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Defining Moment(s) that led to your decision to CCW

419K views 1K replies 1K participants last post by  Chuck Finley69 
#1 · (Edited)
[Edit on 12/09/2010]: I requested a change to the thread's name, and I've decided to add something to this OP to better clarify the thread's intent.

There are dozens of threads, if not hundreds, with the subject "Why I/you/we CCW"...which is why I started this thread in the first place: to ask specifically about "Defining Moments" that you may have had, which led you to the decision to CCW. I haven't kept track of exact numbers, but a considerable portion of the posts -- particularly those more recent -- have been along the lines of "I CCW because..." which doesn't fit the thread's intent.

I'm not trying to play Moderator here, nor am I criticizing those who've posted "Why I Carry" responses to this thread; I'm simply wanting to remind folks that this thread is meant to be different from those "Why I Carry" threads.


Thanks

[End of 12/09/2010 Edit]
I want to briefly describe two incidents that led me to the decision to carry a firearm for self-defense. And if YOU had a defining moment--or numerous ones--that led to your CCW decision, then I think it would be interesting to read about them.

My story isn't very exciting, but I do hope you'll share your "defining moment(s)" with your fellow GT'ers.

Brief Background
I grew up in a family that only occasionally hunted. My dad had a .22LR rifle and a bolt-action .30-06 for large game. As for "incidents," I'd witnessed a few road-rage episodes and the like, but no weapons were ever involved and no deadly threats--perhaps one possible threat of serious bodily harm at age 15 (road rage).

Defining Moment
It was around October of 2002. My wife and I were talking about starting a family, and my mind was occupied by the responsibilities of a husband and future father. One morning I was listening to a local radio talk show (Bob Lonsberry -- www.lonsberry.com) and he was talking about CCW (he's a CCW'er and a vocal advocate for it), and he urged his audience to read a column he'd written regarding CCW entitled "This is Why I Carry a Gun." (He wrote two versions: one version for a general audience and another version for Guns & Ammo.)

I read both articles, and it was as if lightning had struck me. Paternal instinct? Maybe so.

The Decision
Long story short, from late 2002 till early 2003 I conducted my own crash course in firearms (handguns mostly) and CCW -- did so via the Internet, books, magazines, friends, etc. I'd handled Glocks in the gun shops and took a particular liking to the Glock 19, but budget constraints forced me to settle for a Kel-Tec P-11, which I eventually purchased in early summer of 2004 and could legally carry concealed one month later, UT permit in hand. (I eventually purchased a G19 and subsequently sold the P-11.)

Like I said, it's not that exciting a story.

Anyway, I hope you'll chime in and tell us about your Defining Moment(s).
 
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#628 ·
After the Brady bill, I found out I couldn't pass a background check to purchase firearms because of identity theft. The best way I knew to clear my name was to get a CCW permit. It worked great in AZ because that's all you needed to buy and walk out with firearms. KY was a different story until a couple of years ago.
 
#629 ·
I decided to carry a long time ago. When I turned 18, I kept a gun in my car everywhere I went as that was all I could legally do. I turn 21 in about 9 months and 3 weeks and when I do I will be carrying everywhere I legally can.

Oh yeah, getting shot made me realize there's no way in hell I ever want to be in a position to fight for my life and not be able to drop that MF dead. For a few days after I got out of the hospital I was leery of the idea of running towards gunfire if necessary, but that feeling went away soon and made me decide more than ever to carry a gun whenever and wherever I legally can.
 
#631 ·
I'll define my reason to actively carry a gun as separate from my decision to physically own one.

I carry because I believe that all men are evil unless saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. That said, the evil nature of the flesh drives these men to murder, steal, rape, pillage, etc. I've decided that I'm going to do everything in my power to prevent that (God willing) and since most of them are armed, well....I guess I will be too.

I've only had a gun actually pointed at me on one occasion: I was on the interstate, coming home from work, and this guy gets road rage on me and pulls a gun. I was unarmed, called the police, and they never showed up. So, I also carry because I know that it's not the police's job to protect my life. It's mine. So I will.
 
#632 ·
I was a young college kid in an appartment. This was during the summer, so my roommate was away. I wake up in the middle of the night, right outside the bedroom door is the bathroom. The bathroom light was on. In my groggy state, I think "oh, i guess my roommate is back", a second later, a head pops around the corner to see that I am awake. Instanly, I realize my roommate isnt supposed to be here, and the adrenaline kicks in overdrive. At that time, I didnt own a gun, but grabbed a golf club that was near by. As it turns out, THANKFULLY, the guy took off as soon as he saw I was awake. If he had other intentions, I may not be around today.

