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First, most places I go I feel are safe enough to not carry. I would and do try to avoid places where I think it is not safe to go unless I have a gun on me. But with that....

Basiclly, for me, it involves a simple rational assessment of what the danger to me is, what controls are available, and how much difficulty there is in reducing potential problems.
I'd be willing to bet that most people at Fort Hood thought they were in a safe place...and the US Capital on July 24, 1998...and Trolly Square Mall...and I'll bet no one thought a full on war zone would break out in the middle of North Hollywood in 1997. The fact is that most people feel safe until something happens to change that. In general most people believe that bad things happen to other people in other places.

I don't criticize anyone for the decisions they make about when and where to carry a weapon. The vast majority of people will never be attacked in their homes or find themselves in the middle of an active shooter situation in what they thought was a safe place, but some people have been in those situations and most of them were not prepared for it. I don't want to be one of those people so I carry always.
 
I was just curious if most of us carry 24/7 or just part time (when going to bad parts of town, or late at night). I'm guessing some leave it in their vehicle. I'm new and have my permit, but I'm still getting into the habit.
just when "needed" as in when im planning to leave the house and go somewhere. I dont normally just carry around the house just to carry..sometimes if I know im going somewhere I will just throw on the CC piece when I get dressed and sometimes leave it on till just b4 bed or when I know im "in" for the night..but normally just if im going somewhere.
 
For example, I really don't worry about being attacked by someone while I am at the local PD...
That said, the local PD might still be one of those few places where I'd feel safe enough.
Would the reason you feel that you are safe there be that there are armed men about.

Personally my life doesn't involve hanging around police stations, but I am not really to concerned with my safety in most locations I frequent. However the odds of someone going on a spree in my vicinity are the same as the odds of them going on a spree anywhere else.

A .38 in your pocket doesn't take up much space. 24/7
 
Yes, bad stuff can happen anywhere. A tiger might just jump out of your closet and eat you. But I think you are relatively safe from that most places in the U.S.
What color is the sky in whatever part of America you live in where the predator problem is a freaking tiger?!?!?

Never have any crime where you are? NONE?!?!?
 
I was just curious if most of us carry 24/7 or just part time (when going to bad parts of town, or late at night). I'm guessing some leave it in their vehicle. I'm new and have my permit, but I'm still getting into the habit.
Can you tell me WHEN you will need the gun? If so, why would you ever carry? When that time came up, just don't go to that place. Carrying 24/7 is a pain in the ass. I carry because I do not know when I will need it......
 
Funny you should say that. Several months ago, I found out a neighbor (about 1/2 mile as the crow flies) has TIGERS! No kidding. I found out because the local news had a story about an ESCAPED TIGER. I live in a semi-rural area (1-acre lots, no HOA). I've been here six years, and I had no idea that tigers resided a very short distance from my house.
Go figure, eh!
That is why I like to use the tiger attack sometimes as an example. It actually does fall within the realm of "it might happen" for many, but most folks don't worry too much about it.
 
My thoughts are while out in public I just can't see where places are all that secure. It's really sad, but if you listen at all to where crap is going down.... you can't put a rhyme or reason to it, so I don't try. It's an exercise in futility IMO.
It might seem so, but really it isn't, and that is something I've pushed for years. We do some form of risk analysis with almost everything else we do in life, and usually do a faiarly reasonable cost/benefit analysis. But when it comes to carrying a firearm it seems so many toss all logic and reason aside and fall back onto the "just in case" model. If "just in case" is the reasoning, there are many better ways to avoid problems. My $.02.

I can name a billion examples of places where things "seemed" safe, and all hell broke lose.
perhaps, but can you name a billion examples of places where things "seemed" safe and all hell broke loose more than once? Of course, don't forget that often when we think something "seemed" safe it was becaue we did not properly understand the risks.
 
I'd be willing to bet that most people at Fort Hood thought they were in a safe place...and the US Capital on July 24, 1998...and Trolly Square Mall...and I'll bet no one thought a full on war zone would break out in the middle of North Hollywood in 1997.
You prove my point. Incidents like that are so rare, so unusual, so out of the norm that they take on a bit of mythological folklore all their own. I'd be willing to bet that more people have died in car wrecks on Ft. Hood than have been murdered. I'd bet more folks have died from heart attacks at the Capital than have been murdered there. We sometimes confuse nearly inevitable numbers-driven results with actual likelihoods of events happening.
I don't want to be one of those people so I carry always.
No disagreement with that. I think it is a valid cost/benefit analysis. That is pretty much my view. Nowadays my lifestyle is safe and sane, and the chance of me needing a gun is amazingly low. But carrying a gun around most of the time doesn't cost me much in the way of resources, so it all evens out.
 
Would the reason you feel that you are safe there be that there are armed men about.
No, the reason I feel safe ther is that BGs tend to stay away from the PD and it is a pretty safe place.
However the odds of someone going on a spree in my vicinity are the same as the odds of them going on a spree anywhere else.
The odds of spree shootings occurring do differ quite a bit among different places.
 
What color is the sky in whatever part of America you live in where the predator problem is a freaking tiger?!?!?
It's not much of a problem. That a is the point. There are real and realistic problems and there are rare and unusual problems. You are relatively safe from a tiger attack in your own house, just as you are relatively safe from many other things that folks talk about here.
Never have any crime where you are? NONE?!?!?
Sure we do. But through good risk assessment I don't worry about it much. Do you think having a gun on you prevents crime???
 
Do you think having a gun on you prevents crime???
I think having a gun on me will give me a better chance of preventing a crime happening to me and mine.
 
I think having a gun on me will give me a better chance of preventing a crime happening to me and mine.
Perhaps. It might also make things worse for you and yours. But having a gun usually does not prevent crime, it only changes the responses available to one when crime occurs.
 
This is rediculous; you either have a Standard Operating Procedure or you're left to improvise. Each one of us knows what our daily / weekly routine is for the most part. If I CAN carry, I DO carry - period. If I decide to leave the house (or go about the house) unarmed, not PLANNING to go anyplace I might need a sidearm (like we know where that is these days), I cannot always determine where my travels will take me until I return to the 'safety' of my home. If a friend or family member calls from someplace he / she should not be and I need to go where I didn't plan to, I'm not going back to the house to correct my tactical miscalculation.

This whole thread reminds me of a friend of mine who recently commented, "Who needs a gun? If I were going someplace I thought I needed a gun, I just wouldn't go there." He was making an unqualified assumption in this day and age that the places he was going (church, the mall, child's school / college campus, a military base, etc.) were places where he could be SURE he would not need a sidearm to protect himself or those in his care, or to stop a threat within his purview before it escalated.

I agree that these are places where sidearms should not be needed to defend against a developing threat to the safety of ourselves or others but, sadly, we can no longer say these are places where sidearms are not needed, or at least potentially needed, for that purpose. To pick and choose when and where we carry (when carry is not limited by law or other restrictions we have otherwise submitted ourselves to) is to introduce hesitation into our initial decision to be responsible for our own safety, which becomes systemic to the process and leads to hesitation at the point of attack. The only decisions that should need to be made at the point at which the threat reveals itself are: 1) engage or redirect and 2) target or non-target. Anything else leads to uncertainty and hesitation; and he who hesitates is lost.

There's so much more to say, but the point is this: if you carry, you carry - that's it; if you don't, you're playing with it and you should just leave it at home for the benefit of yourself and others - you're not ready to be part of the solution. You're going to hesitate because your mind isn't SET from the beginning on what you are doing and why you are doing it, and you're going to get yourself or someone else hurt at the critical moment. You're not a sheep dog; you're a dangerous sheep.
 
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