I would be able to, but I've watched plenty of the videos and read plenty of the accounts, and it is totally plausible that you'd be able to get out of the car to get to it, if that was necessary. Or maybe not, no guarantees in hypotheticals.
And, in this nation of several hundred millions, how many people have ever had this happen to them?
Dunno.
And I think that's a big part of my divergence with the common gunny theme of bringing a rifle along or of, "fighting your way back to your rifle..."
We seem to all really just like having a rifle nearby, but don't or can't process the math to determine if the chances we would find it necessary are greater than the most vanishing statistical insignificance.
That's why I bring up all these other, much less remote, causes of sudden death. We don't generally take awkward, inconvenient and/or potentially legally knotty steps to reduce or counter any of a wide variety of these avenues of demise that actually do happen to more than one in a hundred-million people each year.
So why do we make the time/effort/risk investment to meet this one particular, exceedingly rarified need? Is it just because we're gunnies and we like having guns with us? If so, cool.
To me, though, it seems a bit less realistically necessary than, say, packing a life-preserver in your trunk for your drive through Wyoming. We can say something wise-ish like, "
Ahhh, grasshopper, better to have and not need than need and not have!" I mean, sure you could somehow find yourself floating in the Sweetwater next to your sinking automobile...
But really, claiming to believe this is meeting a need seems a bit absurd.
A rifle? For self defense? While out on a drive? The odds must be a billion or more to one.
Maybe so.
It seems we are picturing different things here. I wouldn't take a rifle just to go "out on a drive" either. But when I drive 1,000 miles one way and am away from home for 10 days, I do.
So the billion-to-one odds are changed by driving for ten days or 1,000 miles? Enough to make carrying a rifle realistically helpful?
But theft from a car? Yeah, been there. Or from hotel rooms. Traveling with any superfluous stuff is inefficient and an irritant after a while.
I have never had to leave it in a hotel room and don't ever intend to. I have also never left it in an unattended and out of sight car, and don't intend to. (and even if we go inside to eat and are watching the car through the window, there are two big dogs in the car too)
Again, we seem to be picturing different things here.
Ok, so I think this kind of proves my point. Now we're on a trip and you can't leave your rifle in the hotel and you can leave it in the car but only if you stay within eyesight of the car. That's a MIGHTY specific kind of trip you're on. Not anything at all like those that 99% of travelers are taking. Travelers who have business meetings, go in museums, take tours, visit friends or relatives but don't necessarily want to have to trundle their rifle into the house, eat at restaurants where they aren't guaranteed a seat next to a window overlooking their car, and about a million other things people do when they are traveling.
So yeah, we seem to be talking about different things. Apparently your trips are 1,000 miles each way, take 10 days, and you only stay in houses larger than your own where you can bring the rifle inside, and then only go do things were you can stay in sight of your car. You either have really REALLY unusual (or at least specific) travels, or you constrain your travel plans to allow you to work around this thing you've decided you need to have with you all the time.
Yeah, I'll have to make do with my handguns. I've traveled many many places with far less and found my way home. They'll do.
And I've never needed my carry gun.
Again, I think you're making my point for me. You've never even needed your handgun, and a handgun is orders of magnitude more universally likely to be employed in day-to-day violent encounters than a rifle, simply due to the much greater portion of the day you can have it with you and ready. But you need a rifle with you because ... well, who knows,
something might come up. Live a hundred lifetimes and I'm willing to bet that rifle won't be reached for.
I'm not trying to bust your chops, by the way. I don't think folks SHOULDN'T have rifles or shotguns with them if they want to. I just find myself needing to understand the thinking that brings folks to this decision -- and to figure out what assumptions folks use to justify it to themselves.
Again, though, "Aww, I just want to..." is a fine answer.
