When most people think “Concealed Carry,” they think about just putting a shirt, jacket, or vest over their carry handgun. The truth is that concealment is so much more than that, and it’s not a binary on or off. It’s a sliding scale based on a variety of circumstances. When I took the Green Ops Covert Carry Skills class in February, there was a discussion about the differences between Concealed and Covert.
Concealed Carry vs. Covert Carry
Mike talked about the difference being the severity of consequences suffered if you’re discovered to be armed.
I feel like the gun-carrying public could benefit from overhauling their ideas and moving more towards covert vs. concealed carry.
This can be done in several ways:
- The obvious one is to make sure you’re not dressing like “a gun guy.” Or even dressing like someone who is unlikely to be carrying a firearm.
- Possibly carrying a smaller gun, based on the situation
- Being more thoughtful and attentive about the efficacy of our concealment
Along these same lines, Claude Werner commented in a podcast appearance on the difference between a “Denied Area” and a true “Non-Permissive Environment.”
What delineates one from the other is that while guns may be forbidden in a denied area, there tend to be more active measures taken to ensure that in an NPE.