as for fire extinguishers, fire alarms, and guns, i'd rather have one and not need it, than need it and not have it. so far, i've needed none of the above, but i have them. its like having a savings account: you can fall back on it if something untoward occurs.

+100%.

For every person who berates you for "not needing it" in your life, there's a victim of a crime which could have been deterred by an armed individual. And yes, a criminal diverting from you is deterring that crime.

There was a road rage shooting in Phoenix yesterday. The guy who gets out of his car first is usually the bad guy. This time, the good guy was armed too and shot the bad guy, who was carrying a gun in his hand and had gotten out of his truck, was walking up to the first truck. Good thing the good guy had a gun.

You mean like the rest of the world does? We have distances in australian that are far more vast than the US and we survive fine without guns

~shrug~

we carry because we can.

i bet if those in OZ could carry, some of them would.

That's not entirely correct. Most primary producers living in the outback still carry rifles in their trucks.
Firearm ownership is still common in country Australia.

Ivan Milat used a gun to take control and ultimately kill his victims.

I know it is an extreme case but had anyone of those back packers been carrying a gun he may not have got away with it for as long as he did.

Backpacker Murders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I just don't understand why the folks who don't own or want guns care if other do. My guns in no way whatsoever threaten anyone, yet the anti's would have me disarmed. Why? If I don't want to own or carry something, I don't buy it. I couldn't care less what other people do as long as they leave me alone.

fear.

We've only had, what, 200,000 murders in the US in the last decade.

Definitely, you don't need to arm yourself here.

There are lambs, wolves, and shepherds.

You choose to be a lamb, i choose to be a wolf.

Because you are human and humans can be and are unpredictable. Seemingly normal people just 'snap' under certain conditions. Humans are dangerous by nature, but give a man a gun and he becomes deadly.

I am not anti-gun either.

SOME of you survive without guns.

Others....not so much.

"It can't happen to me," that's what you're relying on.
To people like Langers, not only do they believe that it cannot happen to them, they believe that since it has not yet happened to them, that it won't happen to anyone.

Like i said, given the choice between naive or 'paranoid'....i'd rather be 'paranoid.'

Yes, humans are very dangerous- that's why I'm armed to begin with...

Langers, I'm curious about what you think of those who feel they need to carry weapons all the time. From their responses, they seem to think you disparage them or question their wisdom. Do you?

I don't care if you carry a gun. I do find it amusing when those who carry try to imply that there is some courage involved, when in fact it is motivated by fear.

And you think a law is going to protect you from such people? I could kill a lot more people with my car and a lot more easily, like that old man did on the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica a while back. Much easier than using a gun and less noisy too. I see people in cars every day, texting and chatting on their cell phones who scare me far more than anyone with a gun could. And it's totally legal too!

Fine, carry a gun but I don't have to agree with people carrying. You come from a place where gun violence is rife, I don't. Would I feel uncomfortable sitting in a Burger King and a dude walks in carrying a gun, yes. I have no idea what that person's mental state is when he walks through the door, neither would you. So do you sit in a restaurant facing the door?

Actually, I do. And I also look for all emergency exit signs before I sit down. Sometimes I look for fire alarms and extinguishers too. I even park my motorcycle facing out. Call me crazy. I have a 500 ft. radius in which I notice everyone and everything. Once in a great while, I get a bad vibe about someone or someplace and I leave. I have never gotten such a vibe around people I've seen open carrying in the grocery store or in a fast food place, which is a pretty common thing in AZ. Bad guys don't advertise they're armed unless they're seconds away from opening fire. I've also never once been hassled by the cops when OC'ing or printing. Why is that?

Here's a tragedy that happened yesterday and would have been a lot worse, had the good guy been unarmed. In AZ the first person to get out of their car in a road rage incident is the bad guy, doubly so when he's carrying a gun.

Man Shot in Apparent Road Rage Incident Dies
Police say it was self defense

Updated: Sunday, 10 Apr 2011, 5:21 PM MDT
Published : Saturday, 09 Apr 2011, 8:54 PM MDT

GILBERT, Ariz. - A man has died following a shooting in the street near the San Tan Village Mall in Gilbert on Saturday, and police are calling the shooting self defense.

Mitchell Fickes, 56, was pronounced dead at Scottsdale Osborne Hospital on Saturday.

Two trucks were driving eastbound on Williams Field and Market Square roads on Saturday when Fickes got out of his Ford truck with a gun and approached a Dodge truck in front of him, police said.

But the 23-year-old man inside the Dodge also had a gun, and he opened fire. Fickes was shot several times. One of the shots struck him in the face.

Witnesses said the shooting looked like a case of road rage.

An undercover police officer took the shooter immediately into custody on Saturday, but he has since been released. Police said it was a case of self defense.

The shooter's name will not be released since he is not a suspect, but police said he is a resident of Gilbert.

This case, as with all death investigations, will be sent to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for review.

Just because a guy got out his car with a gun does not mean he was going to shoot anyone. That guy may have been worried that the other guy had a gun, which he did, and he used, apparently before being shot at. So, was this preemptive shooting??

Always

He should have never got out of the vehicle. And definitely not gotten out with a gun.

That's double dumb, and now he's dead.

By doing so, he immediately triggered all the requirements for a justifiable homicide by the man in the other vehicle, who promptly and legally shot him to death.

Like i said...double dumb.