So you’ve gotten a permit to carry a concealed firearm and you want to make a purchase. How do you know what to buy? Walking into a gun store with no idea of what you want or what you should be looking for is pretty intimidating, but some simple guidelines will put you on the path to finding the right gun for you.
1. DO Try Some Options
If you have a friend who already owns a concealed-carry firearm, or better yet, several of them, offer to buy them a couple boxes of ammo if they’ll take you to the range and let you shoot their gun(s). This is a great way to get a feel for what you like and don’t like, and it gives you a chance to pick a more experienced shooter’s brain. Most of us have made mistakes and some dud purchases over the years, and maybe we can help you avoid the same things.
Alternatively, you might be able to find a gun range that rents firearms, or a gun store that will let you shoot some options at their range, but unfortunately, these places can be hard to find in my experience.
2. DO Choose a Good Brand
Restrict your research to well-known brands that have a good reputation and a reliable history. Your first gun purchase is not a time to be taking a chance on an up-and-coming brand that might not be in business by this time next year. Buying a relatively common gun from a well-known, reliable brand ensures that the warranty will be worth something, and you’ll find that most gun-counter jockeys are familiar enough with the model to give you advice or fix minor problems.
3. DO Be Careful From Whom You Take Advice
Just because someone works behind a gun counter doesn’t mean they actually know what they’re talking about and can give sensible advice about what’s right for you. Many sales associates at a gun store are great, but some are out of touch or just clueless. In addition, while the internet is full of great resources and research opportunities, beware of fanboys and overly enthusiastic brand loyalists. Reddit and other forums are chockful of posters who will swear that their gun is the only good gun that’s ever been made and every other firearm in existence is junk.
However, that’s not to say everything you find online is suspect. Stories that resulted from NRA Women’s five Ladies Pistol Projects produced legitimate survey results and delivered solid information on guns that women prefer to shoot.
4. DON’T Just Buy the Smallest Gun
Speaking of advice, many people—even some whose job it is to sell guns—mistakenly believe that women will be best served with the smallest gun they can find. This is usually false for a number of reasons: Super-small guns are difficult to shoot well, they can be uncomfortable to fire, and believe it or not, they don’t always conceal more easily than slightly larger guns.
You might end up with a very small, micro- or subcompact handgun, but if you buy one, make sure you’ve researched it and made an informed decision rather than just buying the smallest thing in the display case because you automatically assumed that smaller is better.
5. DO Think About Capacity
If you’re tempted by a revolver or a single-stack semiauto, consider how many rounds the gun holds. It could be as few as five or six. Will that be enough in the moment of truth? There’s no way to know, but it’s a factor you shouldn’t overlook. Manufacturers have gotten really good at cramming a lot of rounds in some of today’s compact and even subcompact guns, so there’s no reason to settle for a low capacity unless you have other good reasons for choosing a particular gun.
6. DON’T Be Seduced by Looks
Look, I’m all for pink guns and bling if that’s your thing. All else being equal, I’m partial to the elegance of stainless steel and beautiful rosewood grips. But my carry gun is plain-Jane black polymer, and I save the more eye-catching guns (in larger sizes) for the range. I know a woman who pretty much never shoots, but she purchased a micro-compact, 1911-style .380 in stainless and rosewood. She thought it was cool-looking. While it was certainly a beautiful gun, it’s far from ideal for a brand-new shooter who shoved the gun in her tote bag (a whole other issue) and never practiced with it. There’s a lot going on with a gun like that, but she didn’t care that she might not remember how to operate it three years from now when she actually goes to shoot it.
Beautiful guns have their place, and if you find the perfect concealed carry handgun for you and it happens to come in a color you love, that’s awesome. But when you’re staking your life on a purchase, you should prioritize function over form.
7. DO Think About Aftermarket Support
If you follow the advice to buy from a good brand, and particularly if you choose a popular model, you’ll have much greater options when it comes to holsters, upgrades and aftermarket add-ons. At the time I acquired my current concealed-carry handgun, it was from a well-known company but the gun itself was brand new on the market (I bought it because I had used it at a media event and really liked it). There was exactly one holster being made for it. Fortunately, that holster worked really well for me, and other holster makers have since caught on. But the fact is that finding the right gun/holster combo can be a real challenge, and you might go through several holsters before finding the best fit. If you pick a more obscure gun, you might find it hard to get that perfect fit due to a lack of selection.
More popular guns will also have more aftermarket options for parts upgrades, and it’s more likely that your local shop will carry them so you don’t have to order online and just hope for the best.
8. If All Else Fails, Buy a Glock or a S&W M&P
There are lots of great handguns on the market that meet every qualification on this list, and we’re not here to tell you what to buy. But if you are totally overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, consider one of the smaller (compact or subcompact) Smith & Wesson M&Ps or Glocks, in 9mm. Both are excellent brands with a long history of producing quality firearms, and the guns are common enough that you’ll have plenty of holster and aftermarket options. And any gun counter associate worth her salt is familiar with them already and can help you with any questions.
Again, do your research, shoot different options if you can, handle different guns to see what feels comfortable in your hand, and beware advice from blind brand loyalists. But if you can’t come to a clear decision and you just want someone to point you in the right direction, there’s a good chance you’ll be happy with a compact or subcompact Glock or S&W M&P.
