I guess we need to keep hammering these points home:

• a firearm is not a talisman against evil
• merely possessing a firearm doesn’t make you safe if you lack the proper training and mindset
• there’s a difference between “concealed” and concealed.

A poorly-trained Texas man learned these lessons the hard way in Denison Sunday night when he was disarmed and robbed with his own gun at a gas station in what appears to be a crime of opportunity.

A woman snatched a man’s legally concealed weapon and stole his wallet while the two were waiting in line at a Denison gas station Sunday night. Police eventually arrested the woman, Bobbie Renee Kelly, 36, of Tom Bean, for aggravated robbery.

The man, who is licensed to carry a handgun, was inside the Valero gas station at 1420 S. Austin Ave. With his wallet in-hand, the man walked up to the store counter to purchase an item at about 10:50 p.m. A 36-year-old woman came up behind him and saw the outline of a handgun tucked beneath his shirt. Denison Police Det. Tom Unerfusser said she lifted his shirt, unholstered the weapon and pointed it at the man.

“‘Hey lady, it’s loaded — there’s one in the chamber; you need to give it back,’” Unerfusser said was the man’s response. “And then he stepped towards her to get it, and apparently she kind of poked at him and hit him in the chin.”

The woman struck the man with the barrel end of the gun, then slapped the wallet out of his hand. She stepped on top of wallet to prevent the man from retrieving it. At this time, the clerk came around the counter and attempted to help the man. Unerfusser said they were going to try to wrestle the weapon from the woman.

“She picked up the wallet, stepped back and turned and ran,” Unerfusser said. “… How the gun didn’t go off in all of this — I’m not sure.”

The idiot robber was caught—you’ll love this—because she left her own purse with ID in at at the crime scene when she ran off with the wallet and gun, both of which were quickly recovered.

This isn’t the first time we’ve covered a “concealed” carrier who was printing so ineptly that he inspired a criminal to rob him of his gun. We saw almost the exact same scenario go down in Philadelphia less than than a year ago (photo of the obviously printing gun below, a split second before the criminal snatched the gun).

In both instances the concealed carrier was obviously printing, was carrying the gun in a position he couldn’t defend, and had the weapons-retentions skills of a bagel.

If you’re going to carry a firearm, it is imperative for you to dress to the gun, and ensure that your concealed weapon is indeed concealed. This is especially true if you don’t have a retention holster (no, a Serpa doesn’t count), if you have no weapon retention training, aren’t very strong, etc.

I know a lot of people who have migrated from four o’clock (behind the hip) carry to appendix carry because it conceals the weapon better, is less likely to accidentally be “made” if you bend over or twist, is faster to draw, and is easier to defend in the unlikely event of a weapon take-away at that location.

I’d further note that a lot of my peers—many with hundreds to thousands of hours of training—carry fixed-blades like the TDI Law Enforcement Knife, the Clinch Pick, or karambits set up for an offhand draw to help defend their concealed carry gun. During an attempted take away they’ll use techniques to lock their gun in their holster while drawing their knife, which they’ll then use to convince their attacker that they have more pressing concerns to deal with other than the concealed carrier’s gun, such as arterial bleeding.

Get trained, get good equipment, and carry smart, folks.

Having a gun isn’t going to do you much good if you don’t know how to use it.