What Drives Your Decision To Carry Daily.

I wouldn't have given up my guns for a marriage.

Not that I consider then more important than the woman I married, but on general principle. I lump that kind of behavior under "trying to change someone" or "trying to control someone".

Lots of things go into a relationship, and some of those things help us to decide whether or not the person we're with has values which do or do not support continuing the relationship in the first place.

NOW... what drives my decision to carry?

It's simply a part of what I do on a daily basis, like wallet, pocket knife, keys, and phone. General day-to-day tools, with this particular tool being one I consider an effective tool for self-defense.

Started carrying shortly after I moved to a state that allowed CCW, especially after an incident with my dog and a large unleashed Rottweiler.

Once I started it became habit and when I moved, I kept up the habit.

Now that I have little kids I feel extra inspired to be sure I've got as many tools on hand to keep them safe as I can.

I live a very safe lifestyle in a very safe area, but I'd still always have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

CNN

I carry for personal safety.

I started carrying concealed off duty for a Police department to protect myself, my family, and the People of the State of Wyoming over 50 years ago. Habit is kinda hard to break.

Back before Ohio had concealed carry and the police hadn't been educated about open carry I only carried concealed when working in certain areas. Better to be tried by 12 than carried.... Once Ohio was issuing license I got one and carried everywhere I could. Now it just feels weird if I'm not carrying which is rare if I'm not in a government building or school. Usually when people ask why, I compare it to wearing a seatbelt and hoping not to be in an accident. What's odd is I don't wear a seatbelt unless the roads are bad.

Trunk Monkey said:

It's interesting to me that so many folks reference animals. I have had encounters with animals up to and including Black Bears and I've never yet needed a gun to get myself out of it.

Click to expand...

Same here. Honestly the most frequent animal encounters I've had where I've debated shooting the aggressive critter has been with stray domestic dogs.

However, I have come across black bear, two mountain lions, and actually drew my gun on what I suspect was a lion following me out of curiosity (it ducked out of sight before I got a clear look, but nothing ran off like you'd expect with a dear), I've been bit by a border collie, charged by a coyote, chased by cooper's hawks and goshawks at eye level, encounter rattle snakes, been chased by a domestic bull (and I'm no rodeo clown), charged by whitetail bucks in the rut on two separate occasions, nearly run over by bull elk on one particular day, and I've been entirely too close to a grizzly bear by accident.

I carry a hiking stick now as I think it'd take care of 99% of what I encounter. But there's always that one day where the stars might align, where a particular beasty may decide I've just pissed him off a little too much.

Waking up each day!

Trunk Monkey said:

This question came up yesterday on a different forum. I really feel like the person who asked at the other forum feels that carrying a gun every single day is a little bit ridiculous but it doesn't make the question any less valid.

I've said this multiple times but it is an iron clad rule for me that if I'm not in bed or the shower (basically if I'm dressed) I have a gun on my person but when the question was asked I really stopped and thought about how I would explain myself if I was honestly asked.

This is the answer I gave there:

I never really did any soul-searching or questioning the odds. I bought a gun the day I got out of the army and I started to carry it.

My wife (then fiance) was really freaked out by guns so before we got married I got rid of all of mine and for the first 10 years we were married the only gun that we had in our house was an NEF .22 revolver that we kept in a lock box in the garage. I don't think we even had any ammunition for it.

In 2006 two incidents happened. First somebody put a Drano bomb on our neighbor's front porch. When it went off it rattled windows in our house across the street. The second was (I suspect) an attempted home invasion on our house.

My wife and I sat down and had a discussion and we bought a gun a RIA 1911.

Several months later my wife was involved in a road-rage incident that absolutely terrified her. She came home and when she got out of the car she was shaking and she told me that in the middle of it she realized that if that person had got out of the car because of her disabilities there was nothing she could have done to defend herself. She said to me "I want a gun and I want to get my permit." We took the class together we got our permits at the same time and we both started carrying.

Shortly after that Colorado voted to legalize weed and the City of Colorado Springs began to change for the worse.

