Why do we carry, anyway?

[Snowdog]

Reading some recent posts, a particularly intriguing thought crossed my mind.

I suppose we all have the same idea as to why we carry, however I feel we all draw a different line when it comes to our perspective responsibilities inherent to concealed carry.
When we tuck our handguns securely into their holsters before heading out into society, just what are we expecting to do exactly? What are we prepared to do if the balloon goes up?


Do we play hero and dashingly foil a robbery?
Do we prevent the continuation of a stranger-on-stranger assault?
Do we become involved with an evolving domestic dispute unfolding before us?
Do we prepare in anticipation of an offensive assault against armed villains by discretely carrying several firearms?
Do we prepare as if the least is enough?
Do we even feel secure with what competencies we were originally content with?
Do we feel the need for 5 rounds, or do we need 50?
Do we take the tacit oath of an auxiliary police of sorts, or do we carry in order to protect our own tails?

Having given this some thought, I've come to some conclusions.

I've come to the realization that I carry for strictly defensive purposes. Perhaps this explains why I carry a K9 and spare mag, a Benchmade and a cell phone.

This also brings me to understand that in all reality, I probably wouldn't bother to foil an armed robbery, as long as it seemed to be going smoothly. Subscribing in the philosophy that to engage an armed robber may actually increase the likelihood of injury to innocent people, I have no immediate desire to play the part of the protagonist for the chivalrous sake of it....

Perhaps I'd make a lousy hero.


Though I'm certain I would become involved if I felt that actions were absolutely necessary to prevent imminent injury to others,
ultimately, I believe I carry to protect only myself and family.


I'd like to hear some thoughts on what others may feel is our personal responsibility when we carry. What do people expect of us, and what do we expect from ourselves?

 

[TallPine]

My first responsibility is to soil my underwear.

My second responsibility is to make sure the undertaker or doctor doesn't get to see that.

 

[cheygriz]

why do I carry a concealed handgun?

Because it's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

As far as playing hero, well there are idiots in every walk of life.

Using a weapon (any weapon, gun, knife, club) is an extreme measure that should be done only as a last resort to prevent the death or severe injury of innocent persons.

Rambo resides on the silver screen, and should remain there.

 

[WESHOOT2]

CHICKEN

I wear guns to protect me and mine if backed into an unacceptable corner; otherwise I prefer to the "run screaming the other way" method.

I moved to Vermont for precisely that reason.

 

[Nero Steptoe]

I carry for the sole reason that if I'm fortunate enough to flush a covey of Democrats, I can get off a few shots.

 

[El Tejon]

As the wise man in Tejas (well, for now) sez, "you cannot save the world; if you're lucky, you may be able to save your family and yourself."

Walter Mittyesque dreams of behaving like Batman and seeking to combat crime with swift karate chops are for the untrained or the tiny fraction of a percentage point that are "natural fighters" who think nothing of the consequences of their actions.

To answer your questions:

-we do not play hero, we play witness;
-we do not jump into fights in which we are not party;
-we do not jump into domestic disputes, we are not armed marriage counselors;
-offense? you're kidding, right?
-we prepare for the worst;
-we never feel secure in our competency, we do not play "what if", but "I am losing";
-we pray that the number of rounds is 0;
-we raise the hue and cry, we are not stranger rangers or Batman.

 

[critter]

TallPine:
(1) I LOVE your answer!
(2) You are EXACTLY correct!

 

[riddleofsteel]

I am Riddle of Steel.

My legal name is Malloy, of the clan O'Molloy, county Offaly, Ireland. My ancestors, descended from Neil of the Nine Hostages, lived by the sword and the dirk. Our stretch of Ireland for over forty generations was called Fircall and we were its rulers. An eleventh century text reads; The princes of Fircall, of the ancient sword, are O'Molloy. The steel was our ally and companion in a wild and dangerous land. Steel in hardened Irish hands protected us while we tilled the soil and raised our cattle. When we warred with other clans we killed and sometimes died, again by the steel. When the English came we fought with the steel until they overwhelmed us. Afterwards we had to hide our swords and concealed the carry of our dirks and knives. Carrying and training with weapons, the pipes, native songs and even Gaelic itself was outlawed. When guns and powder came to our land, in secret, we mastered and added them to our belts. We fought for 300 years against an occupation army on our island. They called us traitors in our own land for not swearing allegiance to an English king or worshiping in an English church. Officially, we were an unarmed population standing in defiance of the most powerful-armed empire on earth. In truth, with guns and powder, bombs and knives we fought and struggled until we freed most of Ireland.

