I’m Canadian and live in Canada and have had my PAL and RPAL for 20 yrs, but from 2007 to 2014 I lived in the US in Texas and Alabama. While in TX I decided to get my concealed carry permit. Not because I felt I desperately needed it but because I figured I’d probably never get the chance again and wanted to have that experience. I carried a CZ 75 Compact in .40S&W and did NOT carry “cocked and locked.” I kept a full mag in it when carrying and half-heartedly practised drawing and racking the slide in one smooth motion (with an empty mag of course) but would not claim to have ever gotten very slick at it. My thinking was that if something went down and I was able to assist I’d hopefully have time to assess the situation and consider the use of force including a firearm. I had no illusions that I would be able to stop someone from sneaking up on me personally or catching me by surprise and somehow beat them in a fast draw or anything Hollywood like that. I prefer a shotgun for home defence or a camp gun anyway, but they’re a bit cumbersome to tote around WalMart. The requirements for getting the TX concealed carry permit were stringent in terms of background checks, course work, written test and live fire proficiency test. Some of the instruction by a retired police officer seemed a bit far fetched (i.e. he recommended practicing your fast draw and proudly claimed he was never more than 10 ft from a loaded gun at any location in his house) but I learned a lot of useful things about self defence, liabilities as a permit holder, how to conceal, how to spot others who are concealing, etc. While living in Alabama my TX carry permit expired so I looked into the Alabama concealed carry permit process. Alabama allowed open carry at the time with no permit required (but there were still laws about where you could and could not carry a firearm), and I learned that all you had to do to get a concealed carry permit was pass a quick name-based police record check. Yikes.
Reflecting on my pistol packing days I think I’m in favour of a concealed carry option for Canada as long as we have a rigorous permitting process and very clear laws about storage, where carry is and is not allowed, etc. But as has been repeatedly pointed out, the culture of Canada, and particularly Eastern Canada will never see it happen. Shame, that.
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