Colorado Springs is overrun with homeless people. Between the two of us my wife and I knew four people who were murdered either by homeless people or in the middle of drug deals that went bad. When I say knew I mean people who were actually part of our lives, not random people we knew by name. We also knew 2 people who committed murder and did time for it. We also have an ex-SIL who is a suspect in several murders. The reason I mention this is because murder is not an abstract concept to me. It's something that has impacted my life multiple times and because of that it's something that informs my world view. I know too many people that it's happened to. I know too many people that have done it. I have no problem believing that it could happen to me.

There is cartel activity in Colorado Springs because they're growing weed here and exporting it out of the state which I guess is easier than importing it across the border into America.

Carjackings are becoming a nightly occurrence. Multiple convenience store robberies are becoming a nightly occurrence. A week ago Saturday some Maniac walked down Wasatch street in downtown Colorado Springs randomly shooting at people. I think he killed 3.

I think a month ago another random maniac walked down a hiking trail from Cimarron Street to America the Beautiful Park and stabbed eight people apparently at randoml. I think he killed one of them. The have been three other active shooter events in Colorado Springs since 2007.

I've been the victim of an attempted robbery right outside my home that I was able to stop because I had a gun.

As far as we know it's never happened to us but we have a neighbor down at the end of the hall who says that she's been sitting in her living room late at night and watched somebody try to to turn her front door knob.

I've been working nights since roughly 2003 and I see what kind of people wander around this town at night. Even before I started doing security I worked in a machine shop and I would come home at 3 in the morning and my neighborhood looked like a scene out of The Walking Dead. I'd see homeless people just wandering through the neighborhood every night.

I do not leave my home without a gun under any circumstances. Not even to take out the trash or check the mail

Click to expand...

I too carry all day every day and my most basic answer to your question is, “Because I can”. I have the right, the ability and the guns that give me the chance to defend myself and family if necessary. Why wouldn’t I?

As for what convinced me to carry everyday, all day, it was a string of murders one day along my delivery route, including a motorcyclist shot at a gas station I frequented. If I had been delivering out there that day, I could have been a victim and if I had been out there and been armed, I could have possibly stopped the terror.

WrongHanded said:

Humans are the most dangerous, unpredictable, and destructive species on the planet. This is undeniable, as a quick review of history makes plain.

I live and work amongst other humans all day. I am consciously aware that I, and I alone, am ultimately responsible for my own safety.

Click to expand...

In past, I believe that men felt responsible for themselves maybe more so or surely as much as, present day. They also felt responsible for their "womenfolk." It will be interesting to see, moving forward and now that women have expressed the great need for independence, whether the responsibility for personal safety will be apportioned differently.

Will more and more women choose to conceal carry with necessity the reason?

I have been around guns for most of my life. Living in rural area among farm land woodchucks are a constant nuisance and a loaded 22 ( both rifle and revolver ) were always at the ready by the back door. I have hunted with a revolver for many years. When Ohio first allowed concealed carry I was ready to apply but a local TV station in Toledo was obtaining the list of concealed carry permit holders and putting the list on their website so I did not apply. When Ohio secured that list from the media I took the class and applied. My wife does not shoot but is not opposed to guns. While shopping for a carry gun my wife commented that we needed to find a place to store it where it would be safe. We have 2 unmarried kids so no grand kids and the 22s have been by the back door for years so my reply to her was, "If it is on my person there should be no issue."
At first I tried to carry only when away from home but the process of preparing to leave home carrying IWB under a tucked in shirt just did not seem practical. So I purchased from Crossbreed a SuperTuck holster and dual magazine carrier and they have become part of getting dressed each morning and undressing at night. I find it much more convenient to carry every day all day. Leaving home is just a matter of a jacket or locking the door. Of course visits to official gun free zones require leaving the gun in the vehicle. Most times I don't think about carrying the additional hardware.
Our area is not a high crime area. In town is a state university about 3 miles away. We have had knocks on the door at 3:00AM. I doubt I will ever need to draw the gun but I know the option is there should it ever be needed. My flying buddies have a saying about parachutes. If you have one and don't need it is a good thing but if you don't have one and need it you will never need one again.

