[NowOrNever]

I recommend that, but especially in free Vermont just have firearms under your bed or by your side. Carry them concealed when your in public. THERE YAH GO = PROBLEM SOLVED!

[arel]

Sounds like a good idea if you live in a place where an alarm would not be ignored or resented and where people were close by enough to hear it.

I now live in such a place. But I have no car alarm.

Thankfully, where I now live is pretty safe. People often leave their doors unlocked. But I'm from Brooklyn and I don't do that.

When I was a child we did leave doors unlocked on my block in Brooklyn. Now everything is double locked and alarmed. In many areas windows, and even porches, are security grated.

Whatever, I don't live in Brooklyn anymore.

[FordForest]

Obviously this won't work in some situations but it will in many and not just when you are home either, always have your keys handy if there is a possibility that your car alarm can summon help for any reason.

I teach personal safety and have taught the idea of using a car alarm for many years. One of my students once sent me an email more than a year after she attended one of my seminars at UNH. In the message she related how she foiled a thief at a bank ATM machine, late at night in a suburb of Boston. When the thief approached her and demanded the cash that she had just placed in her purse, she remembered my instruction, reached into her purse and pressed the alarm button on her key fob. Her car was less than 50 feet away and immediately came to life with a wailing siren, honking horn and flashing head lights. Other people on the street were alerted and she yelled for help. A group of three young men came running to help her. The thief was run down and tackled and subsequently arrested. She went on to thank me for the advice. Messages like that one are the main reason that I continue to work long after retirement.

BTW, I teach people to yell "HELP ME! FIRE!" as it is much more likely for people to come to your aid rather than ignore your pleas or run away as many people will do if they think that they will be accosted.

I realize that Vermont is possibly the only state left where you can carry a concealed, unregistered firearm. Anyone who thinks that that is the answer is not familiar with the fact that most people who get shot, get shot with their own weapon. Whether they shoot themselves, a loved one shoots them either intentionally or by accident or someone takes the weapon from them during a struggle and shoots them.

I don't care how much training you have, this happens to plenty of police officers as well. The facts show that if you own a firearm, you are much more likely to be shot than if you don't own a firearm. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Guns are not the answer to personal safety, education is. Take that from a retired military and police trainer and public safety expert.