CCW holders, I have a question for you?

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For hunting

I'm a handgun hunter and spend a lot of time in the mountains in my jeep or other 4x4's. I can carry a long gun in the vehicle with rounds in the magazine (not the chamber), but a handgun has to be completely unloaded in the vehicle. With my ccw, I can ride around loaded and jump out ready to shoot. In many states you can't do this, but I see nothing prohibiting this in CA. I've asked several Fish & Game folks who don't like it, but can't see any law against it.

I also got my permit so I could carry on trips or to areas I don't feel safe. My ex wife is shacking up with a criminal who has threatened me. So has my ex wife. Heck, she shot/killed her last boyfriend in my kitchen. This was the basis for my "good cause" statement.
 
Honestly, I have a permit (not in my home state, unfortunately) because I consider myself a "sheep dog" - even though I'm not a peace officer, bodyguard, military, etc. I have the moral drive in me that says, "You will protect innocents." Innocents are usually just friends or family (the little lady screaming when some guy is chasing her is not always the victim!), but if I were to be thrown into a grocery store where an apparently crazy dude is plunging a knife into people, guess what I'm going to do.

It peeves me to no end that I'm not legally allowed to carry in my hometown, too.
 
I'm a retired Federal law enforcement officer.

Prior to July of '04 I had a CHL so I could protect myself and family from violent criminals, some of which I had identified and obtained sufficient evidence on to have incarcerated for a l-o-n-g time. Also, being a law enforcement officer isn't something you do, it's something you are. Also, I have the training, experience, and wherewithal to intervene in potentially violent situations to protect the lives of innocent third persons. I guess when you look in the dictionary for the word, "sheepdog," you'll see my picture. :D :D :D
 
Have been educated and work in the field of criminal justice. Objective data shows that law enforcement officers will not be around should anything bad happen to me and my family-not for a while at least. Read John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime. He is controversial but it is a good read.
 
In the four-ish years I lived in the Bay Area, I had close encounters with:

A 7.1 earthquake, and the subsequent looting, rioting, and mayhem

A cabbie having his face blown off, managing to drive his cab into a KFC, exiting the car and expiring in the dining room less than a mile from my front door

My ex-neighbor's garage being machinegunned two days after I moved out. They were a quiet Indian/Pakistani family that got together with family every Monday night to play Monopoly, of all things. This particular evening they decided to do something different, and went to see a movie. If not for that, they would all have been killed.

The Rodney King riots. I lived in Petaluma at the time, and yes, they got even that far.

These things got the ball rolling. I moved back to Oregon, got situated, and found out I could get my permit fairly easily. I carried for a few days, then realized that some of the things I was doing thinking could be dangerous, and that I neede to rethink my attitude about it. A few years later, I got married. A year after that, we had a son. The wife and kid cemented it for me; I had grown up a bit in the time between the first issue and the renewal, and the attitudes that made me stop carrying had changed. I now carry just about everywhere except at work.
 
Many Reasons..Here Are Two

(1) Having grown up on the Texas Gulf Coast, I know for a fact after a hurricane ("Celia" in '70 comes to mind) there are those who want what YOU have because they lacked the foresight to prepare.

(2) I'm "handicapped" and have been viewed by scum bags as an "easy mark." Oh, just try it now, a**ho**! :O)
 
For me, it was an event. Short version...

I was fly-fishing, alone, out in the boonies. 2 hours from town. Two guys who creeped me out came up to where I was fishing. They started talking, and it felt like they were feeling me out, to see what kind of victim I'd be. I kept my cool, and bluffed a little bit, and they went away. It occurred to me that, if they had wanted to attack me, there was not a single thing I could do to stop them. A fly rod is not much of a defensive tool.

Decided I wasn't going to be a good victim, ever.
 
Early in my martial arts training I asked my sensei what to do if somebody pulled a gun on me. He showed me a few disarming techniques from contact distance. I asked him what if the guy was further away. He told me to run like hell for now, then when I turned 21 to get my concealed carry license.