NRA Benefactor member and Golden Eagle member

Trunk Monkey, great topic. I wonder if anything would change if open-minded gun-grabbers read the comments posted here and gained a window into the mindset of those who carry every day.

My path to everyday carry isn't unusual. But like yours, it is a personal story.

I was a "I'll carry when I think that I'm going someplace hazardous" type of gun owner. I had a CCW permit, had gotten good training, practiced regularly, competed, studied the law of self-defense, and had good carry gear. But it was too much hassle to put the gun on and take it off all the time between proscriptions of work, church, public transit, private GFZs, etc.

Then the Trolley Square murders occurred. For those who don't recall, a nut with a pump shotgun and a 38 special handgun and lots of ammo walked into the rustic Trolley Square center and started shooting people. He killed five and wounded at least four, before an off-duty cop and on-duty officers cornered and killed him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_Square_shooting

I'd been to Trolley Square many times. Had dinner there. Thought that it was in a "safe" part of town. I didn't really think that carrying there was a real priority. After the shooting, though, I had a serious conversation with myself. The question that convinced me to carry all the time where legal was this:

Knowing that I am competent to use a handgun to defend myself and my loved ones should the need arise, how would I feel if someone in my family was hurt or killed just because I found it too inconvenient to carry the tools to defend us?

I knew that I couldn't look myself in the mirror ever again if my sloth led to the injury or death of a loved one.

That day, I decided that I was going to start carrying every day. And have, pretty much ever since.

Short answer, Seattle. Long answer, Seattle's politicians that have turned a once beautiful and safe city into a dangerous, tweeker infested dump where people get assaulted, raped and/or murdered in broad daylight on a daily basis. They are trying every angle to discourage the average citizen from carrying in the city but you would be crazy not to.

There were three life incidents that convinced me or reinforced my decision to EDC.

Incident 1. Three month after my discharge I was a freelance news and sports photographer. I routinely carries shoulder bag holding thousands of dollars of photo gear. I had finished shooting a Princeton v. Rutgers football game. I left before the finish to meet a newspaper deadline for the morning edition. Some punk confronted me in the parking lot and with knife in hand ordered me had one the bag. I did not own a gun then. I handed him the bag and as he reached for it I employed a knife defense learned in the Corps. When his elbow broke he dropped the knife and the bag. His legs were OK and he ran away. That made me think maybe I should carry a gun. That was in 1970. I bought a Colt 1911 Government Model because it was my primary weapon on my two tours in Nam.

Incident 2. Thirty years ago my wife was in hospital for in patient surgery. I visited after my work was done, and I stayed until about 9 PM. and it was dark. I went to get my car in the indoor parking lot. I heard a woman scream. The woman then cam out from behind a van and ran toward me. I asked what was wrong. She replied that a man assaulter and tried to rape her, but she broke free and ran. Her blouse was nearly torn off. She was serious. I told her to stay with me. Then a man came running to the exit. She said he was the man. I decided to stop him and got in his face. The she yells "he has a knife." As he put his hand in his pocket I delivered a palm thrust to his chin. That put him on his back and out cold. I kept him down until hospital security took over. I had a gun, but in PA you cannot use deadly force if there is no deadly weapon presented against you. He never got the knife out of his pocket and my chin thrust made the gun unnecessary. However, if he had the knife out I would not have hesitated to shoot him with my EDC. I think getting stabbed is to be avoided.

Incident 3. I had a small studio space the upper floor of a two story commercial building. The first floor was occupied bay studio after it cloy a portrait studio. It was a couple days before Xmas. The portrait studio which did big Xmas business closed at 9PM. I was in my studio after it closed. A man walked in the door and pointed gun at me demanding money. He though I was art of the portrait studio. I told him all the money I had was in my pocket and he could have it. He did not believe me and demanded I open desk drawers so he could see if there e was money there. I opened all the desk drawers and stepped to the side. He took his eyes off me to look in the drawer. I had my ED IWB at 4 o'clock. I drew the gun I did not have to shoot him because when he saw my gun he dropped his and begged me not to shoot him. Turned out his gun has an empty magazine. He went to prison for 7 years.

So I learned that while most people will never be exposed to a violent attack it can and does happen. When it happens too you it makes you realize that you yourself are he first line of your defense. It is best to be equipped to defend yourself, and for me that means a gun on or near me 24/7.

