While I think a armed society is a safer society we need to move past just have a gun. We need to carry enough gun.
I agree, though again we could get into different opinions on what "enough gun" is, and enough gun for what situation. That's a big part of why I'd love to see open carry become a more common thing. If everyone open carried, weight would be the only reason to carry a smaller gun with less capacity, but concealment would become a nonissue largely.
You are entirely missing my point. It is not possible for you to be free of harm outside of your home. Our society is too mobile. Our perceptions often don’t match reality. It is easily to ignore the California shootings as weirdos, hippies and other crazies live there. This leads to the question how many weirdos, hippies and crazies live in Newton? Well, we can count Ford as one.
What makes you think your community and neighborhood is any different?
How many people are there like that are living in your neighborhood? We had a serial killer living less than 1/2 mile away from us. It will hit when the reality of violent crime comes to your community.
Well, with respect, you are off base here. I'm not missing your point, I just see society and the world we live in differently than you, and do not believe that the horrendous acts of violence that the media plasters all over tv and radio are truly indicative of our society. But that doesn't mean I don't think they can happen, and I'm aware that there is potential danger as soon as you walk out your door, and while you are in your home for that matter. Despite living in a nice community, violence has come here.
I choose not to let it bother me, but that doesn't mean I'm not ready to confront violence if it comes my way. I choose to carry a gun I am comfortable with, which is mostly the same gun all the time, but not always, to give most people a lot of space, and I keep a very wary eye open.
What makes me think my community is any different? Absolutely nothing.
I've been in proximity to a number of bad situations and crimes.
I grew up in Milwaukee in the 80's and 90's. Remember Jeffrey Dahmer?
When I was a teenager the neighbors across the street moved out, and drug dealers moved in. One Saturday morning the SWAT team showed up at 7:00 a.m. and arrested all of them. As it turns out they were dealing dope, and stolen guns.
Then there was the girl I went to high school with that lived two blocks away. Her brother tied her up with wire, threw her in the bathtub, and beat her to death with a shotgun. Then he proceeded to roam my neighborhood aimlessly with shotgun in hand. He was sitting on his front porch when the cops confronted him, and a standoff for several hours ensued. It ended when he put the barrel under his chin and pulled the trigger.
Eventually I moved to the community I live in now about ten years ago which is a quiet hill town in the west, with a population of 1900 or so permanent inhabitants. Nonetheless......
Meth dealers were selling from the drive through window of the fast food restaurant across the street from my office.
A gun involved suicide took place last year about a mile from my home.
There were a number of garages and homes burglarized in my area by addicts looking for loot to sell for drug money a few years ago.
The larger town to the north has had three cops murdered in the last four years.
I have had a person pull a gun on me while I was working, but I diffused the situation. Consequently, that is what woke me up to carrying my own gun to begin with, though my employer prohibits carrying on the job.
The worst incident was three years ago. A returning young veteran of the middle east with apparent PTSD came home and found out that his girlfriend had been sleeping with a local cop while he was gone. The night he found out via phone, he left the local bar he was in, got in his truck and proceeded to shoot up our local high school. Then he drove his pickup down main street shooting out the window at local storefronts and at a few folks on the street. He then crashed his pickup truck through the front doors of our sheriff's office and took off on foot. The cops cornered him about a block away, and had to gun him down. I woke up to the gunfire as the standoff ended, a block and a half from my home. They had to bring a fire hose out to wash the blood off of the parking lot where this went down.
I see these incidents as outliers and not something that is common
where I live. I acknowledge that your life circumstances, locality, and general attitude may dictate a very different philosophy. So while I understand your point, and I can understand why you'd disagree, I simply refuse to allow some bad things going down now and then to dictate my attitude towards the world, or to force me to totally change my dress habits and carry scheme when I doubt very much that I need a higher capacity gun in my location. But again, that's JMO, and what's right for me may be wrong for others. Anytime you have a larger population, you will likely have a proportionally higher crime rate. That just comes with people being people. If I still lived in Milwaukee, I'd probably have started carrying a higher capacity gun from the get go.
Perhaps where I struggle with this is in the way the OP made the initial statement. I don't think one should ever "down grade" what they are carrying. I think you should carry the largest gun you can comfortably carry,
to ensure consistent carry, with the most capacity possible, and to suite your setting, as a minimum. If entering a location or situation that has obvious risk, avoidance first, and if avoidance is impossible perhaps an "upgrade" is warranted to a larger higher capacity gun.
Sorry for the super long post, but it's an interesting topic of discussion.
