Reply #63: No one has a crystal ball. [View All]

[Atypical Liberal]

I think most of you could handle not carrying into most public places. Heck, I don't care if you keep a reasonable gun nearby if you are in remote areas. But, come on, the odds are so small that you will encounter a problem in most public areas that it's not worth the impact on society.

The odds of many things happening in life are small. The odds of me having a house fire are small. Yet I still have insurance, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers. Why? Because the cost of the tools to be prepared is cheap compared to the cost of needing them and not having them.

The odds of me being in a car accident are small. Yet I still wear seat belts, and in fact they are required in cars. Why? Because the cost of the tools to be prepared is cheap compared to the cost of needing them and not having them.

The odds of me needing life insurance are small. Yet I still have life insurance. Why? Because the cost of the tools to be prepared is cheap compared to the cost of needing them and not having them.

The odds of me dying from carbon monoxide poisoning are small. Yet I still have carbon monoxide detectors. Why? Because the cost of the tools to be prepared is cheap compared to the cost of needing them and not having them.

All of us are exposed to risk in our life, and it is up to each of us to prepare ourselves for those risks by buying tools as we see fit and as we are able to afford.

Now you can say that the tool of firearms can be used to do bad things as well as good things. Well so can many tools. But more than that, we know, from decades of data, that people who lawfully carry concealed firearms are not just unlikely to be involved in firearm-related crime, they are unlikely to be involved in any crime at all.

So there is no problem with law-abiding people carrying concealed firearms.

I don't have a real problem with someone temporarily carrying in the case of the stalker. Plus, most women aren't carrying in preparation for a cowboy moment, for intimidation, some macho thing, as an equalizer, or anything like that. Shoot, if a stalker were after you, I'd issue a temporary permit to you to protect yourself.

The problem is, no one has a crystal ball to tell them when they are in imminent danger of attack. Yes, there are some cases where people have an idea that someone is out to get them. But many people have no idea when they get up in the morning that that day will be the day that someone decides to assault them.

But more importantly, it shouldn't be up to you or anyone else to decide when I should be able to choose to arm myself. You say that you'd allow people to carry firearms if they had a stalker. That's nice. But what about people in high-risk occupations? What about private investigators? What about cab drivers? What about pizza delivery people? What about attorneys? Psychiatrists? Convenient store clerks? Gas Station clerks? Store-closers who have to make the night money drop?

I don't carry a firearm, mostly because of the paperwork hassle, but also because the most dangerous place I go to every week, night school, I'm not allowed to carry on campus. But if I was in any of the above high-risk occupations, I would almost certainly carry a firearm if I felt the risk warranted it. And that is as it should be. It shouldn't be up to you or anyone else to decide what tools are appropriate for me to mitigate risks to my well being.