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The whole mess with the guy shooting his wife - maybe accidentally, if accidentally, he didn't observe Rule Four: Be certain of your target and backstop before you shoot. (Rule One: All weapons are always loaded, Rule Two: Never point the muzzle at anything you are not willing to destroy, Rule Three: Keep your finger off the trigger (outside the trigger guard) until your sights are on target.)
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You are quite right that merely possessing a firearm and ammunition for it no more makes one armed, than possessing a violin and some sheet music makes one a musician. Knowing how to use it is critical.
All of this holds equally true in the city as in the country. That said I am not certain I can figure out what your point is - are you trying to say that because the per-capita crime rate may be lower in most rural areas, that rural people don't need to be ready for what might well happen, even if it's unlikely?
What I am saying is that I have noticed many people, not all but many, who live in rural areas when I hear them talk they are constantly talking about burglaries and how "last night I heard a noise, man I tell you the world isn't safe anymore, crazies everywhere, just let them try and hurt me man I got this 12 gauge with buckshot and this 357 magnum with hollow points, and just yesterday I saw a 44 magnum {or a 40 S&W} and man I'd love to have one of those, just let someone try and hurt me they don't stand a chance."
I mean they talk about it ALL the time, and I think that when you do that CERTAIN PEOPLE really take it too far in their mind and it causes them to do reckless things that lead to what you read about here. That's my point.
You are exactly right, you are to MAKE SURE of the situation before going off half-cocked. Remember that bullets travel, and they travel far. Try a handgun sometimes, it's nowhere near as easy to hit your target as the movies make it seem, it is HARD to (say) shoot somebody right between the eyes versus completely missing, well maybe if you have a laser sight you can do well, or if you practice every weekend or something. Yes, MAKE SURE that it is fact a burglar and not your family, and think about how many of them would leave without a fight if you merely fire off a warning shot (but again, got to be careful in how you do that too). Think about safety in the house with respect to little children getting their hands on the gun.
That is what I am saying. I AM NOT SAYING that owning a gun in and of itself makes one paranoid, if that were the case then I'd be a hypocrite because I own a .22 semi-auto rifle and a 38 special revolver. However when I think I hear a noise well yes I do think about where the gun is, but I don't necessarily grab it right away, and even if I do yes I point it upwards and my finger is NOT on the trigger. I use the flashlight so I can SEE what's there (always been nothing) and I have a phone nearby too. When I'm done, that gun goes right back in the drawer and is locked backed up.
I used to merely keep it underneath some old clothes, but my uncle who is a hard-core gun lover he scolded me that such wasn't good enough that I also needed to have it locked up what with kids in the house, and so I started doing that. That is my other point, my uncle is a hard-core gun lover, he probably has $3000 in guns I'd say and he is retired but works part-time in a gun store, he can tell you ANYTHING you want to know about guns and reads magazines and goes target-practicing all the time, but he is just as serious about safety as he is an avid hobbyist and someone who can "talk shop" about the calibers etc. That is what I am saying.
Here is one other thing I've noticed, when I watch an old "Crime TV" documentary or read a book/Wikipedia article about people like HH Holmes (a "house of horrors," luring people from the local state fair and torturing them in his "torture chambers," are you kidding) if I'm not careful I can find myself, yes me, starting to become more nervous about life than I was before. So when people tell me how "crazy it is out there" and ask "didn't you see such and such on TV last night?" right away I think to myself "that's their problem, they spend all their time preoccupied with such things well it's no wonder they think it's so "crazy out there." Me, I read about people like HH Holmes and how this was something that occurred back in the 1890s and I say "there's ALWAYS been crime, this is nothing new." Read about it all you want, but don't let it color your perception of reality, and if you're going to own and use a gun that is fine, but BE SAFE about it, be just as vigilant about learning about safety as you are about learning about various calibers and such. This guy failed, massively.
