Fear factor or Why do you carry a gun?

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12-34hom

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From particapating in several gun related boards over the last several years i have developed a overview of gun owners as they relate to internet sites devoted to those who enjoy owning and using all types of firearms.

Is the reason for the ownership of your personal firearms - Need vs. Want?

After viewing some of the threads like Post pics of "you and your guns" or other similiar threads i was amazed at the sheer amount of guns some here own!! [Tamaras collection comes to mind right off hand].

I have three pistols, 2 for duty, one a "house gun". One rifle [target & hunting] One shotgun for hunting.

I have read that there are those who are always armed where ever they might be, in thier own home, out in public etc...

What lead you to this type of mindset??? Are the chances of someone using deadly force on your person great?

Or is just the percieved threat enough for you?

Let me say, that i have NO problem with anyone carrying a concealed firearm, unless the are a convicted felon. I would hope that if you serious, you have a fair amount of training to go along with the responsibility of CCW. [ but that's just me].

I'm not asking anyone to justify owning any gun.

Until i started working as a peace officer, i never owned a pistol for self defense porposes. Although i've always been around guns, shotguns and rifles, for hunting.

Just interested in what others here have to say about this subject. I guess i'm lucky enough to live in an area where one can go about ones business in "relative" saftey.

How bout you?

12-34hom. Thanks for any replies.
 
I am an American. It is typical of us to wear clothes for comfort and social propriety. Guns are part of the dress, same as pants, underwear and shirt. Security aspect determines the choice of the sidearm, but who I am determines the fact that I carry. I don't carry in the shower or in bed...but keep clothes and guns where I can find them in the dark.
 
Reason #1: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Guns are a piece of safety equipment, protecting you constantly, pretty much like seatbelts, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, the circuit breakers in your house, etc. But you hope you'll never actually need to put one to use.

Reason #2: They're fun. Serious golfers have a lot of golf clubs, so serious shooters have a lot of guns.
 
I'm a '55 model. Born in a time taught to be self-reliant. We didn't have 911.
We had good neighbors and watched over each other. Taught early, brought up to be aware of surroundings. Cold War, Civil Defense Drills, and all that. Same values and morals taught in public school -at that time.

I was also raised in and around a business that had always been security minded/at risk. I continued in that business in a more deeper faction.

Brought up around guns, always had a loaded handgun in my room since a s long as I can remember. Mom and dad kept another handgun in thiers.

It was no big to kill a rabid dog in the yard, a snake, or to go across the field to haindgun hunt for rabbits. No big deal for me to tote mine as kid on a family outing--picnic alongside a creek.

We had riots occur, I used that gun when the front door came crashing in.

"Assume nothing, trust nobody". "Bad things happen to good people". " Never start a fight, if in one-end it, whatever it takes". Be aware at all times--get in a bad way, you're supposd to be prepared always, so do what it takes to survive". Taught, drilled into my brain.

Child of the times and nature of business. Yes BG's wanted what I had access to. I had the keys and the safe(s) combo's. My family was a target too. I continue because as CR Sam put it" one never knows the where and when of their next encounter.

My responsibility is to myself.
 
12-34hom...

"I have read that there are those who are always armed where ever they might be, in thier own home, out in public etc..."

I say this not to be combative or insulting, but as a way to answer the question of why some people carry all of the time.

Can you without fail tell me (or anyone else for that matter) exactly where and when violence will/may be visited upon us? If we knew for certain when crime would occur, well then we could either avoid that situation OR go armed at that point. But since no one can predict when a criminal will confront them, you have to consider going armed at all times, otherwise you are gambling.

There is also the fact that the more you carry, the more familiar and comfortable you become with carrying and are more likely to do it properly and with the expertise necessary to carry safely.

As far as the relative safety of where I live, this is one of the safest towns in the Commonwealth. Yet a few years ago an older woman was mugged at an ATM some 300 yards from my house. And there have been a number of home B&Es along the border of our neighboring city with a much higher crime rate than ours. Oh and there are drugs all through this safe little town. With the attendant crime that goes with the drug traffic and trade.

I choose not to be a victim (again) so I carry as much as I can and do it legally and responsibly and encourage others to do the same.

My two cents (2.04 cents adjusted for inflation).
 
carrying a gun gives me that inflated sense of power.


kidding, i carry because its the sensible thing to do.
 
Why?

Well, I've always been a rifle person. Love to shoot long guns. Handguns never interested me until somewhere in the last 2 years. The only time I shot handguns as a kid was because someone else was shooting the rifle!

My job has me traveling all over Middle TN in my personal vehical. I don't want my car to break down anywhere that I have to walk for hours before seeing another person. Screw the bad guys, there's critters out there on hey BFE at night!

Then there's the McD's that was robbed twice in 3 weeks at gun point 3 miles from my house. Last one was about 2 weeks ago.