Fast forward several years, now married, with young children, I fear a similar event to above could happen at any time, and better to defend my family, and myself with a gun rather then a golf club. I plan to take a CCW class next month, so I can have the proper protection away from home.
 
#633 ·
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.
 
#634 ·
Nothing that happened to me personally, but from stuff that has happened where I used to live:



A lady was eating noodles outside a drugstore in broad daylight, when a mentally unstable man began stabbing her with a kitchen knife he just bought from the same drugstore.

She was unarmed and unable to do anything to stop the attack.



A year before that, a man who had been stalking his ex-gf bludgeoned her to death with the butt of a rifle. An elderly man was the only person to try and stop him, and was beaten with the rifle for his troubles.
 
#635 ·
I just got a reminder. This guy was terrorizing our upper-middle-class neighborhood in the late seventies/early eighties, and friends of mine were victims.

I can't remember if I posted the same story earlier, but I'm pretty sure I didn't have this link back then.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_A...&q=my intentions were to inflict fear&f=false

Sorry I can't copy and paste the text. This is chapter 12 from the book: "The Evil That Men Do: FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey into the Minds of Sexual Predators". http://www.amazon.com/Evil-That-Men-Hazelwoods-Predators/dp/0312970609

He would enter a residence, tie everyone up, then rape the females in front of the males in the house.

His crimes were reported, along with where they were occurring, and the fact that he was "at large".

My entire family was armed against this, and I was only 13 or 14 at the time.
 
#636 ·
I was a machine-gunner in the Corps, and carried a side-arm. Grew up in the military and had been shooting since I was a small child. We were stationed in Alaska, on a remote base (Ft. Greely) and because of the wildlife population, it wasn't uncommon for me, as a teenager, to carry a side-arm when I went out, especially in winter months when the moose and buffalo herds were around. Kind of odd to get used to when we first got there, kids walking around with revolvers.

After the Corps, I went to work as a P.I. in Georgia. Part of my job required me to carry concealed. Got my permit then (1987) and have been carrying ever since. Fortunately, I have never drawn my pistol anywhere but the range. Admittedly, there are several times where it was left to a judgment call.

Most of the people I associate with are Former Marines. Most of us infantry. As much as we are all hardcore, Type-A personalities, I find it interesting that we are much less likely to show any sense of machismo while we are carrying. I think it has something to do with the unspoken knowledge that you can back out of any situation with relative safety, knowing that as a last resort, you have your firearm to fall back on, and so, the need to respond to verbal confrontations is taken away.
 
#637 ·
I had been wanting to do it for years, but hadn't. My neighbor is a state trooper and he told me that he didn't go anywhere without his gun and even carried most of the time in his house and told me I should too. The guy is about 6'4" and huge. I figured if he feels like he needed to then I probably should too. Here in Arkansas if you get stopped for traffic violations you are required to show both your drivers license and CCW permit to the officer. He said he feels a lot more at ease with a permit holder than without because he knows they're being honest. He also said he gives more warnings to CCW holders than non.
 
#638 ·
Feb 2008 my lil brother passed away, he had brugada syndrome
Aug 2008 i went in for tests and i also have this, there is no cure for it. They basically give you a ICD (Internal Cardiovascular Defibrillator) which is similar to a pacemaker.

Because of this i can no fight back in a defense situation. If i take a bad blow to the chest having 3 wires ripped from your heart is not good.... In the Summer 09 i realized this and decided to get my CPL (Mi). As i am a senior in college i can not carry 24/7 but i do every time i can.
 
#639 ·
There was not really a defining moment for me. Aside from the fact that there are bad people out there that will do bad things for the sake of doing them. I figure I should at least try and level the playing field. And its a helluva lot less stressful when I go out hunting and throw a jacket on :)
 
#641 ·
I work in an ER and deal with a lot of crazy patients. I can see one going home with my name on their Motrin prescription upset that they didn't get percocet. My last name isn't very common, so you could probably find me without too much trouble. One of our docs actually had to get a restraining order against a patient. There seems to be a lot of craziness out in the world these days and I'd like to not be a victim of it.
 
#643 ·
Because we can! Living in a "shall issue" state doens't hurt, either :cool: I refuse to be a victim...crime is on the rise EVERYWHERE. Never say "it won't happen to me" because it will. I am very new to CCing, still waiting on my holster and belt to get here (after trying 3 others, hopfully finally I've got it right!). My brother-in-law opened my eyes to CCing...after that, my wife and I both went and bought guns, applied for our permits and that was all she wrote. I don't know why I thought I could carry a G22 comfortably concealed, so I bought the G27, too! I will do anything to protect myself and my family...thankfully I haven't had to yet, and hopefully never will. But my wife and I are BOTH ready.
 
