Excellent comments! Spot on.

I'm not sure how far my comments can go without stepping on this forum's rules, and certainly I hope not to do that, but ...

To be honest I never thought too much about having/carrying a self-defense weapon until a few years back when I had an encounter (assault? - he grabbed me by my shirt just under my head) with an angry newspaper delivery person on the street within sight of my home. We live in a rural area - not in a city, and called the county sheriff. We went outside to wait for their arrival, and waited, and waiting. Finally I went back inside to find a voice message from the sheriff asking for directions to my home. They finally arrived.

This led me to a realization that local law enforcement (the sheriff) does NOT protect me and my family. They simply can't be there when/if something happens. Their job would be to take evidence AFTER the event and look for offenders.

Now I'm a strong believer in the need of people to be able to defend themselves and their family - to carry a weapon (a gun) to protect themselves, since law enforcement (police) simply will not and can not do it real time.

Unfortunately, I live in the ONLY state in the United States that does not allow it citizens to carry a concealed weapon. Some have told me that I can carry a weapon unconcealed, but that brings with it obvious problems.

I'm a regular person. Not a fanatic. I'm a Boy Scout Leader, a Girl Scout leader, and father of two wonderful kids. Every time I see on the news where someone or several people are killed I have to think that had the victims been able to carry a gun things could have been very different - lives could have been saved.