob Paulsen: runs in but before he can even get in i think i think it's
Jacob Paulsen: like as he's going through the door or even like on the sidewalk in
Jacob Paulsen: front of the the stop and rob
Jacob Paulsen: the the bg comes out the door with the checker the employee you know at gunpoint
Jacob Paulsen: at knife point i think i think at gunpoint and telling her basically how he's
Jacob Paulsen: going to bury her where no one will find her yep and there's kind of a moment of like,
Jacob Paulsen: I see you, you see me, crap.
Jacob Paulsen: And he has to basically fight his way back to his car to get his gun to end this threat.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's the first place I'll start with some tactical considerations is...
Jacob Paulsen: One of the concerns that we have is traditionally
Jacob Paulsen: with the administrative shift
Jacob Paulsen: of the gun from on-body to off-body in the car is the likelihood that you won't
Jacob Paulsen: shift it back just for convenience sake when you're just stopping for something
Jacob Paulsen: quick or you'll forget. I mean, maybe it's not even a conscious decision.
Jacob Paulsen: You're just like, how many times in your life have you gotten out of that car
Jacob Paulsen: and have not built the habit of rearm up?
Jacob Paulsen: So that's, I think, a starting point.
Riley Bowman: Oh, for sure. Yeah, tactically speaking, I mean, just imagine – here's the thing.
Riley Bowman: A lot of carjackings that
Riley Bowman: occur or theft in general that happens on the roadside start out as accidents
Riley Bowman: where the carjacker is in another stolen vehicle of some kind and bumps into you,
Riley Bowman: crashes into you, whatever, because they're basically just car hopping.
Riley Bowman: Like okay well this this one served its purpose it's time for the next vehicle
Riley Bowman: kind of thing you know because i ran over three curbs with that one trying to
Riley Bowman: escape the police whatever you know
Riley Bowman: and so now they've bumped into you you're like oh it's
Riley Bowman: a fender bender you pull over you know and you're just you're caught unawares
Riley Bowman: or you're just not thinking about it uh you're or you don't think it's a possibility
Riley Bowman: whatever it is yeah you're so fender bender okay you pull over you get out your
Riley Bowman: vehicle next thing you know you're face to face with a gun you know point being is that
Riley Bowman: Because in the moment, everything happens so fast,
Riley Bowman: and your brain, I promise you, is going to shortcut everything it can.
Riley Bowman: When crap hits the fan, the way our brains work is to basically eliminate everything
Riley Bowman: else that's considered to be extraneous noise that's unnecessary to my survival in the moment.
Riley Bowman: And so you're not thinking about grabbing your gun in the center console or
Riley Bowman: in the cup holder even or whatever.
Riley Bowman: You know when you are hyped up in the moment with adrenaline
Riley Bowman: because dog got it my brand new 2026 whatever
Riley Bowman: fancy in this awesome car just got
Riley Bowman: crashed into by this kid you know because the kid's probably 14 years old and
Riley Bowman: he's carjacking because that's what we're seeing a lot more of right and so
Riley Bowman: you're you're getting out and next thing you know you now maybe need to defend
Riley Bowman: yourself but you left your gun back there in the cup holder and now the problem
Riley Bowman: is too Now they're stealing your car and your gun.
Riley Bowman: So anyway, all kinds of problems abound with the tactical problem of having
Riley Bowman: your gun being staged in the vehicle and not on your person.
Jacob Paulsen: One concern that I think can be managed pretty easily, but it's something to
Jacob Paulsen: have on the radar, is just that if someone can look into your vehicle and see the gun,
Jacob Paulsen: right, because it's in that holster that's tucked under the dash or it's shoved
Jacob Paulsen: in, your holster is shoved in between the seat and the console and that's your game plan.
Jacob Paulsen: Just walking by with the flashlight or just looking like,
Jacob Paulsen: is there anything in this car that's clearly worth breaking bust in
Jacob Paulsen: this window that would be less than desirable i think
Jacob Paulsen: it's easily addressed you know regardless of what you might be
Jacob Paulsen: using if i was using the var safety thing i would i could chuck something over
Jacob Paulsen: it i mean it doesn't sit like super visible it's it sits below the height of
Jacob Paulsen: the seat but it's potentially visible i suppose especially in like a low like
Jacob Paulsen: uh sedan or something so you could put something over it yeah but that would be another thought just.
Riley Bowman: Having like a black towel or something
Jacob Paulsen: Sure sure black or gray yeah yeah.
Riley Bowman: Hoodie whatever yeah
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah so So just so we don't invite someone to come see if they can yank this thing out.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think that's another consideration that we have to have.
Jacob Paulsen: Again, knowing what your situation is, who you are, what your lifestyle is.
Jacob Paulsen: Make your own decisions, but understand that there's some inherent risk in administrative
Jacob Paulsen: handling in terms of safety.
Jacob Paulsen: There's some inherent risk in not having the gun on you when you potentially
Jacob Paulsen: leave the car and leave the gun behind.
Jacob Paulsen: There's some inherent risk in the majority of car holster systems that we've
Jacob Paulsen: seen fail over and over again and that John so aptly demonstrated in his video.