Over the next five years I heard this advice repeated many times. When I went off to college I put my marital arts training on the back burner for the most part, but I always had a plan for my 21st birthday: Have a drink and apply for my carry license, not necessarily in that order. Taking the required safety course was a wake-up call as far as my actual shooting ability at the time, but it did not deter me from buying a Beretta and I committed myself to a monthly training regimen.

I was so convinced that carrying was the right thing to do that I was utterly shocked to find out that not all of my friends approved. I did not acquit myself well of that feeling, and two of my friends didn't want me carrying around them for over five years. In retrospect, it was good of them to question me, as I was too cavalier about certain aspects of armed self-defense.

Despite all of this, all I had up until that time was a generalized concern about random crime, as it could effect me. I did not think about how I might be the one guy in the McDonalds with a firearm when Mister McCrazy comes in until after I got my carry license. Now, fully versed in self-defense doctrine, the rules of engagement, and the legal definition of the justifiable use of deadly force, I am more convinced than ever that carrying is the only logical thing to do.
 
"What I am looking for is the main reason in your thought process that inspired you to get a CCW license "
Click to expand...


My thought process flowed as such;


I'm getting older, less able to fend off a younger man. This is the reality of aging.

I've been a victim of violent crime in the past.

I live in a state, (Virginia), that is lead by people that actually read the Constitution.

I've lived long enough and seen enough to know there are bad people in the world and they prey on the weak without conscience.

All that being said...I do not enjoy carrying a weapon...it is a pain...but I do it to afford a larger measure of protection for my family.
 
When I was young, before I went into the military, I got a CCW because I could. That was before Louisiana became shall issue.

Later, when I left the military, I understood my own mortality. I understood that I might not survive a confrontation in which a person might try to take my life. I understood that I could neither predict, nor control such an occurance, and therefore I could not always avoid it. I wanted more than random chance to determine my lifespan. I decided to give myself the best possible chance of survival. Thus, got a CCW and began to train and carry again.
 
As a citizen of one of the remaining free states of the United States of America I carry because I can.

There are indeed other more practical reasons but absent them I would still carry for the reason stated above.
 
Why -

I got my first permit in 1993 because I was
  1. getting a passport
  2. the pictures were the same and only a couple bucks more
  3. the Sherrif's office in Pittsburgh was around the corner
I moved to Florida in 1999, and it was clearer that
  • I was getting older
  • Even at at my younger ages I was not a good fist fighter
  • If I got into a physical confrontation, I lose - But a gun fight was a head game
Since I got my weapon in 2004, my perspective on threat is clearer, and I need to be be prepared. There are no RSVPs to threats, and I now carry everywhere that it is legal.
 
I have always enjoyed taking walks in the evening and I wnated to make my carrying legal. I also never went shopping at night without protection.
 
First event was when I was just out of college and driving to visit my parents. There had been a motorcycle gang carjacking on one of the roads about two weeks before. I never thought they would be so bold as to do it twice in the same place in broad daylight. They were lined up across the road with their motorcycles as I topped a hill in central Florida. I could have stopped and done a multi point turn around (the sides of the road were white sugar sand), but I would have been right beside them and I knew they had very badly beat an elderly woman in the previous attack. I decided to floor the car and be a difficult victim. They scattered just in time and gave a short chase. I had a 44 mag loaded and about 100 rounds of ammo in a gym bag next to me hat was planned to be for target practice that weekend. I hit a red light and had the gun out as three of the gang reached me and then fled when I did not appear terrified. I don't think they saw the gun, but they must have seen the fire in my eyes because I was angry that the elderly woman they had carjacked before was a friend of some people I knew.

The second incident was a home invasion at my apartment after returning home in the early evening from the grocery store. I heard the door knob jiggle and looked out the peep hole and saw a tattooed skinhead guy acting very wierd. I went to my bedroom and retrieved a 44 SPL revolver from the nightstand and was at the entrance to the living room when my front door was busted in. The skinhead was charging me, but changed his mind when he saw me bring the gun out of the case and bring it up, aimed between his eyes. I never saw someone run so fast!