Several home invasions happening within 20 miles of my house. (Happening closer and closer every year to my "quiet town.")

Me, the 'city guy,' driving around very rural TN in my purple car has not been pleasent in every town. I guess I don't fit in with the locals in some places. Been run off/cussed/threatened/chased by black, white, hispanic, whatever because I stopped at the wrong gas station or passed his/her car when they were traveling 30mph in a 55mph zone or wore the wrong shirt. It doesn't always pay to be the 'little geek' of the family.

Call it paranoid, call it a right, I call it "preventative maintenance" of my person and property when I carry a gun. If I'm about to be hurt, I'm going to prevent it. That's good health maintenance to me.

Putting all that aside, I own guns because I'd be really bored at the gun range without them! "Excuse me, sir, hi, my name is Darrin. Could I shoot your gun?" :D
 
Got homeowners insurance?

People tend to operate more efficiently in areas of familiarity. An appliance repairman seldom incurs the type of expense that I did when my refrigerator acted up. I like firearms, and have owned and used them all my life. If someone were to harm my family in a situation that could have been altered by exercising our 2nd Amendment rights....I simply could not bear it.

Someone with no background in firearms might feel differently. I don't have the knowledge or even the desire to protect my family from another refrigerator failure....short of simply buying a new one, which I did....but I can, and have passed on knowledge and created desire in my wife and child to attain proficiency at arms, and thereby increase their control over their surroundings.

My house has never caught on fire. I assure you, however, the insurance is paid up.
 
Spackler-Bingo!

Personal responsibility.
Click to expand...

I agree. With me it is a matter of taking responsibility for my safety and the safety of my friends and loved ones. How can I expect anyone else to lay down their life to protect me or mine? Fear has nothing to do with it. Just as I go to work every day to provide for my family I also arm myself to provide for the thier defense. That's my duty and my responsibility.

There is a great quote from L. Neil Smith's Probability Broach that deals with why a person goes armed. I am too lazy at this late hour to look it up , but something like "I go armed not as a threat to those around me but to say to that I will defend you and yours like you were my own...If I come armed to your home take it as a sign of respect." Something like that. Good Book.

Mike
 
I in no way intend to be insulting, but I like to take thoughts and ideas on subjects to their most basic understandings.
For this question my answer is this, we as part of the animal kingdom were born without weapons, we are pretty fragile creatures. Our weapon is our mind. Unlike the other creatures of the animal kingdom we have no fangs, teeth, speed, claws, talons, camouflage, flight ability, or the ability to stay submerged for extended periods.
My point is this, we have created our defensive mechanism, and it is the gun. Would a lion leave his claws and fangs with the pride while it went for a walk because it didn't plan on attacking an antelope or fighting off hyenas that day? Nope. Would a eagle or hawk leave it's talons or sharp beak at the nest to take a leisurely flight because it didn't plan on getting bushwacked by another territorial bird or it didn't plan on grabbing a wounded rabbit? Nope. It's not even an option for these animals and as far as I'm concerned, it's not an option for me either.
I also do it in the face of the illegitimate anti-gun laws. It's my right as a living and breathing person to defend myself, forget those laws, they're created in the face of the 2nd amendment and it's wrong.
 
What lead you to this type of mindset??? Are the chances of someone using deadly force on your person great?
Click to expand...

I live in an unusually safe part of America, and am part of the reason it's unusually safe. Over 5,000 others in my county and I have concealed firearms permits—and the criminals know it.

I've got flash lights, first aid kits, locks on all the windows, et cetera. I doubt I'll ever need my flash lights, but prudent caution is one of the marks of maturity, I've found.

I believe rights, like muscles and I.Q. points, benefit from regular, frequent exercise.
 
I sort of grew into it. I shot my dads' .357 when the cartridge was 9 years old - I was born the year it was intoduced. Before that, a .22 rifle and a .410 single barrel. Much later, after just a couple of years in LE, I began to carry regularly, legally and (sometimes) otherwise. Now that I fit more of a "victim" profile" (bad legs, cane, and old) I carry full-time. I am like an ex-con about hospitals - they will have to kill me to get me back into one. So, here I am...too banged up to run fast, too old to heal fast, and too damned stubborn to just stand there and take it.
 
I have read that there are those who are always armed where ever they might be, in thier own home, out in public etc...
Click to expand...

:D Got me pegged. :D

Actually what started me packing was when I was young and attending a rough school, the admin, did nothing to curb the violence or look out for us, so I did it on my own, way before it was legal. I noticed a change in mindset, I had been a pretty nasty hothead, I actually enjoyed a good fist fight, but the responsibility that came with my decision to strap on that gun, precluded me from having that hothead. I'm 28 been packing about 12 years now, in that time the gun has left the holster a couple times in defense, all coons and dogs. Today I do it simply because it has become habit, that and the fact I now have a wife and a 3year old to look after.

