Making Up My Mind, Part 02

I was planning on making this a much more ordered and scholarly post in the vein of Part 1 in this series, but a post by Caleb over at Gun Nuts inspired me to take it in a different direction.

You see, fear, or at least the refusal to be ruled by it, figures into my own decision to carry. It's like this: for various reasons, I tend to work past midnight 3-4 times a week. Often this means my car is the last one in the parking lot, and while my building itself is quite secure, the parking lot is somewhat less so. Trespassers, car prowls, and break-ins are, if not entirely common, certainly an occasional occurrence and annoyance.

For these reasons, when I work late, I walk past a bunch of windows overlooking the parking lot and the path to my car, scanning carefully for anything or anyone irregular. Then I walk out the door knowing that if I missed something, or there was someone in a spot I couldn't see, then I'm pretty much screwed. I don't have the conditioning to run, or the skills to put up much of a fight. It'd be a Very Bad Night for me.

If I lived alone, that might be all right. It's one thing to run risks when you're the only one who might suffer major detriment, but it's quite another when your risks could have a dramatic effect on a wife and three little children. While my overall risks may still be fairly low, evaluated against my lack of latent defensive skills, and the possible consequences of failure, left me with two questions: How much gun can I afford, and what caliber should it be?

My security is my responsibility, and I'm going to make sure I have the tools to defend myself as best I can. The news carries too many people with sound-bytes of "I never thought this could happen in my neighborhood." I refuse to be one of them.