Strong side hip carry

Strong side hip carry: AKA, the status quo gold standard of carrying a handgun.

Explanation

Carrying a handgun on your hip on the same side as your dominant hand has been the status-quo method of carrying a handgun for the greater half of the past century, and it remains the standard for law enforcement. And it predates firearms, in fact, as Romans would hip carry their gladius on their strong side.

Strong side hip carry is the only A+ grade IWB carry method and it's the only S-tier open carry method, after all, if you're going to open carry a handgun, strong side hip with a Safariland ALS or SLS holster is the way to go. So why is strong side hip carry the status quo in the industry?

1. Everybody can do hip carry. Maybe not IWB, due to differences in body shapes and pants sizes, but in a duty context, if you can wear a belt, much less if you're issued a good belt, then you can do OWB strong side hip carry.
2. Everybody makes holsters for strong side hip carry.
3. Strong side hip carry is pretty lacking in the glaring flaws department. There may be other carry positions that are faster, other carry positions that conceal larger guns, other carry positions that are more comfortable, or other carry positions that are more convenient, but strong side hip carry is so acceptably decent in every area that it's hard to really criticize it. Like what would you criticize? That it'll blow yer pecker off? That it'll injure your spine? That the draw is slow? That it only works with tiny guns?

Advantages And Disadvantages

The advantages to strong side hip carry are pretty simple and straight forward:

1. Access. Strong side hip carry offers great access to your gun.
2. Speed. While hip might not be as fast as appendix, it's still pretty fast, especially compared to other waistline carry methods such as behind hip, SOB, and crossdraw.
3. Safety, even in the presence of negligence. AIWB can totally be safe, but negligence-resistant it is not. SOB is notorious for spinal injuries, because the negligence there is in choosing small of back carry in the first place. Crossdraw easily leads to muzzling others, but it is pretty good at not pointing the gun into yourself. If you discharge the gun while holstering behind-hip, that can easily send lead into your pelvis, iliac artery, and/or femoral artery. If you discharge the gun while holstering at a 3 o'clock carry position, even with bad form and an inward angle while reholstering, you're probably only shooting your knee or thigh, maybe the femoral artery if you have a pretty severe inward angle.
4. Flexibility. Even as a die-hard fan of appendix carry, I get it, some people want to be able to bend over instead of doing the OSHA-approved squat. Appendix carry puts a moratorium on forward bending. SOB gives you the Ozai treatment, as it takes away your bending against your will. But strong side hip carry doesn't restrict your movement much, at least unless curving your spine sideways is a normal movement for you.
5. Decent visual and physical access. While strong side hip carry isn't quite as much under the user's control as appendix is, it's still pretty decent at being accessible to the user. Unlike SOB and behind hip carry, strong side hip carry offers the wearer decent visibility of their holster while they are holstering their gun.
6. Active retention. There aren't many carry positions that have holsters made for them that incorporate a locking mechanism with a release lever. If you want a holster with a thumb-actuated lever that unlocks the gun from the holster, hip carry is kinda your only option. I can't think of any such holsters that are made for appendix carry, SOB, crossdraw, behind hip, shoulder, ankle, belly band, or any other carry position. At best, you might be able to find a retention strap with a snap or buckle.
7. It works, it's normal, and it's not scary. For people who are new to guns or carrying, appendix carry might be scary, crossdraw seems aggressive, shoulder holsters are for 1980's TV show detectives, and SOB carry is for deceased church-going texans.

So what are the disadvantages to strong side hip carry?

1. While hip carry disincentivizes grab attempts from the front, it encourages grab attempts from behind, due to the visibility from behind and the way the grip is positioned to be grabbable from behind.
2. While hip carry makes it easier to defend from grab attempts from the front, it makes it modestly harder to defend from grab attempts from behind.
3. Hip carry very easily prints horribly when you bend forward. It take immense effort to get the grip of a handgun to not print horribly when you bend forward. Yet another reason to do the OSHA-approved squat.
4. Hip carry can easily get quite uncomfortable when seated, when the handgun's grip pushes into the seat back, when the seat's bolstering pushes the handgun into your side, or when the seatbelt buckle wants to occupy the space your handgun is occupying.
5. Hip carry inside the waistband is heavily dependent on body size, as those with no fluff on the sides might find the gun-on-bone pressure uncomfortable.
6. Related to that, many gun models can put uncomfortable or even painful pressure on the ribs of the wearer, depending on the wearer's body shape, of course.
7. For OWB use, you really do need a quality belt, one that is rigid enough to not flex. With IWB, your belt is only what anchors the holster to prevent it from moving when you draw the gun, but it's friction between your pants and your body, under pressure from a tensioned belt, that keeps your gun in place and supports the weight of the gun. But OWB is different. With OWB, the belt alone is what supports the weight of your gun and keeps it in place. That means that a cheapo Walmart belt won't cut it for OWB. As such, you need a quality gun belt for OWB use.
8. Price. Because of the necessity for a quality belt, and because of the price of something like a Safariland ALS or SLS holster, OWB strong side hip carry is not for those on a tight budget. Alternatively, an IWB strong side hip holster from a top brand can be a mere $50.

Strong side hip carry is part of a series of articles that document How To Not Be A Retard With Firearms Strong side hip carry | Behind hip carry