I also carry a rifle(s) and shotgun almost everywhere, but I live in Texas and I live in the country, and I work in ranch related work, so it is sorta like a tie for a bank executive.

Another reason I always keep it up, is the more of us who do it, the more mainstream and accepted it is bound to become. So today I strap it on about as much to further my civil rights as I do to protect my personal self. Shoot i'm a big ugly guy, the fella most street hoods cross the street cause they think I might steal their wallet, of most of the people I know I am least likely to be attacked.

I had a guy attempt to rob me one time, he made a grave mistake and whacked me with a wooden slat off a pallet, instead of shooting him when I turned and saw him about to hit me again, I decided to beat him soundly. I didn't figure a 130lb gang banger with a pallet slat was that much of a threat to a 260lb redneck farm worker who at the time was tossing 80lb bales of hay in a barn. I probably should have pitched a bale at him, but instead I kicked him in the nether regions, kneed him in the face when he doubled over, then busted his jaw when he popped back up with a big ol fist. Course the cops said I was justified in shooting, a board like that is a deadly weapon. Proving once again us gun nuts are blood thirsty mongrels bent on shooting someone legally. :rolleyes: That has been the only time in the last 12 years anyone has tried to do me bodily harm.

I also think the act of carrying makes me a better citizen, I am not scared to stop and render aid to someone with a flat, or ask someone with a breakdown if they need a hand. I know I am secure as long as I am armed. I assure you if I was not armed, I wouldn't stop most of the time.

Then I just do it, cause I like it, I like guns, and being without one I sorta feel lost and out of place.

I guess I started because of a real threat to my safety that was more than just the school turning a blind eye, and I continue today because I think it is the morally correct thing to do for all of society.
 
The next time you eat at a Mc Donalds, ask your self, what would you do if some scumbag walks in and starts shooting.

Thats why I carry

The same goes for around the house.

Abenaki
 
It's insurance. I will carry wherever I can because if I ever need a gun but I decided for whatever reason not to carry that day, I will never forgive myself.

Sheslinger
 
I carry a gun because I got sick of being on the Philadelphia news for being a victim/witness of violent crimes TWICE.
 
Because I can.






OK, that's a flip answer but it is the truth. I have the right to defend myself and the common sense to use the best tool available.
 
Well, the cops around my small town carry guns just the same as the cops in the big, big city in the next county do.

For the same reason, I figure it makes sense for me to carry a gun just like the folks in the big city do.

I'll give you a hint. The cops in my town don't carry guns cause they have to use them a lot and that's not why I carry one either.

I carry a spare--but not cause I have to use it a lot or because I fear having a flat.
I have car insurance but not because there's a high accident rate in my county nor is it because I'm afraid of car accidents.
I have my car serviced regularly but not because it's unreliable.
I have medical insurance, but I don't expect to have health problems.
I have homeowner insurance, but not because my home has been damaged a lot or and not because other homes close have been damaged--they haven't.
I have fire extinguishers, but as far as I know there haven't been any house fires close to here, and I've never had a fire in a house where I lived. And, it's not cause I'm afraid of fires--I'm not.

Are you getting the picture?

How about this.

I know the number of the local police, even though I've not had to call it since I moved here.
I remember the number "911" even though I've never had to call it even once.
I have a gun safe even though I don't have kids even though burglary around here is nearly non-existant.

Figured it out yet?

More hints...

I lock my car doors even though I've never had a car stolen.
I have a security system even though I've never had a break-in.
I have been trained in CPR even though none of my family members have heart problems.
I carry a keychain flashlight, but it's not any darker where I live than normal. I'm not afraid of the dark, so that's not the reason either.

Here it is spelled out very simply.

I try to be prepared.

Why?

1. Because where ever I go, I'm always there to help me.

2. Because no one else cares about me like I do.

3. Because I don't trust the idiots I rub elbows with every day to be able to do more than point and gasp when things go wrong.

4. Because when one loss can break you, you can't afford to gamble even if the odds are good.
 
I carry because not all the felons I've pissed off over the years are still in prison and lots of them have friends on the outside.

I carry because it make me, my family, and my community safer.

I carry because it is my duty.

I carry because it is my right.

David
 
What lead you to this type of mindset??? Are the chances of someone using deadly force on your person great?

Or is just the percieved threat enough for you?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I do not have ESPN. Well, I do, but I do not have ESP.

Seriously: I do not have the luxury of choosing the time and place of my attack, if I am ever attacked. I do not know if and when it might happen.

It might be at 3pm on an idle tuesday, as happened to my grandmother, or it might be at 2am, as happened to an uncle of mine.

You just don't know.

Serious question for you: Do you only buckle your seatbelt when you think or feel that the odds are in your favor?

I think that sums it up.
 
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