Sorry if I was not clear, I am British who became an American, as you might be aware, in Britain guns are not carried around by the General public and most, if not all, accepts this fact without questioning it. I could only imagine how a visiting family member from overseas would react if they see me with a concealed weapon in the airport! I would suspect some of them would not get in the car unless I 'got rid of it'..lol...
For the longest time I struggled with this conflict, but come to see that protecting my home is my right , although the British side of my personality still views this as a 'privilege' of being an American!
I got a Gun due to an incident which happened last year to a close by community, somewhat similar to the examples you kindly provided, but in both cases getting a gun made sense, but still not not a good reason to carry it outside.
I am the one who mentioned, I would use my V8 to get away from a sticky situation. The question I posed (several times) , is what would be a true story that anyone might have, that make a good argument to start carrying a gun outside the home, without invoking the second amendment argument (the Mrs still struggles with the idea of having a fingerprinted Gun, locked in an easily accessible finger print safe!), examples would be 'I was in my car at night and this person started to threaten me and having a gun handy made feel safe' or 'I was in dark alley and this or that happened'...
In summery, I was just looking for good reason to start carrying a gun outside, beside just 'choice' or just for the hell of it. I hope that clarify my reasoning for the original question a bit better?
Here's an example from my own life. In 2008 I crashed a motorcycle and did all kinds of nonsense to my right leg. Long story short, it was tibial plateau fracture (more like explosion), displaced knee cap, severed artery, stretched peroneal nerve, severed ACL, PCL, and LCL. Compartment syndrome led to 70% chance of being amputated. 3 days in ICU, 9 days in "normal" hospital care, 4 weeks in a hospital bed in my living room, and 9 total surgeries over the course of 13 months. Luckily, they saved it.
My wife and I worked at the same Arena; I ran the event operations, she ran the hospitality operations. Our show-day hours were very early (4/5am) to very late (4/5am). Once I was able to return to work, I would frequently end up back in a wheelchair following a surgery.
After one particular show, during the winter months, my wife and I were going about our normal routine. I would sit in my wheelchair at the ADA entrance that was just off the side of an alleyway behind a few restaurants/bars, and she would come around with the car, park at the curb, help me get to the car (ever tried to use a wheelchair in snow?), then she'd load my chair into the trunk. On this occasion, it was beyond late, bordering on early. She had wheeled me to the car, I was standing with the passenger door open, and a panhandler came up behind her. In a moment of "whatever it takes to make him go away," she gave him her cash. He walked away. As soon as she turned her back, another guy saw her loading the wheelchair, knew I couldn't move, and he came up behind and acted like he wanted directions to the bus. She was scared and told him she couldn't help him, he smelled it on her and started yelling about "b----, I want some money, too." All I could do was hop on one foot and try not to fall on my ass in the snow, or worse, slip and put weight on my leg. It would have collapsed like a paperclip if I stepped down on it, and I would have left her even more exposed to danger by ending up a heap of helplessness on the ground. She told him the other guy got everything she had, and told him our security office was watching the camera right above us, he called her more names and went back to "why you treat me like that, I just wanted directions." We were very lucky that nothing happened. He could have done any manner of things in that moment, and my ability to protect my wife was effectively zero. I honestly feel that in that instance, had I been carrying and in my diminished mobility and his predatory behavior, I would have been justified in drawing it. You never know what happens once you introduce a weapon, but knowing in the back of my mind that I could have been in a front row seat to her being dragged off, beaten, stabbed, robbed, shot, raped, wherever your imagination takes you, I don't ever want that feeling in my life again.
