Is Armed Your Default Setting?

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I don't feel the need to carry, so I don't. One less thing to worry about.

I'm beginning to think that too many people -- inadequately prepared or temperamentally unsuited -- are carrying in our society. If everybody is carrying, then carrying, yourself, offers no competitive advantage. And the criminals, who might have held you up at gunpoint, will now be inclined to just shoot you first before you can draw. The omnipresence of guns is becoming a serious problem. You never know when a trivial argument might become a deadly shootout.

Let's not confuse carrying guns with possessing guns. My guns are safe, locked up at home.
 
Armed by default. If going into an NPE, it's up to me to let her know if I'm unarmed. We recently switched doctors, and he is armed at the clinic, so that's no longer a gun free zone.
 
AlexanderA, do you post at DU?
I am armed whenever I am up. I am unarmed at work, but work provides a gun locker right at the entrance for me to drop it off, under remote control and overseen by an armed officer. If I NEED a gun at work, I can grab a Glock 19, Remington 870, or AR-15, depending on what happens. Generally I let my armed staff handle things. So, yes, I am armed all the time not at work - a gun in the safe is perfectly useless when needed. Also, I carry a trauma kit - I have seen so many people proudly proclaim they have X or Y kit in the truck, or on their PC in the closet...but nobody seems to have the truck or the PC in the shopping mall/ grocery store/ etc., when the shooting does occur. Do people think I am over prepared? Don't really care what others think, but I will say I hope I DID waste all the money on training, gears, firearms, etc., that I can go to my grave never having to take a human life to defend mine or another's life.
 
Is Armed Your Default Setting? Yes. Because I'm a cranky, paranoid old SOB who has had occasion to encounter evil in the real world.

(Although, as a previous poster mentioned, some of us with base privileges, per federal law have to disarm prior to entering a military installation -- even off-duty law enforcement).

AlexanderA said:
If everybody is carrying, then carrying, yourself, offers no competitive advantage. And the criminals, who might have held you up at gunpoint, will now be inclined to just shoot you first before you can draw.
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Lumbergh meme.jpg

AlexanderA said:
The omnipresence of guns is becoming a serious problem. You never know when a trivial argument might become a deadly shootout.
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Well, in my experience, typically when that occurs -- it's among people who aren't eligible to legally carry a firearm anyway, either due to age (under 21) or prior felony convictions. And yes, we've all seen it splashed across the news when a licensed carrier (or LEO) gets involved in a road-rage shooting or something happens in a bar or restaurant, almost always due to intoxication. But the overwhelming majority of criminal firearms use is by criminals. Most of us don't engage in trivial arguments while armed and I presume most of us act like responsible adults in public.
 
AlexanderA said:
I don't feel the need to carry, so I don't. One less thing to worry about.

I'm beginning to think that too many people -- inadequately prepared or temperamentally unsuited -- are carrying in our society. If everybody is carrying, then carrying, yourself, offers no competitive advantage.
Click to expand...

While your thoughts are valuable, it is my firm belief that "Darwin will out," and that the hotheads and incompetents will get weeded out. I have advanced this idea as my "The Billy The Kid" theory. My further thesis is that in the long term, we will have fewer innocents killed or injured by observing a strict interpretation of "2A" than if we continue on our present path of incrementally restricting the "keeping and bearing" of arms.

And the criminals, who might have held you up at gunpoint, will now be inclined to just shoot you first before you can draw. The omnipresence of guns is becoming a serious problem. You never know when a trivial argument might become a deadly shootout.
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Why, that's just as theoretical as my Billy The Kid theory! =D

Let's not confuse carrying guns with possessing guns. My guns are safe, locked up at home.
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I'm not clear on what you're getting at on that one. I think you're OK with the "keeping" part but not the "bearing" part. Is that fair to say?

Terry, 230RN

REF (One of several references to the Billy The Kid theory):
https://armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=67630.msg1380294;topicseen#msg1380294

In addition, I have cited the more contemporaneous incident of the Valentine's Day Massacre, where ~7 .crooks were eliminated without the public expense of trials. (I believe there was one "innocent" killed in that one.)

Other examples of criminal attrition by firearms abound even today, viz the recently reported party shootouts.

Edited for housekeeping
 
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In most daily situations, I'm not convinced being armed increases my life expectancy more than a low-sodium diet, and I keep blowing off doing that. But transportation to these daily situations is the difference.

Oddly, I feel pretty safe walking.
Driving, 50/50, going up due to urban area.
I always carry when riding a bike now, though. Something about being on two wheels seems to drive people on the road into psychopathy at a higher rate.
 
I can’t carry at work, but most other places I do. My wife doesn’t ask if I’m armed. Like @Night Rider, we do have a code. If she asks if I have my American Express card, she’s uncomfortable in the situation and we move.
 
Will depend upon any number of connotations in the presumed discussion.

I have all manner of training and experience. Batons (including cross-handle), kubotan, all manner of martial arts, if never much in any one, specifically. Decades of firearms training, and the use of fires in military settings.

So, in terms of mindset, I am always armed. I may not always have a firearm. But, I'm armed.
 
