About 7 years ago I was mugged at gunpoint.
I'm fairly intelligent and pretty aware when out in public. I'm also fairly pragmatic and not prone to hysterics. At the time I was working late hours in the downtown area (notoriously unsafe). I got mugged in the suburbs (a really nice, fairly expensive part of town) on my front doorstep by some little gun carrying punk who decided to steal money rather than work for it.
It was beyond terrifying. Words cannot express how bone deep the fear is and how your brain just shuts down. It was like watching a movie, except there was a gun about 6" from my head.
Until you find yourself in that situation, you have no idea how you will react. I was very lucky. The punk who robbed me was maybe 15 years old and only wanted beer money (and he got the $14 I had on me with no argument). Since he had the gun, he pretty much could have done anything he wanted though. I was completely at a loss to do anything other than agree with whatever he wanted.
Once he left I called the cops and then called my sister and BIL. They made it there about as fast as the cops did. There were no police anywhere near me when the mugging was going on. It was just me, a single woman in her early 30s. The cops didn't put a whole lot of effort into finding the guy (a whole other story that I won't go into). I realized that my protection was up to me.
My take on gun control? In a perfect world we would totally control who had guns and only the nice, responsible people would have them. Is this reality? No way. The idiots and deranged and just plain mean and hateful will always find a way to get their hands on a gun. Do I wish I had had a handgun and been trained on how to use it? Yes. Do I wish the neighbor who just stood and watched all this happen had been man enough to have had a handgun and have used it? Oh yeah. (And before you think I'm one of those women who is just waiting for a man to protect her, I'd have been pretty happy if it had been a female neighbor with a gun as well.)
The rest of the story is not that I now have my CC permit. While I have a couple of shotguns, I do not have a handgun. I think my aim is better with a shotgun than something handheld. Plus I work on a college campus, so I can't even have a gun in my car. Pretty pointless to have a carry permit when I'm not allowed to actually carry the gun when I need it. I did get a dog pretty immediately after the mugging. She's a boxer mix, but looks like a pit and sounds ferocious (not the dog in my avatar). The dog went everywhere with me for 3 years until I took the university job. Literally, the dog was with me almost 24/7. She went to work with me everyday and ran errands with me when the weather permitted (so she could stay in the car while I was in the store). Would I have been mugged if I had had the dog? Doubtful. I don't know what she'd do if I was in harms way, but I do know she'd bark and growl like crazy. Would I have been mugged if I had had a handgun? Probably, but it's possible that I would have been the last person the punk mugged. That's what really bothers me about the whole deal. The little punk got away with it and most certainly went on to terrify others. His violence probably escalated and who knows what harm he went on to do to others. Do I wish he had been stopped at that point? Most definitely. Maybe if I or my neighbors had been armed he would have been stopped.
Anyway... that's my 2 cents for what it's worth. It's great to talk about guns in theory. In reality there is a time and place and need. Even when you live in "safe" places.
