Lion in Winter

Likewise. I've lived in New York City, Boston and Chicago and in all sorts of areas. Never had one, dont want one.

lansbury

That's your choice, and I don't carry when I'm out about around town. But when I'm out in rural Oregon in the middle of the night, in an area that doesn't have cell phone coverage, and the nearest help is a ways away even if I had a means of calling for it, I'll carry a Glock 19 and plenty of ammo. Some of our rural areas do not have police cover at night, and outside of the towns very little cover during the day. So being able to look after yourself is a necessity, which why I carry enough equipment on my Jeep to see me through 3 days or more if I got stranded, and a gun is just part of that equipment.

Lion in Winter

In the middle of the wilderness I could see it. Just possibly. In case of grizzly bears or something. But would you think of doing that out in the country of England or France or Germany? I wouldn't and I bet many others wouldn't either. What is it about the US that makes people feel that gun carrying is normal and a good idea?

lansbury

Not in England as a civilian but then if you need help in England there is almost 98% cell phone coverage, people coming by regularly and a phone every mile on freeways. I can't think of a part of England that would be as isolated as very many places in the US, especially the mid west and western States. But then in England I never went target shooting and have discovered in the US what an interesting sport it is.

England was a much more civilized nation when personal guns become available, the US still very much undeveloped west of Independence. People in the west carried guns while those in England never did. Unfortunately guns are so wide spread in American both legal and illegal that they will not in the foreseeable future be abolished. You might just as well ask what makes people in the UK think it is normal to carry a knife.

Lion in Winter

Honestly I don't really get the isolated issue, except for possible attack by grizzly bear. In a situation so immediately hazardous to my life that I might need a gun to defend myself, I doubt the police could get there quickly enough to make a bit of difference, even in the middle of an English city. Hence my interest in disarming the population rather than arming it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "England was a much more civilized nation when personal guns became available" - did you perhaps mean "unavailable"? Or did you mean when they were first invented? In which case I don't think it was that civilized at all. Society was still pretty violent in terms of fights and killings in the streets, people's idea of sport (such as bear baiting, etc.) and the thirst for public hangings and burnings.

Knife carrying in the UK is a bit different. As far as I know, ordinary people don't go around armed with knives on the off-chance that they might feel threatened and need one for self defense do they?

I have no issue with target shooting or the odd bit of hunting. It's the general arming of civil society I take issue with because it seems to have done this society a lot of no good. I agree that disarming them is an uphill struggle to say the least for the forseable future, but the level of weaponry in this country has clearly done nothing to make society less violent or people safer, in aggregate. Rather the opposite.

scrubbedexpat099

I spend most of the time in what can be called the boonies, I do not think I need a gun, I do have a knife in my pocket as I do now. Very handy for all sorts of things.

I used to live in London, there absolutely. I would have concealed carry in a heart beat.

Pulaski

The theory would be that the police show up soon enough to catch the culprit either at the scene, or be able to pursue them and make a speedy arrest. If someone broke into my house and attacked me they could escape into hundreds of acres of more of less contiguous woodland stretching over many miles. It would likely take a minimum of ten minutes for the police sirens even to be audible in the distance, in a high to medium population density city, the corresponding time would likely be only 2-3 minutes.

I am glad that you feel safe and secure in your urban/ suburban home, but, pray tell, what do you recommend to those of us living a little further from downtown?

scrubbedexpat099

Police are there to do the reports, where ever you are.

In my County a Lady Police Officer I was talking to said there were 2 cars on, slightly smaller in area than Devon.

Actually after what happened today I can feel another thread coming on.

Lion in Winter

I wasn't thinking of people escaping. I was thinking of police arriving in time to do anything about it if my life were in imminent danger, and I doubt they would anywhere really, city, suburb or country. These things often happen in the blink of an eye. I currently live in a relatively peaceable suburb. That was not always the case and I have seen plenty of guns drawn in more than one country. The only ones that were ever pointed vaguely in my direction were in Guatemala, and during the holdup of a small hardware store in Chicago where I happened to be. I have no idea whether he would have used his. Nor do I know if I would have used mine had I had one and had the opportunity to draw it before he shot me - since he already had his out and ready. As it was, all he wanted was the store's cash which he took, and left. It happened in a flash, all of it.

