Most people who carry guns are doing it for self-defense, not civil defense.
The rules of an Active-shooter event are:
- Flee
- If you can’t flee, hide.
- If you can’t hide, fight back.
Carrying a concealed weapon doesn’t change that. I have a little 380 pocket pistol I’ll occasionally carry. It’s low-capacity, low-power, and low-accuracy. No way am I volunteering to take on a psychopath with a long gun who isn’t worried about collateral damage with my little pea shooter, and anyone Who expects me too just because I’m armed can kiss my ass.
I carry a pistol to protect me from muggers and car-jackers, not to protect the public.
Having the general public feeling that they need to carry a gun for self defense just sounds crazy to me.
Stabbings have risen here in the UK but generally it’s either a rare occasion where some nutter is on the run or it’s gang related. In general I would never feel the need to carry my own knife around for self defense. I don’t know anyone who carries a knife around with them for self defense.
I’d feel fine with someone carrying a weapon if it’s based on a reasonable fear, and they make an effort to stay trained/safe with the weapon. For instance, they exited an abusive relationship with a significant other who feels they “belong” to them.
But there’s a lot of people who stretch the statement of “I don’t feel safe” to far more cases than make sense.
Almost all of our gun violence is the same, gang/drug related. The media here acts like it’s random killings all over the place, its not. You have a better chance of drowning in a pool than getting killed by an ar15 here, yet people, even in this thread, think it’s something that happens like every 3 seconds.
You conveniently left out school shootings. between 2018-2023 more than 1200 school shooting incidents occured. You literally can not kill a dozen of people with knives but u can easily do it with a gun.
Imo only an idiot would carry a knife for self-defence, especially if untrained. If someone (probably women especially) feels unsafe, carrying CS-spray would be more reasonable imo.
Would anyone you know tell you if they carried a knife for self-defense, given that it’s generally a crime to do so in the UK?
Close friends sure and yes you need to have a good reason as to why you’re walking around with a knife in public.