We were also locked in combat with another enemy we could not defeat. Instead it killed us by the thousands, the tens of thousands, the millions. Famine killed and scattered my clansmen to the distant corners of the earth. It was brought on by generations of absentee English landlords raping the land, English taxes, and exportation of shiploads of food to England while the Irish people starved. On the tiny plots of our land the English lords rented us we grew potatos. It was the only crop that could support a family on such a small area. When the potato crop failed, we starved. No steel could save us, not sword, nor gun, nor plow.
.
During the time of British occupation some of my clan came to America. We brought with us the steel. My great-great-great-great grandfather settled in the mountains of central Virginia. Law there was mostly what you made of it. Those who were strong and knew the steel and lived and prospered; those who were weak or unarmed died. Our family grew strong farming, hunting, trapping and fishing. We used the steel during the Revolution to free this land from the hated British. With powder, ball and blade my forebear secured the freedom for me I would not have had in Ireland. Again in 1812 we beat back those who would usurp that liberty.

My great-great-great grandfather came to the piedmont of North Carolina in a flat bottom boat on the Dan river. He and his family took a grand adventure and gave up everything to live by their wits in a new land. They used the steel to defend against bandits and Indians. At that time the foothills of our state was a wilderness. From this wilderness he carved an 800 acre farm with sweat, sinew, courage and steel. He carried a brace of pistols and a knife as part of every day life.

My great-great grandfather went to war to defend the freedom he had come to cherish in our hilly wooded land. Yes, he owned a slave or two, but what he fought for was the freedom to live free and conduct his own affairs as he saw fit. In this war we learned that not all thieves of freedom come from other countries. Any federal government , British or American, that intrudes on the lives of its citizens uninvited cries out for resistance. The thought was, we had traded one tyranny for another. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died for what they believed was this just cause. He had lived his life free with the steel as a tool of war and of peace. He was one of the best shots in the county. His exploits with a knife also survive in family documents. When he returned from the Civil War he carried his brace of ivory handled six-guns and a large knife until the day he died. Best accounts state he was never afraid to use them. At his death they hung on a belt on his bedpost.

My great-grandfather moved to town to take advantage of the new industrial boom. To the city of the new age of steel he had brought the steel of our ancestors with him. We still have the revolver he used to defend himself and his family in this new urban wilderness. His son, my grandfather, was the first generation of my family that never went armed. An overprotective strict mother raised him. His education was the tea party and the textbook, not the woodlands and the steel. Maybe he was a product of the times. Laws had been passed that forbade the carry of weapons in cities. For the first time in history Americans were learning to look to the government for their needs. When he was in his thirties he was murdered in an alley by two thugs over $20.00.

My father is also a stranger to the steel. He was raised in that same city by his mother with no father. To him the steel was something to be taken up in war and then turned into a plow during the peace. To my knowledge, the first weapon he ever owned was obtained as collateral for a loan to an employee. Uninterested, he later gave it to my sister. However, luck of the Irish has been with him and he still lives.

As for me, far removed from the green Irish hills, I have again taken up the steel. The gun and blade are constants of my life. Through them I reach back across the generations to a distant skin clad chieftain on a shaggy Irish pony griping the hilt of his sword, to a Revolutionary soldier loading his musket as the redcoats cross the field toward him, to the settler on the eastern frontier feeding and protecting his family, to the Civil War soldier sitting in the mud at Sharpsburg with the pungent smell of burned powder in his nose, to my grandfather laying in a stinking alley his blood on the bricks.

You ask me why I carry the steel?

I ask you why were laws passed and kept on the books for almost one hundred years that choked my right to carry it? This right my clan has cherished for over a thousand years. A right secured for my family and me by the blood of patriots. Why does the same intrusive federal government we bled to rid ourselves of now seek to disarm me? Why is there American soil I can not tread upon armed? Why do honest Americans fear the steel?

 

[Peetmoss]

Tailpipe

I think that is one of the truest statements I have ever heard.

 

[Billy Sparks]

why do I carry?

To protect, in order:
A) myself
B) my wife
C) her kids, my grandkids, my folks


The rest of you are on your own. After 20+ years in volunteer
Fire/Rescue/EMS I REALLY am very good at getting away from
things that might make me need to testify or be involved.

 

[10-Ring]

Y carry?

1. To protect me & mine
2. To help protect others if possible
3. Be a damn good witness & let the pros do their thing.

Being a chicken at heart, I'm not actively looking for problems/trouble. But, I want options to get out of trouble if put in that position.

