Mexican Confessions

We were waiting for the kidnappers to call.

They called everyday at 3pm, on the dot and it was day four into it for me. The old man was a vaquero, the real deal, who owned several rancheros down in Mexico. Most of them small plots of land, ten to fifty acres with one or two going up to a couple of hundred. For all intents and purposes, a middle class man leading a middle class life. I hated that we had met under such bad circumstances.

His son had been kidnapped by Mexican gang bangers not exactly the cartel types but, no less violent, no less dangerous. They had kidnapped him while he was visiting family for the Christmas holiday but, instead of his son coming home from the trip he received a ransom note demanding of $200,000. He had paid them $5,000 here, ten thousand there but, it was nowhere what they had wanted. Finally, a cousin of the old man had reached out to me and there I sat waiting for the phone to ring.

Negotiations had now started in earnest and, it was going better than I had hoped as they had started to move down in price. Me being at $25,000. The kidnappers, now being at $125,000. Which was far better than when we had started with them offering $10,000 for each ear lobe returned and me telling them to that I don't pay for parts or damaged goods, followed by hanging up the phone on them.

It was cold outside. The five below kind of cold. So, we sat in the hotel room waiting. 

Growing up as a Midwest kid who loved all things western I relished in any tales of "old Mexico". Using the cousin as a translator I inquired about the old man's life. "Ask him if he ever carried a pistola?" ,without missing a beat the old Vaquero said "Si, pistola" and patted his leg. I grinned and imagined him either carrying an old Peacemaker or, a Colt 1911 in .38 Super. He continued with, now using the cousin and me being able to pick up with what Mexican I knew, that he had in fact carried a Colt Super 38, which is how it was originally termed.

In the old days of Mexico, when the honest man could be armed, the 45 ACP was a "military" cartridge and forbidden from civilian ownership, so South of the border the .38 Super flourished. Then in broken English he said "everyone carried pistola" again patting his leg "Vaqueros carry pistolas into the mountains, to fiestas. Everyone carry pistola back then. No trouble. Now, no pistolas and much trouble.".

If you could surmise gun control into a Spanish styled haiku, the old vaquero just had.

Then he added "Federales say NO pistolas! and everyone..." and, he indicated through pantomime, that people stuck the guns in the waistbands and covered them with their shirts. "Now some pistolas. No holsters", again patting his leg. Hence the origin of the term "Mexican Carry".

When it first came into our lexicon, the term Mexican Carry, was somewhat specified as being carried in front of the waistband, absent of any holster, in the now very trendy "appendix carry" position. As time went on, Mexican Carry became somewhat fluid with a pistol tucked in the waistband, regardless of where on the body. Most people I knew, when they Mexican Carried, did so by slipping the gun in the back of their pants or, on their strong side, on the hip. 

One might reason, with some level of justification, why someone here in the golden age of holsters would even consider it? Especially when so many an "expert" has labeled it as damn dangerous. To the point that you will be met with an almost certain expectation of the gun failing either out of the waistband, down your pant leg, and onto the floor. Others will tell you that, it is an almost assured pathway to a negligent discharge. In truth, after a quarter of a century of experience I can tell you that it's not dangerous nor, is the chance of a negligent discharge any more possible than with any holster. 

Your pants have to fit right.

Your pants have to fit right because, simply enough they are the holster. Put your gun in a holster that fits wrong or loose and your gun is going to fall out. The waist band has to fit you somewhere between having a little bit of a gap and snug. From here a good belt acts as the tension device, allowing you to adjust as needed.

The small of your back is the worst place.

In the 1980s, this was where every rogue cop/action hero carried is 9mm Beretta. Standing up, they'd take the gun off the table and tuck into the back of the pants. All cool and roguish. The reality is, no worst position exists, than for the gun to be carried Mexican than when it's carried in the Five, Six , or Seven O'clock position. With even the Four and Eight O'clock positions being somewhat questionable, but largely based on body build. Here your mileage with simply vary, as the saying goes. 

The reason the small of the back doesn't work is that there is simply too much flex in the body here, too much give on a re-occurring basis with clothing. In other words, when you sit down pants tend to gape at the small of the back when sitting, thus causing the gun to slip down into the pants, swallowing the grip as well. Body size doesn't matter here, and the area should be avoided. 

Strong Side is the Best

Whether you're right handed or left handed the handgun is going to move the absolute least here. Mainly because the gun rides parallel to the body, it shifts as the body shifts. This is because the hip dictates the movement. It'd be wrong to tell you that the gun doesn't move or shift slightly out of position when you Mexican Carry on the strong side. It just happens in the opposite of what you expect. When you sit down, the barrel pivots forward and the grip moves rearward. This happens when you carry any handgun in any In-the-Waistband holster. The difference between Mexican Carry and IWB Holster carry is that in Mexican Carry the gun doesn't always return to position and, you have to rotate the butt of the weapon.  Understand, we are not talking about a large amount of movement, but rather fractions of an inch. Something you've most likely had to do even when wearing a holster. The reality is that, anything on the hip, whether it's a pistol, a phone, or anything worn on the belt moves at some point. Put it back where you want it and go on about it.