Jacob Paulsen: And there's some inherent risk in your car being targeted for theft if they
Jacob Paulsen: can see something visibly through the window.
Jacob Paulsen: So, and those are some concerns. There's also a potential legal issue depending on the state you're in.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Well, I mean, you and I are in a state now where the law,
Riley Bowman: I mean, and I know there's going to be, most of our listeners are going to be
Riley Bowman: like, this is the biggest bullcrap thing ever, right?
Riley Bowman: But it is the law. And there's a few other states that have similar laws as well.
Riley Bowman: But, you know, if I need to exit my vehicle and leave my gun in the vehicle,
Riley Bowman: then the gun by law is required to be secured, right, inaccessible and not visible,
Jacob Paulsen: Right? Yeah. That's pretty standard in the, call it less than 10 states that
Jacob Paulsen: have some sort of vehicle secure storage law. And we're seeing that more and more.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Virginia just passed one. so the kind of the standard flavor of this is
Jacob Paulsen: you know secured in a hard-sided container and not visible from the outside
Jacob Paulsen: of the vehicle so those tend to be the things that are required so.
Jacob Paulsen: Those are easily achieved. And again, to reiterate something you said at the
Jacob Paulsen: beginning, I have to leave a gun in my car on occasion, like all of us do.
Jacob Paulsen: So this isn't just a you're good or bad or me and Riley's kind of higher level
Jacob Paulsen: opinion about what's the best practice here.
Jacob Paulsen: There's also just an outright practical reality, which is that all of us at
Jacob Paulsen: some points have to leave our guns in our cars.
Jacob Paulsen: And so the law is dictating
Jacob Paulsen: in the states which is a very small
Jacob Paulsen: number of states that have a law like this but it's dictating what
Jacob Paulsen: i think are the best practices that doesn't mean i support the law i don't want
Jacob Paulsen: the law the law can shove it like i don't it's no good for me but it is kind
Jacob Paulsen: of regulating what inherently we generally think of as the best practices which
Jacob Paulsen: is that you secure this gun in some sort of hard-sided lock container that's
Jacob Paulsen: not visible from the outside i'll go one step further,
Jacob Paulsen: that the hard-sided or locked container itself is secured to the car.
Jacob Paulsen: So it doesn't do you any good if someone can break open the car and take the
Jacob Paulsen: lockbox with the gun and walk out with it.
Jacob Paulsen: So those tend to be the things that we see in the laws in the handful of states
Jacob Paulsen: that have one like addressing this.
Riley Bowman: And I know you and I both for a long time talk about best practices have had
Riley Bowman: like a small pistol vault in the vehicle that is at the very least cabled or locked to
Riley Bowman: a frame or whatever of a seat or something in the vehicle.
Riley Bowman: This is what I've done for years, where it's going to leave the gun in the vehicle.
Riley Bowman: So pull that, just slide that. It's just underneath back seat.
Riley Bowman: Slide out that little pistol vault, open it up, remove my gun holster,
Riley Bowman: stick it in there, close it up, stick it back under the seat.
Riley Bowman: You know it's simple yeah and it works
Riley Bowman: i mean it's not my favorite most favorite thing
Riley Bowman: ever i mean what obviously i would prefer is just to leave the gun
Riley Bowman: on me uh but uh you know there's times where it's got to happen and that's that's
Riley Bowman: that's what happens and um you know fortunately we're all we're you know we're
Riley Bowman: seeing more and more options for this kind of thing uh and so i like options yeah
Jacob Paulsen: Absolutely another circumstance we didn't mention here that's also highly valid
Jacob Paulsen: is that you might be traveling through a state where you just lose that option, right?
Jacob Paulsen: So I'd call that less common probably, but yeah, certainly there are states
Jacob Paulsen: where I, as a Colorado resident with a Colorado self-carry permit,
Jacob Paulsen: am not going to be able to continue to have my gun on me in my pants while I'm
Jacob Paulsen: traveling through that given state.
Jacob Paulsen: So those would be another potential circumstance where I need to sit to your
Jacob Paulsen: place to lock it in the car.
Riley Bowman: Yep, yep. Yes, 100%.
Riley Bowman: If you live in Vermont and you need to drive down to, you know,
Riley Bowman: Pennsylvania or Virginia, you know, like, yeah, you're at the very least you're
Riley Bowman: going to be passing through New York at some point. Right.
Riley Bowman: So what are you going to do there? Right. And as a Vermont resident,
Riley Bowman: you almost certainly don't have privileges to carry a gun concealed or open
Riley Bowman: or otherwise while you're traversing the mighty state of New York anyway.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Well said.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: Anything else that we've missed here as part of this discussion here today?
Jacob Paulsen: I don't think so. I mean, I think the points I wanted to make sure that we hit
Jacob Paulsen: in summary would be, first and foremost, that we have to be considerate of the
Jacob Paulsen: strategy of gun on body or gun off body.
Jacob Paulsen: And in the cases that we go off body, we have potential risk in the administrative handling thereof.
Jacob Paulsen: And we can minimize some of that in the ways we discussed.
