This weekend, my previous story about “The day I pulled my gun on someone” made it to the front page of Reddit which generated a lot of traffic, and some comments I found really surprising.

Reddit has a lot of users from all around the world, not just the USA (like a typical gun forum), and some of the Europeans seemed completely aghast that:

I was smoking in the car with my infant son after the near-shooting incident. (Really? Like, for real?)

I mentioned that I often carry a concealed weapon “whilst” around my house.

Several home invasions have made the news around me (Raleigh, NC) this summer. One involved thugs beating an 82 year old woman and tying her up in her home. (These events now happen at least weekly and started increasing since around the end of 2005.)

Realizing that MOST crime does not make the news, here are just this week’s local news stories:

1. Elderly woman injured in home invasion.

2. Resident injured during home invasion

3. Shooting At Cook Out Restaurant Parking Lot.

4. Suspect Shoots At Door, Robs Greenville Sonic.

5. One killed, one injured in shooting, attempted robbery.

6. Man charged in fatal Harnett County home invasion.

7. Clerk beaten in store robbery.

8. Victim shoots suspect during attempted break-in.

[Update: Bonus carnage on Sunday.]

(Note: compare who went to the hospital in #8, versus #1-#7)

I know some Europeans smugly look at all this and say “You Yanks are awash in crime because you are awash in guns.” If guns cause crime, than mine must be defective. (I believe the true reason for all our violent crime is due to the draconian way we handle the “War on Drugs” vs. European policies — but that’s a whole other post.)

I choose not to be a victim, others (in this country, at least) are also free to choose the opposite. Additionally, I work out in the public and deal with cash for my job, making me a very attractive target for any crackhead or tweaker.

Carrying my gun is comfortable, and comforting, when pondering the realities of society today. Carrying it has become second-nature and almost an extension of my body. It is well-concealed, but immediately available, and few outside my family have any idea it is there. I am not daydreaming about creating a Scarface-styled showdown.

Sure, I wish I lived in a happy place of flowers and unicorns, but I don’t. Rather than daydream about how wonderful flowers and unicorns would be, I instead choose to be prepared – for the same reason I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen. You just never know.



I consider the gun a reasonable, well-considered, and pragmatic response to the potential threat of violence in my environment, where even cops have been convicted of robbery and home invasions. My European detractors are entitled to have a different opinion, but I consider that thought process (in view of the ugly realities of today,) just as weird as they consider mine.