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I have lived in two rural areas. First place we never locked our doors, even when would leave for several days. We left the keys to the car in the car at night. I never felt insecure there. The second place we live now we have a gate across our driveway that I close at night and when we aren't here. I don't lock the doors at night but I do when we leave the house.
What's the difference? Drugs. Where we live now has a meth problem and more crime. I don't feel unsafe at a personal level but there are people out looking for stuff to steal.
BTW. We don't own any guns. I do not feel that would help. But we have had dogs most of the time. Last one died so we need to replace her.
I live in a rural area owning about 100 acreas of land. Last fall, I found a Stolen Jeep Cherokee on my property, that had also been used in a robbery. The criminals had jumped a ditch around the gate at the entrance and driven the vehicle down to the creek, driving it up into the woods to hide it.
I would have never spotted it, except for the glint of sunshine on the glass driving by the road one day. So, if they would steal a car, would be their nature to break into your home, I would guess.
2 weeks ago, at 10:30 pm, some miscreant stopped at mother's mailbox 200 yards from my home and shot it 6 times. So, If someone feels froggy enough to shoot up a mailbox between two homes, would be their nature perhaps to shoot my dogs or shoot at our houses.
Rural areas are no more exempt from crime than anywhere else. I quit being paranoid.
Now anything out of routine gets my attention.
Last edited by Sunset_Va; 01-24-2017 at 08:20 PM..
You also have to remember that when you are raised in a rural environment, you are not used to crime. It's something completely alien to you. You go along living your life in a good way thinking everyone else is doing the same, and then you hear about some random monstrous act committed against decent people.
That's exactly what it was like in the small town my family used to live in. So when you did hear about crime taking place, it was extra horrifying......one example being when two sisters who attended the local high school were returning movies they'd rented, and they were carjacked and raped at gunpoint.
I moved to a rural area in the mountains in 2001. It's populated by locals and retirees, and tourists passing through. Since I've lived here, there have been 3 murders in 16 years.
1) The first murder was committed by an insane drifter who had been ranging all over the mountains looking for hikers to kill. He kidnapped a girl who came up from Atlanta to go on a hike. He overpowered her in the national forest on a mountain. She was a black belt, so they fought for a long time before he prevailed. Then he drove away with her, and eventually killed her days later.
2) The second murder was committed by a local who was the son of a banker. The locals said he had always been quite strange. He kidnapped a local woman and killed her.
3) The third murder was committed by a local lesbian who was in a love triangle. She killed an older local woman who she felt was interfering.
So, in 16 years, we have three murders. This type of thing is SHOCKING to the local community because of the rarity. In fact, to the locals, even one murder is evidence of the area going to hell in a hand basket.
If you notice, none of these murders happened because of breaking and entering. If someone was going to rob a house, this would be the last place on earth to attempt it. They would know in advance that the homeowner is likely to be armed. We had a one-time rash of burglaries several years ago, which was very unusual. They were committed by two drifters who had the sense to only target unoccupied homes hidden by woods. They literally knew ahead of time that the owners were away, or they watched them leave the house before breaking in. Even they knew better than to risk an armed homeowner.
Criminals are like animals and follow the path of least resistance.
A deer will not go down a ditch and back up to cross a road if there is a level approach with culvert he can use.
The thugs who killed my cousin and her two teens tried three houses that were locked and kept moving on until they found her house unlocked.
.....least resistance......
They probably knew there were many people in that rural town who boasted they never locked their doors.
If they didn't believe that, they would have exerted the effort to break into the locked houses.
In the rural area where I was raised, people are so non-paranoid, they rarely even lock doors.
I know, right? Perhaps in very rural areas, there is a lot more of a sense of having to protect your own, instead of relying on a small and spread out police dept.
Like, you shoot varmints that threaten your livestock, rather than call animal control, and you butcher your own cattle, and you shoot at people who try to rob you, etc.
Having lived in both rural UK and rural USA, the two are very different in atmosphere. (Of course "rural USA" is a huge mix, but anyway). In very broad terms (of course individuals vary...) one is fearful and distrustful and there are many guns around. The other feels bucolic and a happy place, with guns limited to farmers. One has many more loners and misanthropes, the other is more social and welcoming. One is clearer poorer (with associated sociological effects...) than the other.
I think it goes back to cultural memory, with settlers being attacked by, then wiping out, natives, bears, mountain lions etc. But its negative effects continue today in some forms, unfortunately.
Funny thing is, my little rural state has less violent crime than UK.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bg7
Having lived in both rural UK and rural USA, the two are very different in atmosphere. (Of course "rural USA" is a huge mix, but anyway).
What part of the USA? We have more acres of "rural" in the state of Oklahoma than there is rural in the entirety of the UK. Heck, there are more square kilometers of "rural" in Texas or Alaska than there are total square kilometers in the UK.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bg7
In very broad terms (of course individuals vary...) one is fearful and distrustful and there are many guns around. The other feels bucolic and a happy place, with guns limited to farmers. One has many more loners and misanthropes, the other is more social and welcoming. One is clearer poorer (with associated sociological effects...) than the other..