There is no such thing as a "safe area". Some places are just less dangerous than others.

Trunk Money's post said it all, and it's not just "the Springs" having a growing problem in that respect.

For myself, like Trunk Monkey's wife, at 81 yo and disabled I can neither run nor fight.

Still, even at 25 yo in Boulder CO, little ole pollyanna me who left my car unlocked had to discourage someone from trying to hotwire it. I used a recently-bought .45 M1917. I dumped one into the grass to encourage his running ability

Ever since that time I tried to have a gun handy. I remember checking in my little Llama .380 at the gate of the Rocky Flats atomic trigger plant. This was long before COmmierado had the Statewide "shall issue" permit, which, IIRC, took four tries to get through the hand-wringing legislature and signed by the Governor. (Thank you, Ken Chlouber.)

The old saw about having it and not needing it holds true. I don't even take the trash out anymore without an iron friend and (at night) a flashlight. You could say I carry minutely, not just daily.

Terry, 230RN

What drives my decision to carry daily?

When I took my first Texas CHL(LTC) class about 12 years ago, it was discussed at great length in that class that if we make the decision to carry that we commit to doing it every day and every where that it is legal to do so. I don't need to go into that discussion, but it made complete sense to me so that's what I've been doing for years. Carrying a gun daily is as normal as throwing my keys in my pocket and putting on my glasses.

I have friends with licenses that don't carry every day, and I have friends that disarm when they get home. Both of those situations mean if you need a gun, now you have to try and go get one.

Like many, I live in the 'burbs of a huge city. Crime is where crime is, which is everywhere. In "good" neighborhoods as well as bad. My neighborhood is a decent-to-good neighborhood, but several years ago a MJ grow house was busted across the street* and just last summer a homicide happened two parallel streets away. All you have to do is to look up a crime reports type of website to see what's around you.

In other places not far from here is broad daylight street extortion if you find yourself in the wrong part of town. And since I travel to industrial areas in this city and other cities for work, I seem to always be in the wrong part of town. Not to mention the fact that I will never forget the time I was robbed at gun point by three women back in the mid-1980s. You just can't trust anyone.

*I watched the "raid" with my youngest kid through our front windows. Lots of plain clothes cops on that one, then the Tyvek overall suits got put on by a few to clean out the house.

My decision to carry daily is based upon three things:

If in the rare instance that I need a gun, I want one I can rely on, on my hip.

If I needed to protect a loved one from a deadly threat, and I couldn't for lack of a firearm, I couldn't live with myself knowing that failure.

As an American, I have been bestowed a right to carry a firearm. I am proud to do so, even though I am standing on the shoulders of giants when I do.

Trunk Monkey said:

As far as we know it's never happened to us but we have a neighbor down at the end of the hall who says that she's been sitting in her living room late at night and watched somebody try to to turn her front door knob.

Click to expand...

I had that happen to me while staying in a questionable hotel in north Dallas just two weeks ago for work.

When I got into my room, I noticed the inside dead bolt didn't line up with the door jamb plate so that the dead bolt wouldn't work. I figured the card key reader and the swing over door latch would be good enough as I was tired and wanted to get some sleep.

About 1:15am, I woke up to someone unlocking the door with another card key and the door slamming into the swing over door latch. I yelled out and they went away before I could see who it was (looked through peephole first). I happen to be in a hotel room with a full size refrigerator, so I rolled that fridge in front of the door sideways so it would have to skid across the floor. Then I went back to sleep the best I could and I reported it in the morning to the front desk.

I fully believe that someone knew that internally controlled dead bolt was inoperable and that someone had returned to do something they shouldn't be doing.

Trunk Monkey said:

Generally if you check out of a hotel that uses key cards and you don't return it they deactivate it. I would say the hotel double booked the room

Click to expand...

Considering I got to the hotel around 7:30pm and the attempted entry into my room happened at 1:15 am at what turned out to be a very shady hotel, I'd have gone along with that idea.