AlexanderA said:
I don't feel the need to carry, so I don't. One less thing to worry about.

I'm beginning to think that too many people -- inadequately prepared or temperamentally unsuited -- are carrying in our society. If everybody is carrying, then carrying, yourself, offers no competitive advantage. And the criminals, who might have held you up at gunpoint, will now be inclined to just shoot you first before you can draw. The omnipresence of guns is becoming a serious problem. You never know when a trivial argument might become a deadly shootout.

Let's not confuse carrying guns with possessing guns. My guns are safe, locked up at home.
Click to expand...

While perusing gun forums like The High Road, it would appear a very high percentage of non-criminal civilians carry guns on a regular basis.

Getting away from gun forums, the reality is a bit different. Fer instance:

Population of my state of Texas in 2020 = 29.1 million
Number of active concealed carry licenses in Texas in 2021 = 1.7 million

Most folks I know with a LTC in Texas don't carry on a daily basis, they got their license for "just in case". Due to that, I'd guess at least 50% of LTC holders don't carry daily, so knock that 1.7 million down to 850,000. Then bump it back up to 1.7 million just for the possibility that a large number of non-criminal civilians without a license carry on a daily basis. If that's true, that would indicate that 5.8% of non-criminal civilians carry guns daily in Texas.

I imagine other parts of the country have higher and lower percentages of non-criminal civilians carrying guns daily.
 
AlexanderA said:
I don't feel the need to carry, so I don't. One less thing to worry about.

I'm beginning to think that too many people -- inadequately prepared or temperamentally unsuited -- are carrying in our society. If everybody is carrying, then carrying, yourself, offers no competitive advantage. And the criminals, who might have held you up at gunpoint, will now be inclined to just shoot you first before you can draw. The omnipresence of guns is becoming a serious problem. You never know when a trivial argument might become a deadly shootout.

Let's not confuse carrying guns with possessing guns. My guns are safe, locked up at home.
Click to expand...

Well said, and might explain some of what we’ve seen recently in the headlines (shootings).

I tend think the vast majority of criminal acts are simply windows of opportunity. Stay alert, have the right mindset, mix up your routines (gas station, grocery store, etc.) and you are always armed. Come to think of it, I think your odds of being hit by a falling satellite are far greater than being a victim of a violent crime/shoot-out if you practice the aforementioned.
 
JohnKSa said:
"Do you have a gun at home?"
To which the guy replies:

"I have a gun in your office."
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Yep, did that once - the doctor freaked out. And it was just a lowly Colt DS - imagine his reaction if it was the full sized pistol I carry these days...
 
My wife does on occasion ask a question to which she already knows the answer. That question is never one of them.

Armed is indeed my default setting.
 
Armed is my default. Exceptions made for most screened venues, certain legal NPE, and specific work restricted .gov or .mil locations. Simple open to the public venues with restrictive polices or "codes of conduct" are ignored.
 
I’m often armed but not always. Sometimes if dealing with a prohibitive place along my daily agenda, I just won’t bother. It is honestly odd to me that it is such an odd question for you. I mean different people just have different habits. My grandfather woke up every day at 4:00AM and went to the same diner for breakfast every week day on his way to work and ordered that same meal, to the extent the waitress would just brink it to the table without asking. My grandma asking him “John did you eat breakfast this morning?” might be odd, but someone else’s wife asking is pretty normal. It just seems out of touch with human nature to be perplexed that not everyone who carries a handgun would do it religiously.
 
chicharrones said:
If that's true, that would indicate that 5.8% of non-criminal civilians carry guns daily i
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There are a couple of met-analyses, which cross-index other surveys and polls, which suggest (only suggest) a national average around 1%. Now, that 1%, per the data, are "hard core," near 24/7 "carriers." Collating data on the "less frequent" carriers is very complicated to measure.

This can get to some interesting numbers, though. If we remove about 10% of the 340 million population to account for the criminal class (not all of whom are armed, nor armed full time) that's right at 3 million "carrying all the time" people. Which winds up being about twice (or perhaps half again) the number of currently serving sworn armed LEO in the nation. (Of course those are hugely broad brush strokes with hugely wide regional variations.)

It an argument "our side" ought raise more often in debate.

Night Rider said:
I you aren't carrying a CAC card you are a Civilian
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Not necessarily. I have a CAC card (two actually), but, I'm also Retired since 2016. This is the problem in splitting hairs.
 
Unarmed is my default setting. I've carried a loaded gun once in the last few years.

For the last several years, I've worked two jobs, where I couldn't carry at either for one reason or another. There's 5 1/2 days of the week gone. My wardrobe changed to more comfortable clothes that aren't as easy to carry in, because why bother trying to carry when you can't anyway?

It's something I plan to work back in. Currently, my house is just a frame and some wrapping. I'm going to focus more on fixing my wardrobe and such after I can move in.
 
CapnMac said:
Not necessarily. I have a CAC card (two actually), but, I'm also Retired since 2016.
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OK, if you're not currently serving in the military you are a civilian.

I'm not sure about people who are on the retired list because they are subject to recall to active duty
 
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