WHAT'S YOUR EDC? A LAZY MAN'S OPINION.

Where I live in the remote woods of Maine, the odds of an encounter with someone looking to jack my car or mug me are somewhere similar to winning the Powerball, in my estimation. However, I take regular hikes along the dirt roads that are more common than blacktop ones in this state, and it’s not unheard of to encounter a black bear or even a catamount (as the mountain lion is known in these parts). Now I know a 32acp is probably insufficient to dispatch either if one decided to make a move on me, but with a whole bunch of shouting and a couple of shots I reckon they’d head in the other direction pronto. Overall I’m what you might call a lazy EDC’er. I just don’t want to lug around anything weighing over a pound on my belt and especially not in my pocket, hell, I don’t even carry a smart phone - I buy the smallest, slimmest cheapest phones I can and then replace them when they break. But in the same token I don’t want to be unprepared so besides my 5oz phone I also pack my P32: at 6.5oz I don’t think there’s any other 100% American-made pistol available with such outstanding power-to-weight ratio. Kel-Tec has it’s detractors but I’ve never had anything but great experiences with their products and on the one occasion I needed a repair done they were prompt and courteous and went beyond the repair obligation to give my pistol a good gunsmithing (polishing the feed ramp etc). I feel Kel-Tec have achieved a great balance of design innovation, output and utilitarian quality whilst keeping prices right for the working men and women of America. Speaking of George Kelgren, I had one of his 1990’s Cat9’s and that thing was as reliable as a bicycle. It was surprisingly accurate despite rudimentary sights and I never had a jam in the 11 years I owned it though I have to say the blowback action was a tad tough on the mitts. He’s a noteworthy weapons engineer with decades of experience so give his products serious consideration if you’re someone like me who would probably never carry a weapon you could feel rubbing your hip or banging around in your pocket. Personally I love the little Kel-Tec P32. It’s genuinely thin and light enough to forget, it actually holsters in the coin pocket of your jeans or with a steel clip accessory sits snug in your front pocket, or even on the inside breast pocket of a blazer. It’s an excellent little gun and affords critical peace of mind for lazy EDC’ers. As to functionality, I’ve had two of them (a 1st gen I bought in 2001 and a 2nd gen I bought in 2014) and they’ve both run like clocks, even with Federal Hydrashock, and if it malfunctions simply send it in to Kel-Tec for tuning, they’ll do you right. ​ED

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