Jacob Paulsen: Second, some carry positions are probably more advantageous than others.
Jacob Paulsen: And the carry position that you choose or that you kind of are forced to choose
Jacob Paulsen: based on any number of potential circumstances may drive some of your other
Jacob Paulsen: decisions relative to what makes sense for you in a vehicle.
Jacob Paulsen: Third, that another potential risk is the tactical one, which is the risk of
Jacob Paulsen: leaving the gun in the car when it should be leaving the car with you.
Jacob Paulsen: That also that vehicle theft is, you know, excuse me, firearm theft from a vehicle
Jacob Paulsen: is a very serious concern.
Jacob Paulsen: And so the permanent, you know, leaving of a gun in a car is not ideal unless
Jacob Paulsen: it's truly secured and not visible.
Jacob Paulsen: We talked about some of the legal issues in some states now that have secure
Jacob Paulsen: storage laws relating to a vehicle.
Jacob Paulsen: And we talked about, you know, I'll call it, you know, the just outright lifestyle
Jacob Paulsen: reality that all of us at some point or another are going to have to secure
Jacob Paulsen: our guns in a car and need a viable method to do that.
Riley Bowman: Perfect. I think that's a perfect summary of today's episode.
Riley Bowman: I appreciate your time here with me discussing these things.
Riley Bowman: Speaking of viable methods, wrapping it up here, sponsors of today's episode,
Riley Bowman: we've talked about it a couple of times now, Vara Safety, varasafety.com.
Riley Bowman: Specifically in the vehicle context, that reach to us, I think is a very viable
Riley Bowman: option for securing a firearm in your vehicle or having some kind of quick access method.
Riley Bowman: If you, for whatever reason, do not want to have it on your body,
Riley Bowman: on your person while securing a firearm,
Riley Bowman: While traveling in your vehicle, there's so many options you and I both,
Riley Bowman: Jacob, have looked at over the years.
Riley Bowman: We've had people send us products to review and we're like, eh,
Riley Bowman: you know, or offer to send us a product and we're like, eh,
Riley Bowman: don't bother, you know, because we just know it's not going to fit the ethos,
Riley Bowman: if you will, and, you know, best practices of vehicle carrying and storage and staging of a firearm.
Riley Bowman: But the Reach 2S is an awesome product.
Riley Bowman: We're very, very impressed with it. And something that's worth noting here is
Riley Bowman: it is a rechargeable battery.
Riley Bowman: It's 10 plus month rechargeable battery, which I remember when we filmed the
Riley Bowman: video introducing it, I wasn't sure on how long that would last,
Riley Bowman: but apparently it would last a good while.
Riley Bowman: And also it's good to note that it's a California DOJ certified product.
Riley Bowman: I know California is not a very popular state in our community,
Riley Bowman: but that may be relevant for some of you to know that it is a DOJ certified
Riley Bowman: product for securing of your firearm.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's a minimum standard that any gun secure thing should have.
Jacob Paulsen: California is the only existing like testing protocol for gun storage and gun
Jacob Paulsen: safety solutions like this.
Jacob Paulsen: And so without that, it would be like, so you had like no third party test your product.
Riley Bowman: So anyway, yeah, another context there.
Riley Bowman: It's not like it's not a crazy, ridiculous, you know, high standard per se,
Riley Bowman: but it is a standard and it is particularly applicable for those that live in
Riley Bowman: California and need a legally compliant storage solution.
Riley Bowman: But anyway, let's check out the Reach 2S and the rifle or shotgun oriented racked
Riley Bowman: product at varasafety.com.
Riley Bowman: In today's episode other sponsor was the vehicle firearm tactics course from
Riley Bowman: us here at concealed carry.com you can view it in guardian university go to
Riley Bowman: concealed carry.com forward slash videos if you want to go straight to just
Riley Bowman: seeing where that is in guardian university um
Riley Bowman: or you can go to another short link would be to get directly to that course
Riley Bowman: especially if you want to buy it go to concealed carry.com forward slash vft
Riley Bowman: that's our sponsors today that's all we got jacob i'll do well until next time
Riley Bowman: a reminder to train right train often and train safe so you can
Jacob Paulsen: Fight hard fight fast and fight true take care.
Riley Bowman: There you have it we'll see you guys
Riley Bowman: A reminder that laws vary from place to place, and we encourage listeners to
Riley Bowman: seek local legal advice to understand applicable laws.
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, Inc., its brands and properties, and the Concealed Carry podcast
Riley Bowman: is not a legal service, nor are we attorneys at law.
Riley Bowman: We make our best faith effort to share Concealed Carry-related insights and
Riley Bowman: information about firearm-related incidents and the laws pertaining,
Riley Bowman: based on our own understanding and experience.
Riley Bowman: But things can be different where you live, or laws may have changed by the
Riley Bowman: time you listen to this. We cannot be held liable for your actions based on
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Riley Bowman: Please exercise care with all things pertaining to firearm use,
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, and always practice following basic firearm safety rules.
Riley Bowman: More information about safety can be found at concealedcarry.com forward slash safety.