"IT'S NOT SECURE! YOUR GUN WILL FALL OUT OF YOUR PANTS!"

Some years back, I was out to dinner with some friends at a pizza place at the mall. My frequent carry piece was often an all steel Karh E9 (not a K9 but their early E9 model) in 9mm. After dinner was over we all headed out into the mall, in attendance that evening was a lovely red headed girl whom I had a rather severe crush on. Of course there was another guy there who also seemed to be interested in her. Suddenly for some inexplicable reason, he and I decided to race down the UP escalator. He had the advantage of being on the escalator first, hence making it impossible to pass him. Plan B game into my mind quickly enough and, felt that it was in my best interest to do what any Ninja....in a mall would do. I put my hands on the side when we were ten feet from the bottom and vaulted myself over the side of the escalator.

Now UP escalators have a funny tenancy to actually go UP. Including their hand rails. So while my brain had made the calculation for a ten foot landing, I was now presented with a fifteen foot drop as my hands were also carried up. My Altama Desert boots landed hard on the mall floor, but since a body in motion tends to stay in motion I quickly rolled landing hard on the 9mm in question. I popped back up, only to roll again and, again land on the pistol. So it would go, three more times, until finally I managed to stay upright on my feet. The pistol still in place.

When I returned to my loft later that night, I lowered my Levis to find a bruise on my hip in the same shape of the Kahr.

It did all work out in the end. The pretty red head married me a few years later. 

Not all guns are created equal

The idea most fail to realize is that the gun actually ends up with the trigger covered twice. Once by the pants, once by the belt. So the idea that you are going to somehow accidentally trip the trigger, is no more or less possible than if you were wearing a holster. It all depends on how you draw the gun. The pants, the shorts, the holster bear no significance in this. Where your finger is during the draw does.

Not all guns are capable of being Mexican carried. In my experience it has more to do with frame size and barrel length than anything else. For instance, over the years I have owned very small framed handguns like the wonderfully built North American Arms Mini Mag revolver and a few Beretta Bobcat and Tomcats. They are great miniature handguns, however they are not well suited for holster less in the waist band carry, simply because they are too small. 

The Mexican Carry method, in order to work well, relies on the gun's ability to be wedged in between the belt/pant and body. The grip had to be just long enough to hang over the belt. The barrel long enough to get below the belt line.  Consequently, get the barrel too long on the handgun, and it will want to push out when seated. In my years of carrying this way, the two guns I have carried the most have been either a 1911 or a J Frame Smith & Wesson 38 Special. The world being what it is, and my job having taken me all over there have been lots of pistols tucked into a pair of Levis sans holsters that worked well. A Tokarev in one country, a SiG P225 in another. I had a brief dalliance with a Makarov that I honestly miss, but is lost elsewhere to time now. A Ruger SP101 in 357 Magnum was sold to a friend. All Mexican Carried. All done so without incident.

That said, the idea of carrying a Glock sans, holster would be well advised to be avoided,

What matter’s most 

If you missed the part where I said your pants have to fit right, let me reiterate that here and a belt matters most. The belt acts as the retention device that allows you to adjust tension as you so desire to pull the gun in snug. If the pants are to loose in the waist, sagging off your hips and you decide to forgo a belt then one of two things is going to happen. The pistol is going to fall out when you sit down, or it’s going to slide down your pant leg as your stand up. I can not stress this part enough. Ill fitted pants are no different than an ill fitting holster and, it going to fail. After that, were your finger is when you draw or, re-holster is paramount. There is one caveat to this. Tucking the gun back in your jeans is a two handed method. You want to use your weak hand to pull the waistband out so you can slip the pistol in. The dumbest thing you can do in the “re-holstering” process in Mexican Carry is wiggling the gun in, because at some point you have to put the muzzle against your hip to open up the waist band. There’s simply no room for error here.

None.

Finally, most of us who Mexican carry do so because there was a time when there wasn’t the vast array of ultra-concealable In-the-Waistband holsters available. Back in my corporate executive protection days most everyone I worked with did it this way. Bill, who had been in a few gun fights as a metropolitan cop routinely carried his Smith & Wesson Model 624, 44 Special in this manner. As for me the go-to holster for my 1911s is an old Desert Special from Dillon, the Progressive Reloader manufacturer, it’s a great IWB holster with God knows how many miles on it, as I have worn it more than any other. It also isn’t close to how concealable some holsters are now, and Mexican Carry is flat, fast, and very concealable. So the truth is, old habits die hard. The reality is there are fewer and fewer reasons to carry in this method as time goes on. While I think, personally, that we live in the Silver age of gun design, with all of the “meh” plastic guns being flashed around on social media, I do think we live in the Golden age of both holsters and ammunition and, you would be at a disadvantage to not embrace buying any number of quality holsters. That said, if you see an old timer who is Mexican Carrying a pistol you might want to forgo the lecture on his “careless” ways, because if it were in fact that, he wouldn’t have ever become an old timer.

As for the old vaquero's son who had been kidnapped? Well maybe one of these days I'll get around to writing that book.