Great, great question. Very unique.
BRIEF HISTORY: I'm a cop. Been one for 20 years. When I got my badge as a 21 year old kid, the chief threw me the car keys and said, "Don't put your hand on your gun in public and don't talk to girls. Good luck." That was the extent of my field training. What I learned early on, I learned from mentors, Massad Ayoob articles, and the Street Survival series of books. Before that, as a kid, I had extremely limited contact with firearms...nothing more than an occasional Ruger MKIII .22LR or single-shot shotgun.
When I was a teenager in the late 80s, my much-older brother was an Arkansas State Trooper. In those days, I could ride with him. It was then that my eyes started to be open to the ways of the world. I saw death, violent crime, and many things that for a kid of my age, were rare to see.
By the time I became a dispatcher at 19 and a sworn officer at 21, I knew to carry concealed, but I wasn't consistent.
In June, 1997, and November, 1999, my son and daughter arrived and that was it for me. In my home now, a gun is close. Outside my home, a gun is on me 24/7. My loyalty to concealed carry was initially paternal, to be sure. My kids made me smarter...more aware. Now, it's ingrained. I didn't know true love until I held my children, and they will not become victims as long as I have breath...
Strangely, or perhaps it was God's way of looking out for me and my family, my events happened AFTER my kids were born and I always had a gun with me.
EVENT #1: Off-duty at the post office. My son was with me. He was 4 and strapped in a car seat in the back of my Altima. I had a Sig Sauer P220 .45 with me. It was 9PM...too late to be mailing bills but they had to be sent out or risk being delinquent. As I arranged the envelopes in my car, I saw a suspicious male walk up quickly behind my car from the dark. I said to myself, "You've got to be kidding me." He then walked around the side of my car to a point about 30 feet in front of my Altima, then he turned and abruptly came back to my car's driver's side. He had nothing in his hands but he was wearing a thick coat. He knocked on my driver's side window and wanted me to roll it down. Pandhandler? Maybe, but I wasn't going to risk my son's safety. That Altima was brand new, and for all I knew, he was going to carjack me and drive off with my son. That wasn't about to happen, so, I reached for my Sig .45 and in no uncertain terms told him to get lost. He unquestionably saw my right hand and where it was. He actually became ANGRY, cursed, and walked away behind the post office. In hindsight, though he was on us VERY FAST, I would've tried to drive away, but having my Sig .45 at the ready reinforced what I already knew about being forever armed.
EVENT #2: During late 2002, I took my wife, mother, and children to a nearby town in very rural Arkansas to eat a steak. While on the way back home, an older Chevy pickup truck drove up on us very quickly and out of nowhere. I could make out 3 men in the pickup. They would speed up, slow down, and get to within 2-3 feet of my bumper. I thought they were preparing to pit us. I was carrying a Browning Hi Power in an inside-the-waistband holster (I was much thinner then) with 1 spare magazine in a jacket pocket. At one point, I slowed down and eased onto the shoulder to let the truck go around. It stayed behind us. As I recall, this is the point where I finally got scared. Before this, I just thought it was probably some drunk hicks having fun. I tossed my cell phone to my wife and told her to call 911, and I can remember worrying that I would have to relay all the information to her (highway number, location reference, vehicle description, etc.) when I needed to be concentrating on my driving. Because we were in the middle of nowhere, there was no signal. When she told me we had no signal, I went from scared to mad because my babies were in that car. At one point, I actually considered stopping, turning sideways in the road, getting out of my vehicle, and challenging the @$$holes at gunpoint, but common sense won that battle. I stayed at 55 mph, kept my cool, and prayed for a cell signal. I suppose this finally bored them and they turned off on a gravel road and went the other way. We still called 911 and gave a description of the incident. I never heard anything else from the sheriff's office after that, but again, I would've been able to protect my family because I had a gun.
EVENT #3: I had a mentally-disturbed male try to kick in my apartment door when my son was less than a year old in 1998. As he was kicking, I ran back to my closet, got my old reliable Sig Sauer P220 .45, racked the slide using the rear sight because my son was in my arms, took up a defensive position behind a corner wall, and trained my .45 on the front door. There was no time for 911. I can remember thinking, "When he comes through this door, I'm putting rounds on him whether he has a weapon or not." I was truly, truly ready. As fate would have it, he didn't get in my apartment. He gave up when the deadbolt held. I looked out the peep-hole and say him run to another apartment. I took my boy to the landlord's wife (he loved her), and as the apartment's security officer and an off-duty policeman, I found the suspect already INSIDE the apartment of a young female. He and I had a fist-a-cuffs while waiting on my brother officers. I was mad, and he lost. I held him until an officer got there and took over. I had that Sig P220 with me in a front jeans pocket. Not smart but expedient because I didn't have time to holster up, and after he kicked in that female's door, he had threatened to rape her, so speed was of the essence. I like to think that I saved my son, that girl, and myself that day and I was glad to be so well armed.
My kids are a little older now, but I still protect them everyday with my Glock 19. Thanks for allowing me to share these events with you.