Scanning various forums like this one, you see a lot of threads asking "why do you carry a firearm?" The answers are often "do you read the newspaper?" In my case I came to CCW because I wrote the thing.
In 1969 I started work as a rookie reporter for a daily paper here. I was soon assigned to full time coverage of what was then referred to as the "cop shop," meaning everything to do with crime and public safety. Very early the policemen I got to know suggested that if I was going to be out there on the street where they were every night I needed to be armed. This was in a pre-SDA era when there was no such thing in Oklahoma as legal CCW, but the police all issued what they called "wink and nod permits" to business owners who drove to the bank at night, nurses on the late shift and favored reporters, among others. So for about 11 years I carried routinely. I also saw crime up close -- maybe 600 homicides, countless shootings and stabbings and beatings, robberies virtually every night. Twice I was present when police officers killed armed suspects. A dozen times or so I was there when shots were fired. I went to scenes where store clerks had been executed by armed robbers, in one case a family of three, in another infamous case the entire night shift of six. Of course I became and remain a staunch 2nd Amendment advocate and firmly in the "lock 'em up" camp. I also knew several officers who were killed in the line of duty. In short I saw the elephant almost every night for more than a decade.
So post-newspapering I went into more sedate work, though I still kept several weapons at home. As I got older I realized that I would soon look more and more like a vulnerable victim with graying hair. The revolver went back under the car seat and more recently I made it legal with the full SDA course/permit. Today I always have access to a handgun at home and out of the house. My determination to protect myself is even stronger in the wake of the terrorist/mass shooter events of recent years. I decline to be a victim.
So when someone asks "why do you have that gun on your waist?" I say "I have been out there on the street at 2 in the morning, I have stood through the night watching them roll bodies out of businesses where unarmed people were executed by vermin, I have heard a few rounds zip past, been to the funerals of a few friends and seen those instances where armed citizens protected themselves from crime and possible murder. Why would I NOT carry a gun?"
In 1969 I started work as a rookie reporter for a daily paper here. I was soon assigned to full time coverage of what was then referred to as the "cop shop," meaning everything to do with crime and public safety. Very early the policemen I got to know suggested that if I was going to be out there on the street where they were every night I needed to be armed. This was in a pre-SDA era when there was no such thing in Oklahoma as legal CCW, but the police all issued what they called "wink and nod permits" to business owners who drove to the bank at night, nurses on the late shift and favored reporters, among others. So for about 11 years I carried routinely. I also saw crime up close -- maybe 600 homicides, countless shootings and stabbings and beatings, robberies virtually every night. Twice I was present when police officers killed armed suspects. A dozen times or so I was there when shots were fired. I went to scenes where store clerks had been executed by armed robbers, in one case a family of three, in another infamous case the entire night shift of six. Of course I became and remain a staunch 2nd Amendment advocate and firmly in the "lock 'em up" camp. I also knew several officers who were killed in the line of duty. In short I saw the elephant almost every night for more than a decade.
So post-newspapering I went into more sedate work, though I still kept several weapons at home. As I got older I realized that I would soon look more and more like a vulnerable victim with graying hair. The revolver went back under the car seat and more recently I made it legal with the full SDA course/permit. Today I always have access to a handgun at home and out of the house. My determination to protect myself is even stronger in the wake of the terrorist/mass shooter events of recent years. I decline to be a victim.
So when someone asks "why do you have that gun on your waist?" I say "I have been out there on the street at 2 in the morning, I have stood through the night watching them roll bodies out of businesses where unarmed people were executed by vermin, I have heard a few rounds zip past, been to the funerals of a few friends and seen those instances where armed citizens protected themselves from crime and possible murder. Why would I NOT carry a gun?"
