What Drives Your Decision To Carry Daily.

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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
Dear Trunk Monkey,

Having left California to escape a similar environment, I really hope you guys can move somewhere safer very soon. It's so amazing to live somewhere where you hear a siren maybe once a month max...
 
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.
I have one of these for traveling, just jam it under the door and turn it on. If anybody tries to open the door it sounds a REALLY loud alarm:
https://www.amazon.com/SABRE-Wedge-Security-Alarm-Siren/dp/B00M30SQGA
 
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.
I've had multiple drug dealers accost and try to rob me. I've supervised people who were violent criminals, one who murdered someone, I've had a guy threaten me with a large switchblade, and I've never needed a gun to get me out of those situations. Doesn't mean that such situations are not good reason to carry.
 
For me, CC is rare. I spend most of my time away from home in areas where firearms are prohibited:

Work - I work at a public university. The university itself prohibits firearms in all buildings on campus. The state allows CCW on state property but prohibits firearms inside state buildings (University buildings qualify), and technically the parking garages are state buildings so I cannot even lock a firearm in my car when parked in the garage. If parked in an open lot, technically I could lock the gun in the car, but the risk of break-ins over the course of a 9-hour day is too high. So when at work, the gun stays locked in the safe at home.

Family - The family I visit most who are out-of-state are in NY, so there's that. And my elderly father is rabidly anti-gun, so out of respect for him and his house rules, I leave the gun locked in the safe at home when visiting him. He lives in a very safe community with quick emergency response times, but if it wasn't for respect for him I would still carry there.

Prohibited places - Any other prohibited place that I know uses detectors or has security checks, I will just leave the gun locked in a safe at home unless I'm only going to be there for a few minutes, in which case it gets locked in a car safe. For the Post Office I park off PO property and lock the gun in the car safe.

If I'm going for a hike, getting fuel, going to the store (including ones that supposedly prohibit firearms), I carry my P365 IWB. But nowadays it seems there are fewer places one can legally carry, or where one can logistically make it worthwhile. Sad state of affairs if you ask me.
 
I've had multiple drug dealers accost and try to rob me. I've supervised people who were violent criminals, one who murdered someone, I've had a guy threaten me with a large switchblade, and I've never needed a gun to get me out of those situations. Doesn't mean that such situations are not good reason to carry.

Point a gun at a a Tweaker and he understands the threat, point a gun at a bear and he has no clue.
That said, I agree with you.
 
If I pull a weapon in self-defense it will not be to communicate the message that this is their last chance, but rather I will pull my weapon to give me one last chance, I'm not threatening anyone or anything, just trying to survive.
 
Being a union member. Co-workers, classmates, and even a teacher have taken exception to the fact that I have more than labor issues on my mind when I vote and that my parents own a business that is not union. The teacher even went so far as to run a background check on me and proceeded to tell me the names of my neighbors, my home address, and a few details of my financial history from over a decade ago. He made no indication of what he was going to do with that information but I've heard other things he has suggested towards other people he didn't like when he was drunk. It isn't necessarily the union that is bad, just the fanatics.
 
When I was working my job required me to be in the worst neighborhoods in several different towns every day. And all too often at night. Carrying was against company policy but I figured it was better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6. I didn't ask for permission and no one ever knew that I carried. The company never hesitated to call me if an alarm went off in a substation at night and many of the ones in my area were in the rural. I mean duh!!! LE wouldn't respond to just an alarm. I ran some numbers and I estimated that I spent 95% of my time with 5% of my customers. Guess what 5% that was! I never had to pull my gun but many a time I was glad that I had it.

One scam that was popular was for the thugs to turn of someones outside breakers and mug who ever showed up to check it out. Pretty often that was me!
 
What Drives Your Decision To Carry Daily.


Well, a little bit of what a lot of you all have been through... and then some. Many of us have experienced things that have shaped the way we see the world, and I'm no different.

1. I've had an attempted home invasion. Thankfully, the idiots (2) tried a basement window, made plenty of noise, gave us plenty of warning, and ended up getting scared off without incident.

2. I've experienced fights, and road rage type incidents that made me think of my safety, and that of my family.

3. I had a job as a Correctional officer at a level IV prison. Working with the worst humanity has to offer can really open your eyes to the dangers of "civilized" society. Even had a gang put a price on my head at one time for interrupting the flow of product into the facility.

4. Spent 28 years wearing the uniform of my country, and deploying to war 3 times.

Overall, when you add it all up, I just ended up developing a taste for life, and a distaste for evil. I feel the need to not let the bad guy win, so I carry the tools that allow me to go about my business, as if evil doesn't exist, so that if, and when it does rear it's ugly head into my life, I can (hopefully) stop it, before it does too much damage.




Short answer, To help good people.

Thing is, in order to HELP good people... I may have to STOP bad people.
 
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