After that I began to realize how often I was vulnerable and decided to change that. Luckily I have never had to draw my weapon on a person since that home invasion in the mid 1980's, but have had a few times I avoided a crimminal encounter by making a hasty exit even though I was armed.
 
I started carrying several years ago when I lived in Wichita, Kansas.

No it wasn't legal there.


I was robbed at gunpoint a little over 10 years ago in the Windsor at Woodgate Apts. parking lot (the location is somewhat important as you'll see in a bit).

I told the officer who took our statement that "crap like this makes me want to carry a gun." to which he replied "well, you should!"

Several years later Jonathan and Reginald Carr went on a murder spree that ended with a home invation robbery and rape fest then they took their victims out into a soccer field, naked, in the snow, and executed them (one lived). The Carr Brothers lived in that same apartment complex.

After their killing spree (and the fact that the kid who robbed us looked EXACTLY like Jonathan Carr ... but he wasn't, I looked into it and he didn't live in Wichita at the time I was robbed) I started carrying, law be damned.

The company I worked for at the time printed the business cards for the local PD, so I got to know quite a few of Wichita's finest and off the record, most of them felt that as long as I didn't do something stupid with my gun they didn't care if I carried illegally (not that I ever admitted to them that I did ... it was always discussed as a hypothetical).


One of the long list of reasons I moved away from Wichita and Kansas is that I wasn't allowed to carry a gun for self defense without risking criminal charges (although that has now changed ... good for Kansas). I much prefer carrying a gun here in Colorado where I do so within the law.


Carrying a gun has also become a political statement for me. An assertion of my own sovereignty.
 
Had a very pro father and very anti mother. Day I turned 21 I bought my first pistol. A right is not a right unless you claim it and take its use. Therefore, though I rarely need my Sig, I still have it handy. Just like a spare tire, or a fire extinguisher. I have cars that the spare has never touched the ground after 200,000 miles. I have fire extinguishers that are 20 years old. I have many guns with holster wear that have never been pointed at another human being or animal.
However I also have had to replace worn out spare tires. Recharge discharged fire extinguishers. And reholster weapons.
And that's why I carry.
 
I plan (only 20 :cuss: ) to get one for some very simple reasons. I accept that I and I alone am responsible to keep myself protected and that I can not rely on the goverment, police, or anyone else to protect me. Because I refuse to be the victem of a criminal if it is at all avoidable. And because I have the right to and I intend to exorcise it as soon as I can without being a criminal by doing so.
 
Nine years with the Medical Examiner's office in a major city, I can't / won't discuss ( even with my wife ) what I've seen and had to do and what sick people will do to each other.

If some of the victims, whose deaths I helped investigate, had ( and knew how to use ) a gun, they might still be walking the streets, going to work and hugging their loved ones today.

I will do everything and anything to protect myself and loved ones!
 
Reason to Carry

Luby 's in Killeen, Texas started me thinking. I decided I would refuse to just be a victim.

9/11

I strongly believe that we should re-instill in our culture, particularly our men, the value and responsibility of self-defense. We have lost that since the mid-sixties. I needed to put feet to my words, so when CCW became available in my state, I obtained it.

Will I ever need it, the odds are exceeding against it, but the emphasis is that random acts of violence are just that - random. That means it could occur at any time and place - so "Be Prepared" is the motto. Katrina reenforced the decision.
 
I've been shot at and missed. I carried before that.

I've been shot at and hit. I carried before that.

I remember being told by my PE coach to start remembering to check my pistol at the Prinipal's office before school.

I don't remember having any particular incident convincing me to carry, because I always had. However, it makes more sense every day.

Pops
 
Because I finally woke up to the threats that are around me. The paper today just pointed out the increase in gangs in the state (Florida) and Jacksonville. See http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072306/met_22392118.shtml

And my wife opened her own restaurant and goes in early. She carries, hand on gun in her bag, on the way into her restaurant.

Plus, it changes how I carry myself, making me just look less inviting as a victim....proactive defense, in a sense.

And we've discovered that shooting is just fun!
 
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