When it comes to carrying a gun, there are a lot of ways to do it. Some are more gender-specific, really. After all, dudes don’t have purses in which to carry their firearm if they want.

Not usually, anyway.

Yet with every form of carry, there come challenges. There are things one must be aware of in order to do so safely. For example, carrying appendix inside the waistband requires extra care to make sure guys don’t shoot off our favorite body part.

With women who opt to carry in their purses, there are other things to be aware of.

A local Walmart shopper faces the potential loss of her license to carry a firearm, after the gun in her purse ‘misfired’ while she was in the checkout line at a Walmart in Northborough.

…

No one inside the store was hurt and police say “the projectile was recovered from the floor.”

The gun owner, a 31-year-old woman from Worcester told police she mistakenly fired her 9mm handgun, while digging through her purse at the cashier.

Seeing as this was in Massachusetts, the woman faces having her carry permit revoked.

That said, this shouldn’t have happened.

While media reports tend to be very short on details–mostly because the reporters don’t actually know what kind of questions to ask–my guess is that the gun was loose in the purse, which allowed something else in there to get inside the trigger guard. When the woman pushed just a bit too much, that object pressed against the trigger enough to cause it to discharge.

All of which could have been avoided if it had been in some kind of a holster.

Here in Georgia, you can carry anywhere on the body you want, but the weapon must be in a holster. While I don’t like laws telling me what I can and can’t do, I do happen to think that’s a good piece of advice.

Holsters cover the trigger guard, making it far less likely that such a thing will happen. It doesn’t mean it won’t–we’ve seen people have bits of clothing get caught in their holster before, which resulted in a negligent discharge–but it greatly reduces the possibility of it happening.

It seems likely she didn’t do that and we see what the result is.

However, it would also behoove those who might seek to make hay out of this to remember that millions of other Americans carried their firearms that same day without incident.

In fact, I’d argue that had Massachusetts not been so anti-gun, this woman might have been more open about her carry choices and had someone educate her about the folly of that method, thus potentially encouraging her to change it so something like this simply wouldn’t happen.

No, I can’t say that for certain, but it’s likely true.

Luckily, no one was hurt. That always needs to be the upside to a story like this.

But another upside should be people learning from the mistakes of others so that innocent bystanders continue to not be injured.