man, i grew up in the hood, east of los angeles and have been through new orleans in the bad hours (a few times), spent many evenings in downtown atlanta, 6th ward in houston, south west side in san antonio, tampa, dallas, birmingham, san francisco, phoenix, wook a wrong turn in new york, and been through many many bad areas of towns people would not walk alone and i still have never had to have a gun.
i totally understand the desire to want a gun, i would love to have one, but not feeling comfortable walking without one is not right. i think what people percieve as bad areas and what are actually bad areas might not be the same.
i mean, i have a buddy here at work, won;t leave his house without a gun (except to come to work, we work on a naval base) and says its not safe to go anywhere in town. i am thinking dude, have you ever went anywhere to see the good and bad areas of the town we live in and you are from san antonio, how can you be scared walking around corpus? he has become so dependant on having a gun to feel safe, he cannot do anything without it.
i live in an area called a bad area, for corpus christi. everyone says we have druggies and stabbings and all kinds of crap going on in my neighborhood but you know what, we have never had one incident like that. our neighborhood is old, really old. it looks run down but we have no trouble. we don;t have to lock our doors or cars, our kid can run up and down the streets, we have BBQs at different houses on the weekends, our neighborhood is not bad even though it looks it. are you sure your areas are bad enough to warrant carrying a gun all day, everyday?
flatie46, your story is a little different, living out in the sticks doesn;t apply to us city people's gun issues. you really need one living out in the country, i have done that too. there are some crazy people out there.
i am not saying anyone is wrong, but just saying maybe examine the areas you are worried about a little more. maybe they are not as bad as they appear so you don;t have to be so dependent on carrying a gun every where. take some time and walk those areas and find out whats going on in them. i ride all over corpus on my bicycle now that the doc said i need to lose weight or have surgery. i ride through areas people won't drive through. i see the people in those neighborhoods and they are not violent people, they are just like us. they say hi and wave back when i say hi. they are just as nervous about new people in the area as new people are to be there. that is change, it causes stress, thats life.
i will get a gun some day though. hopefully something nice and small like a 223 or something like that. maybe a 22 pistol. just for fun at the range and in case any zombies ever show up, ha ha ha.