Or maybe the USA people just didn't like you? Having been an outsider in rural UK with funny clothes and accent, I didn't get the same impression of a "bucolic and happy place" as you did.
My inlaws lived in southern Colorado on 40 acres when they were gone on vacation someone cleaned out my father in-laws steel container 15k in tools. The local sheriff after months found it was a local group of teens and 20 year olds had broken into many homes drove the stuff to another state where it was sold. He never got back anything but a few tools which had his name on them rest weren't marked. These guys had stolen over 500k in things from people over 2 year period they got a few years in jail and life probation. What they would do is park and watch the property for a day or so if no one came around looked like the owners were out of town they hit the place. My father in law has a few old shotguns we always told him to watch out never know who will come down from the highway being city folks my wife and I are. He never had any trouble with anyone except one time a guy came by told my mother in law that he spoken to my father in law about borrowing his gas welding torch set he saw it on the back of a pickup truck my mother in law let him take it later found out my father in law had no idea who that guy was.
For some of us, it is not either/or but that's another item. It's having a gun and having a dog.
But a thing or two one ought to keep in mind. Such as that a dog is an offensive system that has its own defenses and has programming that humans neither entirely understand nor control. So if he bites someone by accident, one could be in a world of law suit hurt....to say nothing about the potential for the dog being destroyed.
Now, philosophically, it can be countered with "Well, that is better than shooting someone by accident," but when a human pulls the trigger, "the programming" is better understood, better controlled.
Secondly, when one travels, it is a lot easier to find a hotel that one can have a gun at than one they can have their dog at.
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Originally Posted by shyguylh
..........My best friend used to rent his house to people. This was a house WAY away from everything, on like 70-odd acres and well off of the road, and the school was like 20-odd miles away. The people he rented from, the husband was easy-going but the wife was nervous to the point she got on other people's nerves. She INSISTED that ALL the doors had to be locked, during the DAYTIME mind you, all the curtains drawn all the shades pulled, every single minute.
And what is wrong with having the shades down, the doors locked? I mean, I am not going to walk around like June Cleaver in my house every moment.
At the very least, the habits we learn in the city can carry with us out to the country. Around here, in small city USA, we've had a number of incidents where the bad guys walked into the house right after the occupants unlocked the door and walked in.
So the first thing I do is lock the door after I've walked through it.......and have shocked myself those times when I have found out hours later that I have not done such.
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........My mother, last year we made the mistake of letting her go on our vacation, we had a cabin way in the middle of nowhere in a town of like population 400 and she would flip out if we so much as went outdoors for 5 minutes during the middle of the day and not lock the back door. I finally told her to knock it off that I was tired of having to bang on the door, of my own cabin which I paid for myself in full, everytime I wanted to go back inside. Her response was "you must not watch much TV" and my reply was "no I don't, and thank goodness, because I don't need to be brainwashed like that."
Being cautious is one thing, but no way could I live like that.........
To each their own but to me, it's layered defense.
Look at it this way. I would rather have a door between me and a stranger (and I have a lovely front door, cast iron Spanish design) than to find someone suddenly inside my house that I don't know. The latter won't make me too happy at all.....and it will probably be a fraction of a second to a full hand to hand release to beat him to a bloody pulp.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diane de Poitiers
That's exactly what it was like in the small town my family used to live in. So when you did hear about crime taking place, it was extra horrifying......one example being when two sisters who attended the local high school were returning movies they'd rented, and they were carjacked and raped at gunpoint.
It's that kind of world. When I take weekend trips, I at least have a pistol but often, I carry a pistol and a rifle. On the face of it to the uninformed, perhaps a little much, but look at it this way. In our crazy world as it is these days, would you travel several hours, close to 200 miles out of your home town unarmed? Of course, that says nothing about carrying the car's bailout bag and emergency water as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kell490
My inlaws lived in southern Colorado on 40 acres when they were gone on vacation someone cleaned out my father in-laws steel container 15k in tools. The local sheriff after months found it was a local group of teens and 20 year olds had broken into many homes drove the stuff to another state where it was sold. He never got back anything but a few tools which had his name on them rest weren't marked. These guys had stolen over 500k in things from people over 2 year period they got a few years in jail and life probation. What they would do is park and watch the property for a day or so if no one came around looked like the owners were out of town they hit the place. My father in law has a few old shotguns we always told him to watch out never know who will come down from the highway being city folks my wife and I are. He never had any trouble with anyone except one time a guy came by told my mother in law that he spoken to my father in law about borrowing his gas welding torch set he saw it on the back of a pickup truck my mother in law let him take it later found out my father in law had no idea who that guy was.
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 01-26-2017 at 02:35 AM..
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Funny thing is, my little rural state has less violent crime than UK.
