The third left his in the car because he didn’t have the space in his pack.
Make space. And it probably shouldn't be in the pack anyway.
Since two of the three of us were armed, the redundancy was unnecessary. Also, when you have a 4” wide hipbelt, it’s very hard to carry on your waist, so making space is quite difficult. His only real option would have been to purchase a leg holster, which would kind of be hard to conceal. That or carry it in the pack.
Again, when backpacking, weight is also an issue, so you reduce redundancies.
...which leads to something increasingly puzzling:
Who is the more feared in the situation - the thugs, or the government?
Why should concealment be such an imperative that one would rather not carry at all rather than risk being “made”?