These threads always slip into statistical doomsday. "Its not the odds. It's the stakes!" So you better make sure to strap on your full size 9 while walking around the suburban neighborhood you paid a premium to get into just as you would walking around downtown after dark to buy your crack, I guess. Statistics will murder you probably...well, not PROBABLY. Statistically all of us are clutching our pearls for a danger that most likely will never come. If we are attacked and if we need to draw our gun and if we need more firepower to stop the attack and if we need to reload, etc etc etc.
Some folks put a huge priority on being prepared to outgun any perceivable threat. I can respect that even if I dont practice it. I whistle past the graveyard to much internet gnashing of teeth. I DO have a grab and go gun.
Mine is a NAA .22 magnum. It's mostly a grab and go because I forget to take it out of my pocket when I am going somewhere willfully unarmed. Or it may be what I feel like carrying when I want to go completely light. I dont leave the house without a pocket knife or multitool. I'm perfectly OK with nothing but a .22 in one pocket and a good leatherman in the other when I'm going for a long leisurely walk.
Walking to the corner breakfast spot or taking a stroll along our town's lovely riverfront on a sunday morning, I have never felt the need to make sure I could repell pirates that made it this far along the Ohio or be fast on the draw with a more serious weapon for the elderly couple who wave at us as they drink their coffee on their front porch..they do have a teenage grandson that probably plays violent video games, so you never know.
These are times in my life when I really, truly am not exerting the effort to do anything more than be comfortable and unburdened with stuff in my pockets or strapped to my belt, enjoy time with my family, and a take an easy breath knowing that the universe probably won't murder us today, and if it does a firearm will probably not make a difference to how it plans on taking me out.
I dont live the gun life. I dont dress around my gun. I don't sit with my back to walls in restaurants. I sometimes carry just a mouse gun that may one day get me murdered at the trade off of actually carrying the dang thing and not coming home with an aggravated nerve in my back. If it gets me killed, be sure to tell a highly inappropriate and funny joke about it at my wake. I'm Irish. We love irony and coincidence.
I carry a good solid centerfire gun most all day, everyday. I'm in and out of the city, on the road, meeting strangers, etc. However, there are situations where I absolutely say "tahellwithit" and grab something small that I still shoot well enough for self defense when I just dont feel the need to strap something else on. I applaud those more disciplined than me.