Episode
Off-Body Carry Done Right (ft. Cakes Concealed Carry)
- Podcast
- State of the Second
- Published
- Mar 4, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3215
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Summary
Cakes Concealed Carry started as a personal problem, not a business plan. Its founder got her CCW license in California, where the instructors told her repeatedly that off-body carry was not acceptable. She bought the gear they recommended, spent hundreds of dollars on holsters and a stiff CCW belt, and found none of it fit her lifestyle or body type. She kept asking one question: what would make her actually choose to carry every single day? Off-body was the answer. She tried tactical bags that announced she had a gun, then tried rigging her own purses and realized how unsafe that was. Finally her husband offered to design one bag for her as a gift, at the cost of a prototype. That single bag became a brand that sold roughly 6,000 bags in its first year and won Emerging Brand of the Year at the Gundies. The design goal was specific. She wanted a purse that looked feminine, fit her outfit, stayed discreet, and could still meet the technical bar the instructors used to dismiss off-body carry: sub 1.5-second shots on target. The Cakes system grew from there, including a waist chain she first added because it was cute and then found gave the bag three points of stability for a one-handed draw while moving. The conversation also covers how feminine carry has become its own category, with Project Gunway and other brands now entering the space. Her position on competition is plain. Cakes has one goal, arm every woman, so if a customer carries with someone else's bag, that still counts. The back half is about California and the new gun owner. She walks through what it took to buy a gun and earn a permit in her county: the FSC firearm safety test her husband failed, a 30-day wait, proof of citizenship and matching utility bills, three references the sheriff calls to vouch…