#644 ·
Zombie Attacks of course! Hahaha, all jokes aside. A friend of mine was shot and killed at an ATM machine in a "good" part of the town I live in. That was probably one of the first things that made me want a CCW permit. Another reason is probably the simplest one out there: The bad guys have guns, why shouldn't the good guys?
 
#645 ·
I was brought up in a home where guns were not "tools of Satan." My dad was an avid hunter, duck deer, quail, dove and went with his buddies all during the different seasons.

I got my 410 at age 7, and hunted until school took me in other directions. My dad passed about 7 years ago, and I held on to one of his shotguns. I've always been interested in reconnecting with shooting, and when Obama was elected, it was a wake up call, if I didn't have a pistol soon, there might be a good chance that I would never have the right to buy one in the future.

I took a basic pistol course at a local range in January 2009 and requested some permits for purchase. Work kept me busy for many months, but in August, I took the opportunity to visit the local range and rent quite a few semi-auto pistols. I kept gravitating towards the Glock 17. Of course, for CCW purposes, I started renting their 19 and during Thanksgiving week spent 4 separate days at the range.

I did the same during the week after Christmas, and on the last day of the year, asked the sales guy if they had any new Glock 19's with factory night sights. The owner said they had 2 coming in. I asked to reserve one. I got it the 2nd week in January 2010.

I'm going to take another basic pistol course that covers the care and feeding of my Glock 19. I've also signed up for the CCW class that will be held in April on my birthday, no less. It's just screaming karma. :D

So, to boil this all down, my desire to get my CCW is the fear that somehow the 2nd amendment to the Constitution may be buried 6 feet under. I'm looking forward to getting it.

joe
 
#647 ·
No defining moment to speak of. Sort of just felt like something I SHOULD do.
There is no logical reason NOT to.
There are people out there that will do what they want and to who they want with no remorse or measurable sense of consciences. They will do this with any tools they have at hand and for the most part, those individuals will arm themselves with a firearm.
So with that in mind, as long as firearms exist, there will be a need to counter act them with equal and opposite force should they be employed with villainous intent.

Simply put, as long as there are guns being used against the good, the good will need guns.

I consider myself a "Good Person".
 
#648 ·
I was robbed at gunpoint of a rifle at my place of employment on July 26 2003, and almost again on October 18, 2003. That was the wakeup. I thought I was going to have actually use a gun to defend myself against a car-jacking in 2005, they guy grabbed the door handle at a gas station after I decided I wanted a coca-cola. I know he saw the glock, because after I yelled he didnt want my truck, he turnt tail and ran off. The barrel of the glock was pressed against the glass.

And one more incident years ago, some punks in a car pointed a revolver out the window of a white hyundai. I wish I had a gun then, because know when I think back about that incident the police where called and it took them almost an hour to respond. And I remember the retarded-ass manager coming out asking why in the hell did I drive like a maniac and almost take out 2 of the gas pumps. He said he was going to call the cops and I had to leave. I told his sorry behind he would drive like a maniac if someone pointed a gun at him, and maybe he should call the cops. He did and when they got there, they stayed for 30 seconds, and no report. Low and behold a few months later, I saw the same car with the same 4 guys.

Do you know the fear of looking down the barrel of a rifle pointed at you, not knowing if that moment in time is the last?? If the thug decides to be a heartless asshat and shoots you for your last 15 dollars.?? It sucks, and I refuse to be a victim again. Im not saying Im gung-ho and am looking for an excuse to just shoot someone. Its far from that, but if I have to defend myself, I will.
And the crime that happens on a daily basis, is another reason.

Many, many, many glocktalkers have had a similiar experience and dont wish to selected to be a victim again. And those that havent, dont want to be the next one.
Interesting story, thanks :wavey:
 
#649 ·
I don't have a defining moment in my life that urged me to carry. But when the defining moment comes...I'll already be carrying.
And it could be a defining moment for a crook to decide he should get another line of work.
 
#650 · (Edited)
When I was 19, I had an acquaintance come to my door with a gun and tell me he was going to kill me and everyone who lived with me, and then did his best to make good on his statement. I will not go into details but obviously I'm still here, and so is everyone who was in my house at the time. Decided it would have been a lot easier to handle had I had a gun, too. Made sure that was the case from then on, and got my CHL ASAP after turning 21.
 
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