I was just pulled over with a gun for the first time

Earlier tonight I got pulled over on my way home for driving too fast. I had drunk a small amount alcohol earlier in the night (though I was certainly not over the limit at any point, let alone still affected by this time), and I had a pistol on me, both of which I volunteered on the scene. After the investigation was concluded I was let go with a warning for speeding.When the officer signaled for me to pull over, I immediately slowed down and engaged my turn signal, even though there wasn't a safe spot for me to pull over yet. If you don't immediately communicate that you acknowledge the lawful order to pull over, you will piss off the cop and he will stick it to you however he can. I learned this from experience when I was younger.I pulled over at the first safe opportunity. I didn't pull over immediately, because there wasn’t sufficient space to do so safely in the event of oncoming traffic. I waited for a shoulder wide enough that I could be out of traffic, and he could be positioned to my left without being in traffic. If you mess this up you will piss off the cop. I learned that one from prior experience, too.When I pulled over, I turned off the car, put the keys on the dash, turned on all the lights, rolled down all the windows, and put my hands on the wheel. Cops can't see through your tinted windows at night. If you make an effort to create as much visibility as possible, they will notice and appreciate it. If you don't think about this you'll make the cop wonder if he's about to die. That's not the mood you want him in.When the officer asked for ID, I said "Right front pocket", waited for him to acknowledge, and handed him both my driver license and my license to carry a handgun. This is the law in my state, it communicated that I wasn't trying to shoot him, and it told him ahead of time that I had a gun without me having to say those words out loud and him potentially misunderstanding and shouting "GUN" to his partner while shooting me.When he saw my LTC he asked if I had my weapon on me, and I answered affirmatively. He asked where. "Appendix", I said. He had no clue what that meant. "1 o'clock", I clarified. A second passed while the gears in his head visibly turned. "Oh, right there?" he asked, looking mildly surprised and worried, probably realizing that my gun was positioned in such a way that if I had chosen to do so, I could probably have put a bullet in him before he had a chance to react. He said that he was going to disarm me, and asked me to step out of the vehicle and not touch the weapon.I was wearing a Glock 19 in a Sidecar holster. He saw the right-hand clip and successfully unhooked it, but didn't understand that there was a second clip on the mag side. He gave up and began to pull the gun out of the holster. "Please be careful, considering where that's pointed," I asked. This was a liability of appendix carry I had certainly never considered before. I indicated the second clip and he got the holster off without drawing the pistol.He then took out my EDC knife and double-checked me for any additional weapons, asking me to confirm that he had gotten everything. He completely missed the defensive blade I had in a horizontal sheath at the 6 o'clock position on my belt. I guess that's a relatively sneaky place to put a blade. I told him about it. He sincerely thanked me as he removed it. That was an extra opportunity to gain goodwill.He asked a lot of questions about alcohol. I told him I had a drink earlier. It's a good thing I chose not to go the "safe" route and say I hadn't had anything, because it was a cognac-based drink and he said he could smell it. He asked a lot of backward-and-forward timeline questions trying to establish both when I had the drink and whether I was giving him a true story. He had me optically track a flashlight. He ran my ID. Everything cleared.When responding to questions I thought carefully about the legal implications of my answers before giving them. A truthful description of perfectly legal behavior can get you in trouble if you say it wrong. An example from this stop:"On a scale from 0 to 10, where 10 is the most drunk you've ever been and 0 is the most sober you've ever been, where are you right now?""I'm sober.""Yes, but on a scale from 0 to 10.""I'm aware that I'm answering a legal question right now, and I don't know how to give you a number. What I can tell you is that I'm sober."He smiled. There were a few more formal steps but that was clearly the end of the investigation.We talked about guns for a bit (his partner had his taser holstered in a cross-draw position that interfered with his magazine) and parted ways.Lessons learned:I used to laugh at people who said they never carried if they had drunk a single drop of alcohol in the past 24 hours, or never went near a bar (even a carry-legal one) while carrying a gun. I knew that alcohol was a legally tricky thing but I wasn't worried about it, as long as I knew I was within the law. This encounter has me rethinking that stance. If I had made a mistake in my statements, or if the officer had been hopelessly determined to be an asshole despite my unimpeachable sobriety, the stop could have gone differently. The puritanical laws surrounding alcohol (not to mention its overlap with firearms) give police entirely too much room to make up the standard as they go along.Appendix carry can get you shot in the dick by other people. via /r/CCW http://ift.tt/2ryEWE0