I started carrying not long after the VA Tech shooting. I think the more I thought about what happened there, the more I realized we're only as protected as we make ourselves. Thoses students , disarmed because of politicians unwilling to allow citizens to excercise there second admendment rights , never stood a chance against that maniac. I thought about what I would do in a similiar situation, at the time , without a concealed carry permit, I realized I would have most likely ended up a victim, and I decided that just wasn't an acceptable way to be living my life. After some serious thought , research, and discussion with my wife, I applied for my permit. I know carrying doesn't make me invincible, but it does give me a fighting chance , and in the end , that's all I can really ask for. Now , that I've told you what prompted me to start carrying, tell me your story, why did you decide to start carrying?
I’ve been carrying for over 25 years. I did have a break in there when I lived in California for 3 years and hated it. As soon as I could I got out of that zoo and moved to a gun friendly state – TEXAS…
I started carrying when the bad guys started killing to leave no witnesses. I am also the type of person that if I see a wrong I have to get involved and that is dangerous.
I train regularly and hope I never have to use deadly force. I was shot at in Vietnam and don't want to be again.
Effectively utilizing a firearm gives me a better chance for the successful: defense of my family and myself. Defense of the state of Pennsylvania. Defense of the USA. Defense of our constitution.
Limatunes , thanks for sharing your reasons to carry. Love your Avatar, did you draw it ? or did it come from a comic book? I'm a big comics geek, just thought I'd ask. Thanks again.
Same reasons a most the world going to crap. and a neighbor with some mental issues always threatening to kill us and 911 is 45 minutes to an hour away and doesnt care anyhow.
I carry because people have to worry about the things Limatunes posted.
I carried when I remembered to for a while. Nothing ever very serious. Then something happened to a friend of mine. I had gotten involved before when someone had been physically harassing her, having the man deal with the police and myself. She and I were friends. I worked with her four days a week for 4-6 hours a day for nearly 8 months.
I will not sit idly by if someone is in distress. I'm not a hero. But you better believe I'll do what I can to prevent someone else from having to go through what myself and others did with my friend. She comes to mind every single time I holster my sidearm before leaving the house.
All you have to do is watch the news or read the paper. Home invasions ATM hold-up's, muggings, rape etc. What really caught my eye was a few month's ago here in NC in Wayne County 3 gunnmen broken into a mobile home at about 4 AM where a man resided with his wife and two children. They demanded cash and jewlery. one ransacked the home searching while the other two held the family at gunpoint, apparently one of the gunmen accidently fired a shot and pissed the man off he pulled his own gun ,shot and killed one of them the other two fled. Police were called to investigate. I don't think they ever found the other two. What came to my mind is the other two know exactly where this man lives who killed their homeboy. If I were him I'd probably took the day off and went hunting and tied up the loose ends. I decided then it was time to prepare myself. I carry everday now I've never had to pull yet but one good thing that has happened is I quit drinking all together. I like to carry more than I like to drink. I drink no time so I carry all the time except when I work my profession doesn't afford me the luxury of carrying around inmates.
I carry because my Mother was raped in rural Ohio where bad things don't happen.
I carry because on that day I knew that my life IS more important than the bad guys.
I carry because I will never allow that to happen to me without putting up a darn good fight first!
I carry, but I had to wait 26 more years after the rape to be "allowed" to do it legally in my state.
I carry because I am a real estate agent. The bad guy gets to call me, and tell me where and when he gets to attack me. I will have a surprise for him.
I carry because it's my right, and rights not exercised, could be rights lost.
I carry because it is my duty as a parent to protect my children, myself, my husband, my granddaughters, my daughter in law and those I love.
I carry because the cops will be there in time to write the reports after the fact.
I carry ALWAYS because bad things do happen in the "good part of town" too.
I carry because I am a concealed carry instructor. Lead by example.
I carry because I am a leader with Ohio's foremost gun rights organization. Again, lead by example.
I carry because society has very few "warriors" in it anymore. VT was a great example of that.
There are SO many reasons why I carry, that it could be an endless list. But these are a few of my reasons.
