So my wife, children, and I often enough go to a local park right on the lake. It puts us a couple hundred yards away from the vehicle. As we both tend to swim and play in the water with the kids (who are too young to be more than a few feet away from in the water) I simply accept this is one of those places where concealed carry is out. We also tend to be some distance away from the bags we leave on the beach so off-body carry is not an option.
No big deal right?
Last night as we were walking towards the car a medium dog comes barreling towards the kids. Now a forty pound dog is probably not a disastrous threat to an adult but to a kid... different story. It should be noted this is specifically an animal free beach if it matters. I stepped between my children and the dog and the animal did stop while the owners assured me from a distance that it was friendly.
Frankly I'm not letting an unrestrained dog get close enough to my children to test that theory - especially a dog that is not responding to its owners commands. My wife informed the owners that dogs were prohibited from the beach only to have the nonsense answer "its a service dog because it makes me happy" given. Perhaps I was less than polite in informing them that service dogs were required to be leashed and under control and frankly I did not believe that "it makes me happy" was one of the acceptable reasons for a service dog (for the record it is not on the list of tasks which a registered service dog must be able to perform to count as a service dog).
Now the two owners did not drastically concern me. Quick, somewhat narcissistic calculation told me I could handle the situation should it get out of hand though the dog presented an issue if it did. I simply put myself between them (one who was attempting to restrain the dog), my wife, and the kids as we made a controlled "retreat" to the van. There was some verbal stuff tossed around in the process and one of the individuals seemed to be rather aggressive in nature.
So it got me to thinking, more than I should, about concealed carry in such an environment. How would one go about carrying a concealable pistol in light beach clothing that is likely to be exposed to and submerged in water?
No big deal right?
Last night as we were walking towards the car a medium dog comes barreling towards the kids. Now a forty pound dog is probably not a disastrous threat to an adult but to a kid... different story. It should be noted this is specifically an animal free beach if it matters. I stepped between my children and the dog and the animal did stop while the owners assured me from a distance that it was friendly.
Frankly I'm not letting an unrestrained dog get close enough to my children to test that theory - especially a dog that is not responding to its owners commands. My wife informed the owners that dogs were prohibited from the beach only to have the nonsense answer "its a service dog because it makes me happy" given. Perhaps I was less than polite in informing them that service dogs were required to be leashed and under control and frankly I did not believe that "it makes me happy" was one of the acceptable reasons for a service dog (for the record it is not on the list of tasks which a registered service dog must be able to perform to count as a service dog).
Now the two owners did not drastically concern me. Quick, somewhat narcissistic calculation told me I could handle the situation should it get out of hand though the dog presented an issue if it did. I simply put myself between them (one who was attempting to restrain the dog), my wife, and the kids as we made a controlled "retreat" to the van. There was some verbal stuff tossed around in the process and one of the individuals seemed to be rather aggressive in nature.
So it got me to thinking, more than I should, about concealed carry in such an environment. How would one go about carrying a concealable pistol in light beach clothing that is likely to be exposed to and submerged in water?