How do you decide when to kill someone? When they approach you menacingly? When they hold up a shop (supposing they are not pointing their gun at you already of course)? If you are not at war, how do you know when and how to shoot? How do you even know, most of the time, that it's necessary? Most of the guns I've seen were pulled by teenage gangsters in Chicago were I once lived for about five years. They were shooting at each other, not me, and I developed a knack for ducking behind trees. Should I just have shot them?

Did any of us think this way, that we needed guns to keep the peace, before leaving the UK, other than retired coppers and ex-military? I didn't. I still don't. I suppose I think it's a larger picture issue. I have no problem with a sane person who's out in the wilderness carrying a gun. Flooding our society with guns and arming the populace has done us no good at all here that I can detect.

lansbury

The first body armour issued by the Met Police was not to protect officers from firearms it was to protect from knifes and pointed shanks. It had to be specially designed to do so. I would be quite willing to bet that a higher percentage of people carry a knife or another sort of weapon than carry concealed firearms in the US. It always surprised me how many people seemed to have the need for a hammer, or a heavy tool of some sort, or a length of metal pipe under the driving seat of their car. Firearms can kill more people and quicker than a knife, but people will carry weapons if they can.

Pulaski

That sounds quite fatalistic. Someone breaks in to your home, and you have no desire to be able to stop them?
That's fairly easy, "when they have broken into my house", or " .... are in the process of doing so and I am unable to get away". I am not a vigilante, cruising the streets, so the decision is not complicated.
I'm neither, but I did (think that way). It maddened me, and still does, that hand guns are fairly readily available in the UK, but only if you're a criminal.

So meanwhile, back at my earlier post, do you have answer to my previously stated question?

lansbury

Correction to my previous post which I can no longer edit

Cape Blue

All the people I know who are into guns and do, or want to, carry are scared of their own shadows. They come up with a host of bogeymen who may jump out of the bushes to attack them as reasons why they need to carry. I feel sorry for them, must be stressful being scared the whole time.

Cape Blue

I bumped into a mountain lion in Marin County 3 years ago. It was a Thursday afternoon and I wasn't working so I was hiking - very close to the GG Bridge actually (Gerbode Valley) - so there weren't many people around. I had hiked around 8 miles in a big loop and was around a mile from where my car was parked.

Ahead about 100 yards a mountain lion came out onto the track and started smelling some horse poo (I had see the two horse riders a hour or so earlier coming towards me on the trail). My options were:

(1). Hike back around the loop - which would be 8 miles and it would be dark. (it would also take me to less than half a mile from where I was facing the lion, but in the dark).

(2). Try to scare the lion.

(3). Stand there faffing like a big schoolgirl.

Obviously I chose # 3. I had my victorinox 3" penknife in-hand and stood watching - bloody thing sloped-off into the bush by the edge of the trail, but I couldn't see it again - it could be 3 feet into the bush waiting to pounce on me as I walked-by!

I continued to faff, running through my planned pen-knife action in the event of an attack.

Faffed some more.

And thank God, a mountain biker came down the trail! We both walked past the spot, me prepared for the inevitable attack, him thinking I was some sort of euro-pussy.

I survived.

But it was a close-run thing

Cardienscarf

Faffing in the face of mountain lion attack.

When I was at primary school, I learned things like the green cross code and find a bin to put it in. When my kids were in elementary school in CO, they learned things like Stop Drop and Roll, Slip Slap Slop and how to make yourself look big when encountering mountain lions and bears.

We lived in the foothills and a bear came into the kitchen when I'd popped out to the grocery store one day. Luckily, they knew what to do and there wasn't a gun in the house. Hate to think who would've come off worse if they had taken it upon themselves to shoot the bear.