There's that little something called "dignity". You know, trying to do something about your situation instead of rolling over and praying for the meanies to be lenient with you.

This. I used to live in an area that was overrun with a biker gang and had friends who had slight involvement with them and ended up getting intimidated into giving them their nicer positions like furniture and TVs. Classic bully shit but a grown adult coming into your house and taking your shit.

I had a retail shop in the community and also lived next to a bar and a property where they would congregate and some would roll into town and stay there. Very tense environment. When I first moved there I had no idea that it was like this.

At that point I armed myself and made the decision I was not going to take any crap off anyone.

Thankfully, no one gave me any shit but I have plenty of more stories from my time there.

The only choice for me was to arm myself. The cops were scared shitless and were unreliable for other reasons. One of the gang members had already opened up on one of the cops with an AK-47 in front of my store. He lived because it jammed.

>When I first moved there I had no idea that it was like this.

What advice would you give someone moving to an unfamiliar area to avoid this?

No idea. However, this area is a lower income blue collar country area on the edge of a really nice suburban area, but it certainly isn't without VERY nice homes and farms. It's just hard to say. Lots of drug issues, you get these pockets. I have lived around the area for my entire life but it wasn't until I got involved as a merchant in the area and really got to know people that it escalated like this. Having a small business of just about any kind will expose you to nearly everyone in a smallish town. Lots of drama can come of that.

I got robbed several times while I was there and I ended up in jail myself. Most of this stemmed from drama emenanting out of the opioid and heroine epidemic around the early 2000s.

Maybe first check if the area is ruled by gangs.

No way to tell. Everything looked normal.

I find dignity in being alive for my family.

The whole notion of using a gun for self-defense sounds insane to me. The criminal is the one starting the violent interaction and is therefore prepared for it, probably has their gun ready or within easy reach. For me to then want to draw my gun sounds like a recipe to get shot. Being not a threat to a dangerous idiot and getting out alive sounds far preferable to me than dying like a wannabe John Wayne.

Everybody being armed ups the stakes for everybody, and I'd expect criminals to be more likely to shoot in that situation. And having guns for everybody, but only the best guns for criminals, sounds like the worst idea of all.

Best of all would be to make it harder for criminals specifically to get guns by having every gun and gun transaction registered and verified. Every loophole is going to be abused.

The United States was founded with the principle that (from a legal sense) the primacy of power and responsibility belonged to individuals, not government. The lack of connectivity between different societal groups allowed relatively peaceful interactions between groups, (unless you were a Native American or a slave, sadly).

From this framework, people (men, largely) were expected to provide for themselves and their families. Food, shelter, “retirement” (or putting provisions in place for old age), and yes, personal security from threats, both from other individuals and from any future possible oppressive government, as well as being responsible for being personally armed to repel foreign invaders.

In modern times, being armed either in or outside the home (or place of business) gives us a few things. It continues the principle of being responsible for one’s own personal security, rather than relying on societal pressures for bad behavior (!) or dependence on the timely and enthusiastic response of local law enforcement.

I think we would agree that part of the responsibility for firearms ownership is safe storage, mental and legal preparation for an event, and continuous training. With rights come responsibilities. Not everyone will choose to own a firearm, and that’s ok, each person should be allowed to make their own decisions.

Law enforcement efforts are reactionary, not proactive, the negative effects of which are exacerbated by out failed criminal justice system, the full fruits of which have been on display since the 80s, depending on who you believe.

Simple possession of a firearm does not make every (legal) defensive use a quick draw contest or result in a hail of bullets. There is a deterrence affect in locales where lawful weapons carry is legal. FBI statistics, depending on year, will tell us that “civilian” display of a weapon will stop a threat upwards of 93% of the time, without any shots fired. When the “civilian” fires a weapon in self defense, the average number of shots remains less than 3 (although trending upwards..) Law enforcement fires far more rounds per encounter, with the resultant display of (excessive?) force and possibility of downrange consequences.

There are people who would rather draw their weapon to defend themselves and / or their family than depend on the rationality of a person threatening them, who is statistically likely to be in an altered state of mind, mentally ill, or has been released from the criminal justice system un-rehabilitated (or any combination of these).

In a country that can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, as well as other failures to enforce public safety, trying to restrict firearms from being possessed by anyone is not a reality.

As the public failures to enforce existing laws continue to be documented and published, most citizens develop a jaundiced view of the law in general. I think it was societal and family expectations that reinforced morality, not laws, and substituting laws for morality is folly also, given who writes and influences the laws, as well as the tyranny possible by governments selectively enforcing laws.

As you say, everyone being armed does up the stakes, but it ups the stakes for the right group of people - those people who would prey on others.

That's a lot of great theory but the stats just don't play out, an armed society does not in practice make a polite society.

Americans seem to not believe me when I say my fear of being shot is zero, but it's literally true. I don't even recall if I've ever even heard a gunshot outside the vicinity of a firing range.

There are some criminals with guns, but they almost exclusively use them against other criminals. I have zero concern that someone breaking into my house will have a gun, and everyone I know who has ever actually spotted someone breaking in to a place has had the criminal run away immediately rather than initiate any kind of violence.

Which is why you should practice carry and conceal, and hopefully never have to draw on it.

You can always just give the muggers everything, including your gun.

You can't barter back your (or your family's) life, and putting the massive asymmetry in the benefit of the doubt of a known assailant is maddeningly naive to a point of near literal cuckoldry.

If I'm always giving the mugger my gun, why carry it? Seems like the danger from having a gun on my person and in my house vastly outnumbers the chance I become Dirty Harry for an evening, no matter how thrilling that thought is. And I won't be Dirty Harry, I'll be Bernie Goetz. No thanks.

> asymmetry in the benefit of the doubt of a known assailant is maddeningly naive to a point of near literal cuckoldry

Don't try to impress people with words, impress with ideas.

Do you put your seatbelt on when driving? I do. Not because I expect to be in a situation where I'll need it, but because if said extremely rare situation happens, I'll be happy I did; the consequence:probability ratio is just too big, as my life (and that of my family if I had one) has a value of ∞.

Having a weapon on yourself in preparing for the worst case scenario. "Hope for the best and plan for the worst", you know.

Not really a good comparison. Seat belts save lives, guns take it. The fact that a gun is a real threat to the mugger, makes it a threat to you. Because the mugger knows that you might be carrying a gun. I'm pretty sure that muggers and burglars in the US use a lot more deadly force than elsewhere, exactly because of the chance their victim may be armed.

Of course given that muggers expect you might be armed, you might as well be. But I'm still not convinced they actually make you safer; lots of Americans get killed by their own gun.

> If I'm always giving the mugger my gun, why carry it?

That's just your perspective and talking point. Parent was clearly trying to say that there may be a situation where you DO need it to protect yourself or family from being killed/raped/etc.