I've actually read a number of such things happening, and then it occurred to me--especially in recent years, I have noticed that rural people (not sure if this was "rural" or not) seem to be really paranoid and "trigger happy" about the prospect of a burglar breaking into their house. They seem to have a really inflated sense of the supposed "high crime rate" of their dinky little town.
I grew up in the rural areas myself, but I spent 10 years in the city before returning to the "sticks" and really noticing this phenomenon. Let me tell you, obviously no place is 100% crime-free, but these people in the sticks acting like their dinky little area is some hot-bed of criminal activity, are you kidding me? Try living in a place where murders appear on page B13 of your newspaper and THEN get back to me about the "crime wave" in your area. They have no clue (and again, I grew up in the sticks and am living there again, so this is not some "city slicker talking down to people in the sticks" as much as it appears, I'm more someone who IS a person in the sticks but who also spent time in the city so I have exposure to both).
I say this because, well, to me, besides just being ignorant in and of itself, to me this mentality is what leads to tragedies such as this, people having a very exaggerated sense of crime in rural areas and being too "trigger happy" as well. If I understand correctly, even the NRA, an organization I like by the way, teaches and stresses gun SAFETY and RESPONSIBILITY, they don't just support the 2nd amendment (by the way I support it too), they also stress responsibility.
Paranoia isn't just irritating, it's also deadly it seems, at least on some occasions. Have these people never heard of yelling out "hello" first or the like? THINK before you pull that trigger, THINK.
I'm from the city but my experience with most very small town people in Wisconsin farmland is the opposite. Most of them do not lock their doors and they will help strangers on the streets.
I suspect some of them can be protective of their homes enough to want firearms legal to buy and store. They may not have cops close by to respond quickly to their call.
Why do dogs instinctively growl and protect a small yard they believe their own as strangers approach?
Humans have a sense that the world can be dangerous just like the dog does.
What I am saying is that I have noticed many people, not all but many, who live in rural areas when I hear them talk they are constantly talking about burglaries and how "last night I heard a noise, man I tell you the world isn't safe anymore, crazies everywhere, just let them try and hurt me man I got this 12 gauge with buckshot and this 357 magnum with hollow points, and just yesterday I saw a 44 magnum {or a 40 S&W} and man I'd love to have one of those, just let someone try and hurt me they don't stand a chance."
I mean they talk about it ALL the time, and I think that when you do that CERTAIN PEOPLE really take it too far in their mind and it causes them to do reckless things that lead to what you read about here. That's my point.
In my past, I have known a lot of men who sound like that. We moved rural 11 years ago, and since moving here, I have not met a single person sounding like that.
The men I have known in my past who sounded like that, were urbanites.
Today I live in a small town of 235 people. We have one store-front business in our town, one. It is a gunsmith's shop. A group of guys meet up at the gunsmith shop every week for coffee. My Dw calls it 'Floyds Barbershop". We discuss politics, ballistics, trapping, re-loading, religion, ATF sting operations, etc. I know a few trappers who are a little paranoid of the game wardens But I do not know anyone here who is paranoid of crime.
Every family in this town has someone who hunts.
I have not heard anyone talk like your describing for years. Not since before I moved here.
I am not aware of anyone in our town who is paranoid of crime or burglaries or 'crazies'.
Tis area used to be so safe, people would not lock their doors. But, drugs have become a real problem here & everyone is on edge.
That is what is happening here in rural America.
I don't believe that. I think there have always been troubles of one sort or the other for years. Remember moonshiners? This is nothing new. There's still no reason to be so paranoid. Cautious within reason yes, paranoid no.
The one person said that the skittish ones were ones who were previously city persons. That surprises me, but on second thought it makes sense a little. When I lived in the city it was in Tucson Arizona, and I quickly adopted their differences in terms of it being a desert vs the East Coast in terms of the presence of cacti vs trees and the lower degrees of rain, but many transplants I observed seemed stuck in their thinking, they forever complained about the "lack of greenery" and how "it doesn't rain enough around here." Neither surprised or disappointed me at all, I was well aware of those differences going in. I didn't expect a desert to be like the south US.
