I think one of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to concealed carry is letting people who don't need to know know that they have a concealed handgun permit.
I've told this story before and it was a good lesson for me. Shortly after I got my concealed handgun permit, a friend of mine told me that he and his wife were considering getting concealed handgun permits.
I told him that I had mine and I briefly explained the process that I went through to get it.
A few weeks later, we were standing in the sanctuary of our church having a conversation with another guy. I don't even remember what we were talking about but I'm fairly certain we weren't talking about guns and out of nowhere, my friend told the third guy that I was carrying a gun right then. I pulled my friend to the side later and explained to him why I'd really rather that he didn't do that and as far as I know he never did again but I learned my lesson.
Once that information is out there there's no getting it back.
This isn't quite the same thing but I was on my church's security team. Believe it or not a lot of people in that church never even considered or cared that the security team might be armed.
My sister-in-law doesn't care for guns. She doesn't want to know about you carrying a gun she doesn't want any part of it.
She was in charge of some function at the church and I wasn't there so I don't know how it came about but she had mentioned to somebody that she was going to ask my wife and I if we wanted to come to the function.
One of the guys who was nominally on the security team turned around and told her that I wouldn't be able to attend because I had to go to my quarterly pistol qualification with the security team.
1. All the team members had been asked multiple times to keep that information discreet.
2. This guy had no business telling my business to my sister-in-law.
Again, once that information is out there there's no getting it back.
I totally agree. This type of stuff happens a lot in martial arts (especially if you're a black belt).
I was out with some relatives and we rented a 4 person bicycle. We returned it a couple of minutes after the time and they were going to charge us another hour of rent.
The rental guy didn't have good customer service skills and started talking mean to my relatives but not to me (I guess my calm demeanor helped...
). Anyway the guy and one of my relatives started raising their voices and my relative said, "You better be cool my relative(me) is a black belt in karate!". I just shook my head and the rental guy asked me if I was and I nodded my head. He asked me if I thought I could kick his ass. I told him I hated to fight.
I think my calm demeanor but direct eye contact let him know that I really didn't want any trouble. He didn't charge us for the extra hour. Later I got my relatives in a private area and told them to never do that again.
I've had a few times when I was working as a bouncer where somebody recognized me from karate tournaments or sitting on black belt testing board(group of black belts that test students for black belt). And most times that recognition was a good thing.
Stating that you're armed or have skills, even including that you're a veteran can sometimes escalate a situation not de-escalate. As it's been said many times, "No one wins in a fight.". I never enjoyed going "hands on" when I was working as a bouncer/bodyguard or in mental health. I did my best to calm things down.
I had some good buddies and students and we used to "play" pretty hard. We sometimes broke each other's noses, bruised some ribs, but we always felt bad for each other when these accidents happened.
Maybe that's why when I worked I had no desire to engage physically with anyone unless absolutely necessary. Most times when I hit or put a hold on people they'd go from acting like a badass to begging me not to hurt them. If you train hard enough martial arts techniques just flow and it's pretty easy to hurt someone, that's why you have to balance the physical training with mental drills that help you avoid using too much force or quickly releasing a hold.
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