Edit to add: The hotel was one of those long stay hotels and part of a franchise. This was the only one of that franchise I've been to that told me at check in that no forks, spoons, knives, or cooking gear would be in my room. But, if I needed them they said I could come to the front desk to check out those items on a per need basis. At which point they showed me a laminated sheet with photographs of what the forks, spoons, knives, and cooking gear looked like.

And the public restrooms in the lobby were locked. To use them, you had to ask the management to let you in. I can't recall ever being in a hotel where the lobby restrooms were locked.

I've stayed in some run down hotels for work, but this one is off my list forever.

Trunk Monkey said:

This question came up yesterday on a different forum. I really feel like the person who asked at the other forum feels that carrying a gun every single day is a little bit ridiculous but it doesn't make the question any less valid.

I've said this multiple times but it is an iron clad rule for me that if I'm not in bed or the shower (basically if I'm dressed) I have a gun on my person but when the question was asked I really stopped and thought about how I would explain myself if I was honestly asked.

This is the answer I gave there:

I never really did any soul-searching or questioning the odds. I bought a gun the day I got out of the army and I started to carry it.

My wife (then fiance) was really freaked out by guns so before we got married I got rid of all of mine and for the first 10 years we were married the only gun that we had in our house was an NEF .22 revolver that we kept in a lock box in the garage. I don't think we even had any ammunition for it.

In 2006 two incidents happened. First somebody put a Drano bomb on our neighbor's front porch. When it went off it rattled windows in our house across the street. The second was (I suspect) an attempted home invasion on our house.

My wife and I sat down and had a discussion and we bought a gun a RIA 1911.

Several months later my wife was involved in a road-rage incident that absolutely terrified her. She came home and when she got out of the car she was shaking and she told me that in the middle of it she realized that if that person had got out of the car because of her disabilities there was nothing she could have done to defend herself. She said to me "I want a gun and I want to get my permit." We took the class together we got our permits at the same time and we both started carrying.

Shortly after that Colorado voted to legalize weed and the City of Colorado Springs began to change for the worse.

Colorado Springs is overrun with homeless people. Between the two of us my wife and I knew four people who were murdered either by homeless people or in the middle of drug deals that went bad. When I say knew I mean people who were actually part of our lives, not random people we knew by name. We also knew 2 people who committed murder and did time for it. We also have an ex-SIL who is a suspect in several murders. The reason I mention this is because murder is not an abstract concept to me. It's something that has impacted my life multiple times and because of that it's something that informs my world view. I know too many people that it's happened to. I know too many people that have done it. I have no problem believing that it could happen to me.

There is cartel activity in Colorado Springs because they're growing weed here and exporting it out of the state which I guess is easier than importing it across the border into America.

Carjackings are becoming a nightly occurrence. Multiple convenience store robberies are becoming a nightly occurrence. A week ago Saturday some Maniac walked down Wasatch street in downtown Colorado Springs randomly shooting at people. I think he killed 3.

I think a month ago another random maniac walked down a hiking trail from Cimarron Street to America the Beautiful Park and stabbed eight people apparently at randoml. I think he killed one of them. The have been three other active shooter events in Colorado Springs since 2007.

I've been the victim of an attempted robbery right outside my home that I was able to stop because I had a gun.

As far as we know it's never happened to us but we have a neighbor down at the end of the hall who says that she's been sitting in her living room late at night and watched somebody try to to turn her front door knob.

I've been working nights since roughly 2003 and I see what kind of people wander around this town at night. Even before I started doing security I worked in a machine shop and I would come home at 3 in the morning and my neighborhood looked like a scene out of The Walking Dead. I'd see homeless people just wandering through the neighborhood every night.

I do not leave my home without a gun under any circumstances. Not even to take out the trash or check the mail

Click to expand...

To put it succinctly, "the world we live in, just look for yourself"

Walkalong said:

It's a dangerous world out there, and people hit the lottery every day when it comes to their turn in the barrel. While we may never have our number come up, we could, and I like to be prepared for things.

Click to expand...

As they say with respect to how silly the odds in the lottery are, "It's not the odds involved, it's the stakes involved."

A buck to take the slim chance on a $mil.

A moment to holster up on the slim chance of needing protection.

Terry, 230RN