The Lifetime Likelihood Of Needing A Gun For Self-Defense

[jmorris]

https://gundigest.com/handguns/personal ... ihood-data

[BigGuy]

I follow the rule expressed by a couple of sayings:
1) I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
2) Ever needing a gun is a low probability, but high impact event.

[troglodyte]

I believe TAM, or maybe his son, said it well, "It's not the odds, it's the cost." (I hope I didn't butcher it too much)

[RoyGBiv]

It's not the odds, it's the stakes.

[BigGuy]

I believe TAM, or maybe his son, said it well, "It's not the odds, it's the cost." (I hope I didn't butcher it too much)

[BigGuy]

It's not the odds, it's the stakes.

[JRG]

I refuse to be unarmed, if at all possible. There are many places I no longer frequent due to their policies regarding personal weapons. Of course, at my age (72), I have many visits to doctors. Those visits are about the only times I am unarmed.

Hopefully, I never need my gun, but it is comforting on my body to have it.

Joe

[carlson1]

I have been carrying since 1978. Same every day activity. Check to make sure it is still loaded from the next day. Grab at least one reload and the pray and ask my Heavenly Father to protect me. The next prayers is help me not to need my gun today.

If I think I need a gun because my destination is awful dangerous I don’t go.

[The Annoyed Man]

If I think I need a gun because my destination is awful dangerous I don’t go.

How many times over the years have we all discussed the rules of stupid?

1. Don’t do stupid things
2. with stupid people
3. at stupid times
4. in stupid places.

I might have the order incorrect, but it’s still valid.

[chasfm11]

This is all good but I don't think the crime statistics are the only risk exposure. Outside of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, I don't think that there is a time in our history where neighbor was willing to off neighbor over politics. Neither the shooter of the health insurance company nor the one for Charlie Kirk had criminal histories. One doesn't have to watch the violence at protests very long to realize that the people fighting for several of those causes seem unencumbered by legal constraints. Yes, I know that deliberately going to a protest would qualify as a stupid place. I'm trying to address the one-off situations where an individual perceives me to be a threat because of an article of clothing. I'm very amazed at the little things that some of these people count as "triggers." I"m probably just paranoid to believe that I might succumb to political violence sooner than criminal violence but that my current thinking. And that is because the political crazies are already in my neighborhood. I don't have to go to a stupid place to find them.

[The Annoyed Man]

This is all good but I don't think the crime statistics are the only risk exposure. Outside of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, I don't think that there is a time in our history where neighbor was willing to off neighbor over politics. Neither the shooter of the health insurance company nor the one for Charlie Kirk had criminal histories. One doesn't have to watch the violence at protests very long to realize that the people fighting for several of those causes seem unencumbered by legal constraints. Yes, I know that deliberately going to a protest would qualify as a stupid place. I'm trying to address the one-off situations where an individual perceives me to be a threat because of an article of clothing. I'm very amazed at the little things that some of these people count as "triggers." I"m probably just paranoid to believe that I might succumb to political violence sooner than criminal violence but that my current thinking. And that is because the political crazies are already in my neighborhood. I don't have to go to a stupid place to find them.

I don’t think that’s paranoia. I think that age gives one a reference that the young lack—unless they actually listen to the voices of experience—and that reference here is the actually observed and experienced changes in our culture and political landscape over the course of 50 years or more. Young people lack that reference. The world they live in today is the only world they’ve ever known. And thanks to the decades long leftist conspiracy to capture the public education system, young people believe that it’s ALWAYS been this way, and they can’t understand why older generations “failed” to do anything about it. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m fed up “to here” with being very rudely insulted for being a boomer, under the misguided notion that boomers are responsible for all of their problems. Where did this idea come from? It sure as hell didn’t come from examination of all the data using critical thinking.

When enough young people tell me to hurry up and die—this has actually happened at least a dozen times to me on Twitter—I naturally assume that these are the kind of people for whom the barrier between just hoping for my death, and causing it is paper thin.

So I assume that the trigger pull weight between potential violence and actual violence has been greatly reduced, and set to break like a glass rod. The result is that my wife and I don’t go out nearly as often as we used to; we don’t do crowds; and we don’t do dim outdoor lighting at night.