Feeling Safe in the United States

[bandman232]

I understand what you mean and it's just one of those things I'll never really understand about the States.

I can understand why some Americans have guns in their home for self defence purposes, but to walk around a city with a firearm on your person?

How crappy is your town if you feel the need to walk around with a gun?

Apparently you've never been to Detroit or New York.

 

[JerryAG]

Howdy, I live in South Dakota, where open carry of a firearm is legal except in government buildings, schools and bars. All knives are legal except one which shoots a blade out of the handle. Concealed carry permits cost 10 bucks and all you need is a SD Drivers License to obtain one, the day you apply for it, you are issued a 30 day temp and after the State insures you don't have a Felony Record and are not a mental case your permit will be mailed to you.

I am a disabled police officer, and well trained in the use of a Firearm, I have also worked and have been trained as a Gunsmith so I am knowledgeable of the workings of firearms, and have made my own rifles from parts, as well as making my own knives using files for the blades.

I am aware of the apprehension to someone in a store who is displaying their handgun by removing it from the holster even to show it to a friend, and I just would not do this simply because of the feelings of my fellow shoppers. It still shocks me a bit to see folks with a pistol on their hips in McDonalds since I worked most of my time on the PD in North Dakota where such things are not legal.

I have not yet used my carry permit having just got it a few weeks back however the reason I did get it was because of my disability and health problems that my wife and child have we are forced to drive long distances to the doctors, some well over 200 miles one way. I just feel safer having access to the old .45 ACP Semi-Auto pistol in my vehicle. You see the population here is so sparse that we drive over 70 miles between towns, and there are times when I only meet two or three cars in that space. It is getting better now that the cell phone system is catching up and we usually have cell service on those trips. Now that North Dakota (I can see the border from my living room window) is the second largest producer of Oil in the USA, the influx of people have made the once VERY peaceful State to one where crime is becoming the norm, and folks are being kidnapped, murdered and the women are subject to rape and such much like they are most anywhere else now days, it is simply a good idea to be prepared. At any rate to comment on the question, we simply carry guns here because we can, and since I can no longer defend myself with my broken body it is nice that I can take care of my family if the need arises. Oh I do have an old switchblade I took off a Felon in North Dakota that I find after a bit of research that I can legally carry here, however if I cross the tracks that separates me from North Dakota, the knife would be illegal however the concealed .45 would indeed be OK.

 

[JerryAG]

Perhaps you are too young to remember the Texas Stuckey's mass murder where one lone gunman went through the cafe and murdered many people, had one of those folks had a handgun the number murdered may have been many less, perhaps only one or two instead of 21 or 22 I don't recall the exact number, it's been many years now. The same with MANY workplace murders, school shootings plus many others. If I am carrying and such a thing begins, I would not think twice before I would use my weapon to stop the slaughter. That in itself is a very good reason to be able to carry, weather concealed or otherwise.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

I've lived in America my entire life, and the only people I've seen who openly carry guns are cops. I don't go to the more redneck, gun-toting areas though, and I'm willing to imagine that rural Washington would be that kind of place.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

For those of you that won't bother reading further than this, I went to the United States for the first time recently and, basically, have never felt more scared in my life. 'cos of the guns. Yeah, it's going to be that kind of topic.

Moving on, if any of you want a bit more information than that, then I'll start with some quick background about me. I travel. A lot. I live in Australia, but approximately one year in every four of my life thus far has been spent overseas. I've travelled by plane, by car, and as a child my family spent three years circumnavigating the world on a yacht. At present, I have been to every continent bar Antarctica, and a total of 45 countries. Most of these countries have been third world, poor, developing, or war-torn, and as a consequence I am not exactly unfamiliar with situations that could, potentially, be very dangerous. And yet recently, as I said above, I went to the United States for the first time not too long ago and the experience seriously shook me.

The experience in question wasn't exactly anything major. We were stopping over in some town, I forget the name (we were only there for the night before driving on to Seattle), and I, the geek that I am, decided to go check out a local videogame store. While I was there, browsing the shelves, a guy walked in with a gun. Not to rob the store, in fact, I didn't realise he had it until I heard him talking to the guy at the counter, who I figure must've been some friend of his. He must've only bought it recently, or something, because he took it out and showed it off and then put it away again. And that was it. But it seriously, seriously scared me, and I spent a lot of the rest of the trip rather on edge.

