What REALLY drives the decision? Motivation for Daily Non-Sworn CCW

[NH Shooter]

Thanks, NH Shooter. (I’ve got family in Alexandria.)
To dive a little deeper:
1. States allow us a whole bunch of things we don’t take them up on. Why do you take NH up on CCW?
2. We enjoy lots of hobbies, the tools of which we don't carry on a daily basis. Why handgunning?
3. There are many items that are not inconvenient to carry and could potentially save your life. Why a gun in particular?

1. I think it is primarily because NY was (and is) such a non-permissive state. I acquired a "pistol permit" in NY back in 1981 and it was an unbelievably intrusive process. It involved fingerprinting, interviewing of neighbors and character references, "purchase voucher" to actually buy a handgun and then registration of said handgun. After nine months of waiting (of which only about one month was needed for the process, they just tacked-on an eight month waiting period) the "permit" was issued. I was only permitted to possess the handguns in my home and transport them to and from a range. For the next 25 years I was allowed to carry concealed to and from the range, but that was it.

We moved to NH in 2008 and I was required to surrender my NY permit. I went to the local PD, filled out the forms and a week later had a full concealed carry license to carry virtually anywhere at anytime. No purchase vouchers, no registration, no attitude that was heaped upon us at the Suffolk County pistol licensing bureau. Live Free or Die, my God I was finally home, but now we have to fight the Massholes moving here who want to turn NH into Suffolk County.

2. I was never really into shooting at all. The year my wife and I were married, our house was broken into while we were asleep in the bedroom. I guess technically it was a home invasion as the intruders opened our bedroom door to look in, only to be turned away by Coco, our German Shepard-Collie mix. My wife woke me up to Coco's low, menacing growl and it was then I realized we weren't alone in the house. I scrambled for an old Lefever shotgun buried somewhere in the closet but the intruders were gone by the time I was armed. It was at that point I became interested in shooting, and ended up joining a Bullseye shooting league a few years later (after the arduous pistol permit process).

I am very much a mechanically inclined person and truly appreciate fine mechanical things. Along with cameras and cars, firearms are also of great interest to me. The combination of enjoying shooting and appreciation of fine handguns (I was a HUGE fan of S&W K-frames) was enough to anchor my interest.

3. It's not only a pistol I carry, but in case you haven't noticed I'm also a flashlight nerd. I find the good ones interesting for the same reasons as guns and I EDC two lights. I also carry a knife and a spare Li-ion cell for the light on my person. In my car I have another light in the console, and then a roadside tool kit in the trunk that includes an assortment of tools, a 12V compressor, a tire plug kit, a raincoat, fire extinguisher, etc.

Finally, once we moved to NH and I was able to carry without restriction, I knew it was time to cleanse myself of derp. After spending some time surfing as a guest, I became a member on this board. Like others, I consider myself a student of the pistol and of the responsibilities of carrying a concealed weapon. I suspect like others, P-F.com has been a valuable resource for me.

[NH Shooter]

Double-tap

[NH Shooter]

Triple-tap. Weird function going on with board.

[Cypher]

I never really did any soul-searching or questioning the odds. I bought a gun the day I got out of the army and I started to carry it.

My wife (then fiance) was really freaked out by guns so before we got married I got rid of all of mine and for the first 10 years we were married the only gun that we had in our house was an NEF .22 revolver that we kept in a lock box in the garage. I don't think we even had any ammunition for it.

In 2006 two incidents happened. First somebody put a Drano bomb on our neighbor's front porch. When it went off it rattled windows in our house across the street. The second was (I suspect) an attempted home invasion on our house.

My wife and I sat down and had a discussion and we bought a gun a RIA 1911.

Several months later my wife was involved in a road-rage incident that absolutely terrified her. She came home and when she got out of the car she was shaking and she told me that in the middle of it she realized that if that person had got out of the car because of her disabilities there was nothing she could have done to defend herself. She said to me "I want a gun and I want to get my permit." We took the class together we got our permits at the same time and we both started carrying.

Shortly after that Colorado voted to legalize weed and the City of Colorado Springs began to change for the worse.

We are overrun with homeless people. Between us my wife and I know 3 people who have been murdered either by homeless people or in the middle of drug deals that went bad.


There is cartel activity in Colorado Springs because they're growing weed here and exporting it out of the state which I guess is easier than importing it across the border?

Carjackings are becoming a nightly occurrence. Convenience store robberies multiple convenience store robberies are becoming a nightly occurrence. A week ago Saturday some Maniac walked down Wasatch street in downtown Colorado Springs randomly shooting at people.

I think a month ago another random maniac walked down a hiking trail from Cimarron Street to America the Beautiful Park and stabbed eight people I think he killed one of them. The have been three other active shooter events in Colorado Springs since 2007.

I've been the victim of an attempted robbery right outside my home that I was able to stop because I had a gun.

As far as we know it's never happened to us but we have a neighbor down at the end of the hall who says that she's been sitting in her living room late at night and watched somebody try to to turn her front door knob.

I've been working nights since roughly 2003 and I see what kind of people wander around this town at night. Even before I started doing security I worked in a machine shop and I would come home at 3 in the morning and my neighborhood looked like a scene out of The Walking Dead. I'd see homeless people just wandering through the neighborhood every night.

I do not leave my home without a gun under any circumstances. Not even to take out the trash or check the mail.

[Yung]

Anne Frank's quippet from her diary was often repeated in text during my middle and high school years. I've long since thought about why I disagreed with it, or at least believed it to be incomplete.

I'll reference Solzhenitsyn's line between good and evil, and Jung's integration of the shadow self. In Peterson's 12 Rules, he does point out that not even God could keep the serpent out of Eden.

[Caballoflaco]

Anne Frank's quippet from her diary was often repeated in text during my middle and high school years. I've long since thought about why I disagreed with it, or at least believed it to be incomplete.
.

Can you link that quippet?

[Cypher]

In another vein (this example limps a little bit but try it out), it's much more likely to be caught in a fire than a DGU. Yet no one I know keeps a climbing line under the desk of their second or third floor office, wears a rigger's belt everyday, and carries a carabiner in their pocket.

I live in a second floor apartment. We keep a Kidde fire escape ladder under the master bedroom window.

[Cypher]

Can you link that quippet?

I suspect this is it

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

I prefer this quote by Lex Luthor

People are No Damn Good but they will always need land and they will pay through the nose to get it

[Yung]

Can you link that quippet?

Cypher has filled you in.

Here is a summary of the other bits:

[jetfire]

At this point, I carry a gun because it's my job. I am a public figure in the firearms industry, and my ghost would die of embarrassment if I was killed by a mugger and I wasn't strapped.