I have home-owner and automobile insurance policies that I have never used, have paid thousands of dollars for over the years, and probably would not have them if not mandated by state laws and banking regulations. I look at the gun as another insurance policy, and like the others one that I'll never use. Thankfully I don't have to pay monthly premiums on it. But back to what are the threats is it defending against?
Last week a young man dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans ran across the street in front of our house and continued running right through our back yard. A neighbor chased after and confronted him on our property. The man yelled over his shoulder that he was lost and kept on running. He jumped our back yard fence and disappeared from view. It turned out later that the police were looking for him, though I did not learn why.
What would I have done had Maribel and I been relaxing in the back yard, especially if I had been 'packing' (for the uninitiated that means carrying a gun)? What I would not have done is drawn the gun, ordered him to stop, or threatened him in any way. I would have been content to watch him leave our property. Had he done anything to indicate an attack on Maribel or me it would have been a different story.
In reality, unless you're living in or near a high crime area the chances of your property or yourself being threatened are really very slim. I am 99.9% sure that I'll never have to fire that gun to defend our home. Still, there is a feeling of comfort and security knowing that it's there just in case. Okay, so having a gun in the house probably isn't necessary, but if, against all odds it is needed it will be the best insurance policy ever purchased.
But what about carrying a gun on the street? Is there legitimate justification for that? I Googled the phrase 'reasons for carrying a concealed gun' and got thousands of hits. Almost all of them boiled down to defending yourself, family, property and others, all of which sounded pretty lame to me. The vast majority of us are never going to be physically threatened on the streets. Others said that they carry because the 2nd amendment gives them the right to do so. Some went even farther and said that an armed citizenry protects America. I laugh at that one. Back in the 1960s there were 700,000 deer hunters in Wisconsin for deer season. At night in the bars someone would occasionally suggest that if the Russians attacked us at that time, all of us hunters would wipe out the entire Russian army. This comment was always made by someone who had obviously never been in the military. A well trained regiment of 2000 men would easily defeat 700,000 unorganized, untrained hunters, most of whom would turn tail and run at the first shot.
What I'm saying is that, in my opinion all of the reasons I read that were given for carrying a gun were weak and lacked real justification. Except for one.
Mass shootings are a fairly recent phenomena. They happen in schools, factories, offices, restaurants, shopping malls, movie theaters and parking lots. I spent a lot of time trying to determine the duration of mass shootings and police response times to them, but every site I read had different numbers, so I'll use what seemed to me to be averages. The average mass shooting incidents lasts from 2.5 to 10 minutes. Police response time averages 3 to 11 minutes. The police arrive faster than I thought, but the shooter still has time to do lots of damage before they arrive. Armed civilians already on the scene could perhaps end the carnage much faster. To back that up, a 2017 FBI report stated that in 67% of all active shooter incidents, it was one or more unarmed civilians that stopped the shooter before police arrived. That to me that is a powerful, almost compelling reason for mature, responsible citizens to carry a gun.
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