 

[dairycreek]

I carry for that one situation in which I am left with absolutely no other option....

than to protect me and mine from harm. That's why I carry and that, for me, is the bottom line. No other reason - none. Good shooting

 

[DE44mag]

Why carry?
BECAUS I AM A FREE MAN WITH THE GOD GIVE RIGHT TO DO SO!!!!!! :banghead:

 

[ajacobs]

Like most people who have posted hear I cannot fathom getting envolved in things like stranger on stranger etc. It is for me and the people I am with. But I am not so certain that I could stand by while someone else was getting hurt. Yes my preference is to run away screaming as weshoot2 put it. I don't know though if a situation was escalaiting that I was not an imediate party to, if I can get envolved. I hope I never have to find out and if I do I hope I do the right thing. Now what the right thing is still a debate in my own mind.

I had a good friend who has drawn her weapon twice. Once when the place she worked was getting robbed. Now everyones first thought is just give up the money and I agree with them all though non of us were there so I don't know what the right thing to do was. The guy ended up having a finger in his pocket. She had already given him the money and he was acting very disturbed. She wasn't so sure that that was all of it as he was very adjitated and kept asking for more money.

The other incedent involved a man beating his wife in an almost empty parking lot as she was comming out of a place. She called the police first of course. Repeadily told him from a distance that the police were on the way and he had better stop. How long do you stand buy waiting for the police to come while a guy continues to beat his wife?

While neither of these scenerios I would have thought I would have acted I can't be sure becuase I wasn't there.

I guess the best answer to give is becuase I want to be prepared.

 

[BerettaNut92]

Keeping up with technology. My caveman club is passé

 

[Hkmp5sd]

"As long as there is a weapon in mine, my fate does not rest entirely in the hands of another."

 

[DeltaElite]

I carry to protect myself and family from harm.
No other reason.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I carry a concealed .357 magnum revolver whenever I leave the house because my life and property are of great value and irreplaceable, and being a member of Homo sapiens, I have an inherent human right to defend both.

 

[Weezer]

I'm going to carry to protect my family and I. But to be honest, part of the reason is because I just like being around guns.

 

[WESHOOT2]

FURTHER CLARIFICATION

I made a promise to my wife that I would come home safely every night.

I will admit to interceding in events not of my making, but this is my First Rule.
THEN I run screaming the other way..........

 

[Stevie-Ray]

I've wanted a CPL for years now, probably ever since my wife became very ill. For 23 years now, I've felt as if a target were painted on our backs, leaving us at the mercy of the dregs of our society, simply because we cannot run from trouble as normal human beings can. Let's face it, the best way to stay out of trouble is to not be there when it happens. Normal legs can sometimes provide you with that comfort. Not an option for us. I wanted a fighting chance against the human refuse that would see us as an easy mark. With my experience in guns and a CPL, I now leave home with a safer feeling. And it feels better than it has for years. I am extremely protective of my wife and of myself, and Heaven help those that would seek to deliberately harm us.

My worst nightmare used to be dying on my knees with a bullet to the back of the head. This is one of the most disgusting acts of cowardice by criminals, and I refused to ever succumb to this, swearing I'd die on my feet going after the SOB's throat. Now, of course, the scum had better be faster and better.

 

[GunNut]

I leave the house because my life and property are of great value and irreplaceable

You really got to think if your property is worth the potential of going to prison.

My live or the lives of my family, I will certainly do what it takes to protect us.

My truck, TV, computer, etc are not worth the grief and attorney bills to protect with deadly force.



Why do I carry?

1. Protect myself and my family.
2. Because I can....


Steve

 

[.45Ruger]

I carry to protect myself and my wife. I have no illusions that I am a hero. The only thing I could see myself using my gun to stop besides a direct threat to the life of myself or my wife would be an an abduction of a child. Children have no way to protect themselves so I believe it is up to us to protect them.

 

[Blackhawk]

My wife convinced me that she couldn't survive without me.

 

[dfariswheel]

Today, the pistol is strictly a back-up to the modern main defense weapon....The cell phone.

Bad guys simply haven't learned how to operate in an environment in which there is no delay between starting trouble, and calls being made to the police.

EVERYONE has a cell phone, and few people are shy or afraid to use them. People may not want to get involved in a possible physical situation, but phone calls are easy, and anonymous.

The days when you could start something and be long gone before the police got the word are over. Criminals are in the same boat as the Old West outlaws who couldn't deal with the telegraph and telephone getting the word out over a wide area, or the 1930's "motor bandits" like Bonny and Clyde, who learned that you can't out run a radio.

The pistol is for those times even the cell phone just isn't fast enough.

You don't jump in and start waving a gun, you just turn away, push the speed dial for "911", and let the police do their job.

The gun is like a fire extinguisher. It's only to be used to cool things off until the fire department gets there.