Gun Tote’n Mamas and Lockable Concealed-Carry Bags

Gun Tote’n Mamas (GTM) never has and never will include a lock on its zipper compartment for its concealed carry bags and purses. Why? Because, as its owner’s manual states, “GTM products are designed and intended to allow you to carry a loaded gun or other SDD ready for immediate self-defense use. They are not intended, and should not be used, to replace gun safes, metal lock boxes, and other secure gun storage options.”

It is presumed that locks on concealed carry bags and purses will deter children and others who should not have access to this type of bag to do so. In its owner’s manual, GTM also lists helpful tips for awareness about children, and others, who shouldn’t have access to firearms.

These tips include the following:

• Never assume a child doesn’t know how to operate your gun. Children are ingenious and can figure out how to operate any gun. Or they may already know how to operate the gun, by having watched you do it, or having watched it done hundreds or thousands of times on TV.
• Never assume you can hide a gun – or your purse with a gun in it – where a child “can’t find it.” Decades of tragic experience have proven that children can find anything in your home, workplace, or vehicle, and that trying to “hide” the gun or a purse with a gun in it is not a reliable way to secure a deadly weapon.
• Never assume a child can’t reach high enough to get to your gun purse on top of
a cabinet or on a high shelf in a closet. Children have often used chairs, tables, step ladders, and boxes stacked on furniture to climb as high as necessary to reach whatever arouses their curiosity. As the old expression goes, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
• Never assume a child is so well-behaved that “they know never to touch my gun when I’m not around.” When you’re not around, how do you know what the child is doing? And even if your child or teenager is indeed as well behaved or well-trained as you think, are all of their friends and visitors similarly well-behaved and well trained about the dangers of guns?
• Never assume a child isn’t strong enough to operate your gun. A child who isn’t strong enough to pull the trigger in a normal manner will use both forefingers to pull
it -- or both thumbs, with the gun pointed toward themselves! A child who isn’t strong enough to cock a gun’s hammer will use both thumbs to do so or will press the hammer against a piece of furniture and lean their body weight on the gun to cock the hammer. In the same manner, a child who isn’t strong enough to cycle a pistol’s slide to chamber a cartridge will brace the front of the slide, or the front or rear sight, against a tabletop, chair seat, or other object, and will use their body weight to push downward on the pistol’s grip to cycle the slide and load the chamber. If in fact your child isn’t strong enough to operate your gun today, they may be strong enough next week, next month, or next year.

GTM recommends that you lock the purse with the gun in a safe place, where only you have access, if necessary.