I further TRAIN because the reality of it is that I will not be able to pull my firearm in an up close encounter without first doing other things to get away, place distance, distract, move, etc. Anyone who thinks they can, are deluding themselves.
I believe that we all mature at a more rapid or exponentially rate as we get older. This rapid maturity also has a more complex cognitive understanding of the history of the United States and the ratification of Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As Sir Winston Churchill said "If your not a liberal at the age of 20 then you have no heart, but if your still a liberal when your 40 you simply do not have a brain" While that famous quote would arguably be said to be sarcastic, it certainly resonates as a more proufound understanding of how the citicenery of a country begins to evolve into a more christian based understanding of one inalienable rights and choices that shape and form a society. This would later become the basis for seeing myself as leaning far more to the right than the middle, of which I once was proud to claim as a way of attempting to understand both liberal and concervative ideologys.
The choice to keep and bear arms came early in life. Although my father was not an avid hunter he owned several pistols for home defense. My uncles would be the first to take me out to shoot at caly pidgeons when I was 11 years old with an old Remington 870 pump gun. I remember feeling a sense of accomplishment when I was able to hit two or three clays in a row with little or no knowledge of shooting basics. It was then that I saw how sport shooting and the right to keep and bear arms was more than just a right, it was imperative to the development of a young man to understand the intrinsic and overt use of firearms for enjoyment, not mereley for self defense. This would later transform it's self when I began to realize the nature in which evil men bent on violent crime would attempt to do you and I harm in the name of crime and greed.
Later, around the age of 21 while in the service I had dated a young girl that lived about 2 hours away from my base. I used to tap on her window at night and she'd come out to talk on the front porch, sometimes for hours and sometimes till day break. Just young kids, supposedly in love, and even though tapping on the window of a house in the middle of the night may not have been the smartest way to court the prom queen, it was never the less something I' sure most of here have done a time or two to get the attention of the girl of our desires.
One night after lobbing some gravel at her window I suddenly found myself staring down the barrel of a shotgun in the front yard of her house. Her step father was a rather trashy sort with a habit of drinking bottles of bourbon every night. You know the type, short, long haired, unkept beard, and for the most part drunk most of the time that he ever breathed air while not sleeping.
Sure, I suppose that I could have been legally tresspassing, but up until this time my method of courtship had been affirmed with positive results. Had I been warned about tapping on the window I certainly would have resorted to another method of getting her attention during the late hours of the night. But to the this point it seemed to be working without any provocation of wrong doing. After all, it wasn't like I was lugging drugs and or alcohol to the front porch of this prom queen to assuage her into anything other talking on the front porch.
I was an honorable young man, in uniform, serving the United States of America and here is some trashy southern hillbilly putting a shot gun in my face without any provocation what so ever. He would later be arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and serve two years in a prison in North Carolina. That was the law then, but I doubt any of us would be held accountable for this action today with the Castle Law.
In later years I would think of the incident often. What did I do wrong ? Was it not as harmless as her and I thought ? Did I deserve to have a shotgun in my face for courting his step daugher ? Was it justified action ? and what if he'd had just a little more to drink and or I attempted to defend myself from what was clearly a deadly threat ?
Yep, both of us were young. We where just doing what kids do. I had not criminal intent in mind nor did I overtly give this man reason to believe that he needed to ward me off with a shotgun shoved in my fave.
Once I realized as an more mature adult that one could legally carry a firearm for his or her personal safety it didn't take me long to recall that incident. I carry today because I cherish my life and the life of the others in harms way. I carry because evil men will and do committ violent crime every day. I carry today because it is my duty to protect myself and my family. And I carry because it's a right afforded to me under the current United States Consitution and protected the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
No one will ever pull a shotgun on me again without having to talk his talk and walk his walk.
Recalling that night as I wrote my response in this thread has had me thinking of that incident for the last two hours.
Here I was, a young soldier, 21 years old, dressed in starched BDU's with Beret and spit shined jungle boots. I had just been relieved of CQ duty early by another soldier that couldn't get to sleep so he took over my CQ at 24:00 hours leaving me enough time to drive up and catch my so called sweetie before she went to bed. This was in the early 80's so cell phones and computers where something that only hollywood employed in sci-fi movies.