So I guess certain people who move from the city to the country can't get over their negative city experiences and they believe they're still in a crime infested area vs being able to relax. Not me.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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In 60 yrs of rural living (5 States + international), I have not found country folks over-reacting to crime. It is tragic to have to deal with it, but we have had our share (including our babysitter and dear neighbor being killed on her way home from our house by running onto a mass killer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather
We have had few thefts, mostly from transient employees, we had to go to the pawn shop and buy our tools back. Lately Meth heads will come and steal my yard art / antique implements, grumps me cuz it was brought 2000+ miles from my Grandfather's farm.
There are a lot of crazies out there, but probably more likely to find them in town than in the boonies.
Neighbors can be a lethal mix and you better be REAL careful in choosing your neighborhood, and keeping on good terms with neighbors, and even buying the neighbor places when they choose to sell. (done that several times). Easier to choose renters than neighbors. We have had several friends who had to sell rural places due to neighbors from h_xx. Usually escalated to firearms and threats.
Rural fire depts and crazy 'loyal' volunteers / staff / chiefs are my continual and actual threat. They can go over the top, and sadly, many arsons are committed by fire service personnel. Don't publicly challenge their bond measures and flakey decisions. I was threatened to be 'burned-out' due to a post I made on C-D. Followed by several mystery phone calls at all hours of the night.
In the rural area where I was raised, people are so non-paranoid, they rarely even lock doors.
Same here where we live. There's been one break-in in the eight years we've live here and the home owner scared them out of the place and, yes, he was armed. But so are most of us. This is huge hunting country. I'm a former cop and can legally carry concealed but rarely do. I might in some cities but that's about it. I'm not paranoid in the slightest, just carefully aware of my surroundings. Old habits are hard to break.
The other day, they moved my gun safe into its vault room. While my guns were locked up in secondary storage, away from display, I was wondering how the movers might see all the ammo. If one forms their opinions from what the current news tells them, there were thousands of rounds about, say 10-20K (start with about 4K of .308 and go from there).
But then I recalled, this is Texas and someone with just 20K rounds is just an amateur. Where buying a case of ammo is normal. In Texas, our definition of "standard" is probably bigger than in other states.
Different places, different ways of viewing things. Just like tonight where in town, it is decent weather and street clothes will do. Out at the ranch, however, when I stepped out to the truck, I felt that cold and pulled my field jacket from the truck and put it on.
Stepping out the door from the apartments in the city, one can feel a world around them. Stepping outside in the country and one feels very much alone.
A terrible unfortunate accent does not reflect average rural gun owners. Rural areas may generally be safer but police response time is way slower than in the city unless the person is right outside the police station. Almost all farmers own guns anyway to shoot snakes or weasels that pose a threat to their livestock or to go hunting.
One thing I've noticed is that rural folks tend to overhype crime in the city, but then city folks when they go to rural remote areas, many of them are creeped out. They think there's a psycho killer out to get them just cuz its dark and there's no buildings around except farm houses or churches haha.
Lived most of my life in various sections of Baltimore and never locked my doors. Now live in north Texas, still don't lock my doors. Once I had a rock thrown through my window in Baltimore, cops didn't even take a report. But no, never been a victim of burglary, robbery and don't intend to start locking my doors now. But I have had friends who have the paranoia that they must be armed at all times. Moved to the hills of West Virginia, every room has a loaded gun. I'm afraid to visit because I might get shot. Some would say I'm naïve for never thinking it could happen to me. I know it "could" happen to me, I just don't feel inclined to worry about it. I'm more concerned with getting shot in a road rage incident than someone coming into my home.
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I was threatened to be 'burned-out' due to a post I made on C-D. Followed by several mystery phone calls at all hours of the night.
