To take pressure of another thread, and because I am curious.
Please try and keep it out of the pit, :rolleyes: I’m merely curious.
My father carried one for a period of time after receiving a death threat from a mentally unstable customer. The guy knew enough about my father, his home & personal life that Dad thought it would be a prudent move. When the threat passed, he stopped.
I had a roommate once who carried on the job. He owned a restaurant in a part of town that was well known in Atlanta for its nightlife. People also liked to stroll in and quietly stick a gun in his face while he was behind the bar. What really made him nervous was carrying the night’s revenue to the cash drop afterward.
Ive never carried, but these are a couple of reasons I know about.
I think the world would be a safer place if the non-crazies with guns outnumbered the crazies with guns.
After Virginia Tech, I decided I’d put skin in the game, and got a CCW. At this point, if I didn’t have a CCW, I’d likely start open-carrying (legal in CA if the gun isn’t loaded – but I’m pretty fast at changing a magazine).
Under most accepted definitions of need, you don’t. Of course, the same can be said for most of the actions we take on a day-to-day basis.
What definition of “need” are you working with? Is there a specific aspect of carrying a concealed weapon that arouses your curiosity regarding its necessity? (I’m not trying to be pedantic here; I’m genuinely trying to get a better understanding of what you’re asking.)
Functionally speaking, for the same reason that off-duty peace officers carry concealed (often at the procedural direction of their agency): because firearms in display without a uniform make ordinary citizens nervous and make the officer a target for someone desiring to engage in unauthorized appropriation of the weapon.
If your question is a more general, “Why do you need to carry a firearm?”; realize that many people do not live or work in nice, safe neighborhoods, and that both the incidence of violent, predatory crime and the unwarranted use of firearms by criminals has increased among certain demographics even when overall crime rates declined. In other words, criminals are more likely to use deadly weapons to commit a crime, and more likely to attempt to injure or kill their target when they do. While the response rate of most major police departments has steadily decreased, a five minute response time is still four minutes and thirty seconds too long to prevent many predatory attacks, even assuming the victim has immediate access to a phone and can get through to a dispatcher.
On the other hand, a private citizen who elects to carry a firearm in public for defense has a significant burden of responsibility and liability to both prevent the weapon from being stolen and to use it in a responsible manner that reduces overall risk to himself and bystanders rather than increaseing it. Among defense enthusiasts this is not such a problem, but the average Joe (and even many peace officers) are not willing to engage in the kind of regular training and certification which maintains a level of competence and awareness commensurate with responsible public carry.
Stranger
Not to be snarky or anything but the obvious course of action there would seem to be “sell restaurant”.
Why are you trying to hijack this thread. It’s a lot easier for you to talk about someone giving up their livelihood than it is for the person in question to do so.
Take that crap somewhere else.
Short answer: because as the anti-gun people on the SDMB so very much like to say, I’m a “glowering, brooding psychopath” who’s terrified of everyone and also wishes they had a GIANT METAL PENIS.
Long answer: there is no “need”; it is a “want.” I have been a victim of very violent crime on more than one occasion, and in every single one of those occasions I would not have been a victim if I had been allowed by the law to defend myself with a firearm. Every. Single. Case. could have been avoided and prevented a lot of pain in my life.
And yes I do get “worried”, or even “scared”, at times. I got worried when I was on the hiking trail a mile from the nearest help and met up with a pack of teens, every one of them larger than me, who started calling me an “ugly freak” and started joking about “seeing if I had any money.” I got worried when I was driving down a country highway minding my own business and a pickup truck came up behind me and tried to force me off the road. I got worried when I was exploring once along an abandoned railroad bridge looking for signs of metal fatigue and two large men suddenly came up and asked me to “loan” them money for beer. And I got worried when I was carrying a couple thousand dollars of Christmas presents out of the mall late at night and saw two people creeping around trying car doors.
I don’t carry all the time - I live in a very low crime-rate area and my work forbids carrying on the premises (plus we’ve got an armed security staff made up of ex-military folks).
Further, as I’ve posted before, if the State Legislature, the State Attorney General, the FBI, the County DA, the State Police, the Sheriff, the Chief of Police, and my CCW instructor all feel I am a safe and upstanding member of Society who should be trusted enough with the right to carry my weapon, then I don’t know why anyone thinks they know more than all those people and can second-guess them from afar.
It’s to get people away from another thread, actually.
I am curious though why some people want to carry. Labrador Deceiver lists a couple of good ones for example.
Sometimes the license is just to avoid violating laws regarding transport of firearms in your vehicle (when kept out of sight). Is it legal in my RV? my car? Carried under my coat to a hotel room? The laws can sometimes be vague or unclear. Some find it easier to just get a concealed carry permit, even though they have no plans to routinely wear a holster.
The simple answer? Because they are afraid.
It might be a justifiable fear, or it might be a fear based on watching too much television; everybody is different, but carrying a gun on one’s person is based in fear.
It’s not something I’d ever do, but I can certainly understand some people’s motivation for wanting to be armed.
By that logic, I also carry jumper cables, a car jack, and a flashlight in my car because I am “afraid” of being stuck with a dead battery or a flat tire. A firearm is a tool; one that, admittedly, if handled with malice or incompetence can pose a danger to the user and bystanders, but which can also be irreplaceable at deterring or stopping one from being victimized by predators. That one is mindful of and prepared for the possibility of being the target of a criminal act isn’t an innately fearful outlook, and couching it as so is typically the precursor to the claim that one is therefore irrational and atavistic.
Stranger
In my line of work (fortuneteller) unstable people are a fact of life, so I have a concealed carry permit. Sometimes it’s the client that could be dangerous. Sometimes it’s people (client’s relatives involved in less than legal matters) who are afraid of what the client may have told me. And every now and then there is a fundie jackass, that makes me really worry about I.Qs in this country.
Personally, I got my permit for these two reasons:
I’ve never had to use it, but I wouldn’t hesitate to protect myself if necessary.
…But them you would know who the bad guys are…
OK, I apologize. I started the thread, though…
The “need” is situational. Most people will never need to carry one.
Once the situation arises that you do have a need, it’s a good idea to have a weapon handy.
Living in Arizona, I don’t carry concealed. I don’t think the government should have the power to regulate the exercise of a fundamental civil right; so I refuse to go through the process. I carry openly, and I’ve never had a problem; a few strange looks in the grocery store, certainly, but never a problem.
Carrying openly also has the added benefit of providing easier access to the firearm if you need it. A good holster makes it exceedingly difficult to have the gun taken away from you, and it makes more situational sense, since the visible presence of a holstered weapon may act as a deterrent.
I have no problem with anyone carrying concealed; it’s just not for me because of the politics.
For me it’s based on responsibility. I am the one responsible to provide for and protect my family. I have the tools for those jobs.
I hope they aren’t the same tools.
I don’t carry often. When I do, it’s generally because I’m involved in a nasty domestic violence and/or custody case. In my line of work, it’s fairly common to seriously annoy some very dangerous people. Over the course of my career, I’ve been threatened more times than I can count, been run off the road a couple times, had my car vandalized, had poison left outside my door, etc.
Sure, same principle, different equipment.
The dread of being stranded because of a flat tire or a dead battery probably isn’t as strong a fear as that of getting mugged, but it’s all relative.
So, when you go to the beach, do you go swimming in a shark-proof cage or wear a floatation device? There’s always the off chance you’ll be attacked by a shark or swept offshore in a rip current…