Now, I've seen guns before, and they don't necessarily scare me. Yeah, I'm a pretty big pacifist and hope that I never come into a situation where violence is the only answer. Thus far, it hasn't happened yet. I don't like guns, and I rather wish the things didn't exist. At the same time, I can deal with them, given the appropriate time and place. One of my favourite travel stories goes back to eating at a local restaurant in the Sudan during their civil war (this would've been around 2002-3, I think). We were with some American tourists we'd become friends with, eating our meals, when one of the armed militia came into the store. He was a big guy, in a flowing desert robe and with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. Within a few minutes, we'd all introduced ourselves and a few of the American kids were getting their pictures taken with him. Very friendly chap. The point of that story is that in a time and place, I can handle being around guns. A civil war in a third world country where terrorism is rife, that is a time and a place I can see a gun being acceptable to cart around in everyday life.

What shocked me about going to America was that I saw guns being carried as if people were expecting to be caught in a firefight just walking down the streets. Now, I don't live there, but is the reality of the United States really such that people feel the need to behave the same way as someone in the middle of a civil war? It just seems truly bizarre. When I'm not travelling, here in Australia, I never see a gun. Ever. Even farmers I know don't keep guns, and Australian wildlife being what it is, I can kind of see how a gun could help fend off the inevitable attack by the local super spider.

So this, odds are, will likely devolve into a gun control debate. That's not really what I want to talk about, though. I'm more interested into whether people in the United States are really so scared that they feel the need to carry a lethal weapon on their body at all times in order to feel secure. Because to me, knowing that everyone around me could be concealing a gun does not make me feel remotely secure. It makes me feel like I'd prefer to be back in the Sudan, where at least they tended to carry the guns out in the open.

Also, the captcha is "know your rights", which given the subject matter is pretty funny.

I suppose because in America, I think we all kind of acknowledge it's not the gun to be afraid of it's the person wielding it. I think we're all more terrified of the one guy that wakes up in the morning and decides to go columbine, because those guys will get their hands on the weapons no matter what. And a lot of gun owners are big NRA nuts, and consequences be damn, the NRA is all about responsible gun ownership. It's only every now and then do you hear of some horrible tragedy where someone thought an intruder was breaking into their house.

Oh thats another one, home invasion scares the crap out of me. That's another reason we fill we need guns, American's are paranoid, again, of that one crazy psychopath that'll sneak into our bedrooms while we're sleeping and strangle us in our sleep.

American's are control freaks. We like to think that in any given situation we had the tools we need to do the job. Personally, internally I really can't stand not having anything to protect myself with. I would never use a gun, but on occasion I'll use a walking cane when I'm going to areas I'm not familiar with.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Perhaps you are too young to remember the Texas Stuckey's mass murder where one lone gunman went through the cafe and murdered many people, had one of those folks had a handgun the number murdered may have been many less, perhaps only one or two instead of 21 or 22 I don't recall the exact number, it's been many years now. The same with MANY workplace murders, school shootings plus many others. If I am carrying and such a thing begins, I would not think twice before I would use my weapon to stop the slaughter. That in itself is a very good reason to be able to carry, weather concealed or otherwise.

This. This is the mentally I think we American's all have anyway.

I don't recall a single mass killing that was prevented by a second gunman however. Even if someone was packing a handgun, these days it be what? One lousey handgun against an AK47, wielded by a newb in kevlar armor?

This is always in the back of my mind though whenever I'm in public is what I'm going to do if someone snaps.

 

[Dansen]

I always hate these thread since I live in Massachusetts arguably the most liberal state in America. Don't be such a pansy, you saw one guy with a gun, and this scares you? I would be unnerved too, but seeing your background in travel, I'd say that your reaction is a bit weird. Have you really gone to war torn third world countries? If you really did do you care to tell us where you went?

Another thing, why does everybody believe that there is some huge buy in to American Gun culture? From my own experience you almost never run into it unless you are looking for it. The only gun shops I have ever seen have been hunting stores out in Maine. I find this thread rather offensive.

example.
My aunt and uncle take in a Chinese foreign exchange student. When they ask him what he wants to do he asks them where do they sell guns. They don't live anywhere close to where guns are sold. I concede that America has become really militaristic but this prevalent view that all Americans are gun enthusiasts or support gun ownership is just wrong.

*sigh* Sometimes I think the northeast should just secede, we don't have a lot in common with the world's common perception of America.