I had been in that trailor as a guest on at least two occassion and remember even being invited to eat dinner on one occassion. Why the need to come to the porch and shoulder a double barreled shotgun at someone you've met and someone who's not overtly or covertly given you reason to be considered a threat or dangerous ? In other words I was not a stranger and I did not wear a ski mask or have a weapon in my hand. Strange behavior for him, but then again as I said, he was basically white trash who I later learned had taken certain liberties with his step daughter, my sweetie.
My roommate at the time was agast at the situation when I got back to the barracks and swore we'd ambush this little drunkered with a little self help program and some hard hickory sticks. Looking back, I'd wish we had done it, but we were not criminals and wanted nothing to do with encounters with law enforcement. He probably deserved it, but a judge saw to it that he spent the next two years in jail. I would later be blamed for the destruction of the marriage. Yeah, I made his wife, my sweeties mother, go out and paint the entire town with her appetite for men. Go figure. :scruntiny:
Gun control advocates are going to have accept that the Right to keep and Bear Arms is not going to be amended from the Bill Rights. History tells us that the Bill of Rights was largely a result of the Federalist Papers which was a debated set of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, Jon Jay et al. Those writings brought forth concerns for rights that where considered intrinsic to the people. However those righs we're deemed as having been left out of the Constitution due to lack of over sight during the writing and ratification of the Constitution. Hence The Bill of Rights as amendments to the Constitution laying out specific rights that were to be protected by it's ratification in 1792 (?) One could say that the forefathers suddenly saw room for oppresive appointed officials to exercise socialist and communist type rule if given the power through a democratic system of government. They made the right choice.
Sorry for getting off topic, but I love this board and it's members.
My wife was working a job that required her to be outside on foot in bad neighborhoods. I got my license in part to encourage her to get hers, (It worked), partly for "a right unused is a right lost". Personal protection was less important. However, once I started carrying, I didn't stop-I've rarely left home unarmed since, unless my destination is a no-carry zone.
I carry for all the reasons already listed. Even my 7 yeard old granddaughter checks my rught side at times if we are some where and she feels uncomfortable with our suroundings. And she knows NOT to ask or mention it.:image035:
Always supported the second amendment and when I turned 21 I started saving up for a gun.
Well, April 16, 2007 happened and :
Jamie Bishop
Lauren McCain
Matthew La Porte
Matthew Gwaltney
Minal Panchal
all of them my friends, were killed in Norris Hall. My favorite teacher of all time, and close friend, Jamie Bishop was shot in the head by a worthless piece of $^!# that had a chip on his shoulder. They were left flipping over desks and playing dead and my friend Tray only survived because they had the wherewithall to shut the door and barricade it behind him when he left.
I bought my first handgun a month later and a couple training sessions and a month after that I had my license to carry a concealed handgun.
Unfortunately I am still left to choose between being able to protect myself and graduating college (2 more weeks (at the Blacksburg campus--goin to switzerland ) left :image035 .
I just got started recently, because of a large quantity of reasons. I plan on getting my CCW in the next several months.
I've had a lot of fortunate and unfortunate situations involving crime and threats to friends and myself. I've never been a big fan of guns, but the arguments against carrying are getting weaker by the day. I've always understood that the government and police, dedicated as most are to my overall well being, are not going to be there in the few seconds I may have left to live during a serious threat. It's my responsibility as a caring human to protect myself, wife, and anyone that is being put in harms way. I've always felt that way, but things are getting worse due to the way the world is starting to think and act. I feel like it's more reckless to be unarmed than armed, to be honest.
The desire to carry started when I was a kid back in the 80's when I heard about the famous McDonalds shooting, then the Post Office "Going Postal" shooting. I have had a few near shooting confrontations but was able to talk my way out of anything bad. I read some stuff from LTC. Groosman (sp?) and I will be no sheep.
While trying like hell to keep my family safe, I will not be a victim or watch some nut kill innocent by standers.
I started carrying because things I saw growing up. I decided not to be an unarmed victim. I wanted to have the tools to be able to defend myself and those that I love.
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