Upscale wrote:
On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 19:18:54 -0600, "HeyBub"
wrote:
Since 2001, I have been involved in three defensive uses of a
firearm. Twice in Home Depot parking lots when I was approached by
dissolute sorts, not only carrying weapons (tire iron once and a 2x4
the other) but refused to heed my command to "Stop! Come no closer!"

Ok,then let me ask you something. As a bonafide, legal gun carrying
citizen, how do you explain those three defensive uses happening? In
all seriousness, I'm 55 and have *never* had the need to defend myself
in public from some miscreant on the street and neither has anyone
else I know. The worst that's happened is being asked for money by
some panhandler.

Why do illegals concentrate in Home Depot parking lots? Because that's where
the jobs are. I'm guessing panhandlers and desperate thieves likewise pick
parking lots because that's where the easy money is. In fairness, the two
incidents in the HD parking lots may have been innocent panhandlers. Since
each was carrying a potential weapon, I wasn't about to gamble.



Most gun adocates that are taking part in this thread, claim to have
guns for self defense. What is there in the US that mandates the need
for that self defense? While I'm not going to claim it never happens
up here in Canada, it sure as hell seems to be a lot less than what
happens in the US.

Can you hazard some guess why that might be?

I'm no sociologist but it could be because you have a lesser percentage of
humanity's dregs than we. People in Kansas and Oklahoma have a lot more
tornado shelters that the folks in Winnipeg. The city of Chicago has more
snow plows than does Miami.

You often hear the argument (from either side) that "Country "X" has
more/less guns per capita than the U.S. and they have less/more crime!" For
every country you can name that has fewer guns and less crime, I can find
one with the reverse. What causes crime, in my view, is the social fabric of
the society, not the presence or absence of guns. There's more crime in
Mexico and England where guns are illegal than in Switzerland where
everybody has a firearm. There's more crime in the U.S. where handguns are
plentiful than in Canada where they're not.

It's not the ratio of guns to people; it's the ratio of street goblins to
good citizens that determines the crime rate.

The carrying of weapons, I believe, is a response to a perceived threat and
not that an imaginary threat is the rationale for carrying weapons.