to their home.
I had a co-worker who while driving to work on the graveyard shift managed to piss off another driver. The man closely followed my co-worker down a lonely country road for a few miles and they finally ended up at a long red light.
My co-worker found himself trapped in traffic with cars in front and beside him and a deep ditch on the passenger's side of his car. The angry driver got out of his car and approached my friend's car with a tire iron in his hand. He was obliviously enraged and possibly drunk. My co-worker was in his mid fifties and hardly fit enough to stop an attack from a much younger individual let alone one armed with a tire iron. He also had no experience in the martial arts.
Realizing that he was in serious danger, my co-worker who had a concealed carry permit, drew his 9mm pistol and placed his hand holding his pistol on his steering wheel in plain view. The angry individual saw it and returned to his car. Everything ended peacefully, although my co-worker was obviously shaken up by the incident when he finally arrived at work.
He did say that if he hadn't been blocked in by traffic, he would have just drove off through the red light if possible. He also felt it was very fortunate that the road raged individual had noticed his firearm. He had absolutely no desire to shoot another person but if the man would have smashed in his window with the tire iron and attempted to attack him, he would have.
Bump and rob tactics were becoming more and more common in the area where we lived at and frequently occurred late at night. I always carried my legally concealed firearm with me as I went to and from work but if I would have been bumped by the car following me, I would have attempted to drive to an area where people were present before I pulled over. Like my co-worker, I have absolutely no desire to shoot another person unless I have absolutely no other choice.
Currently in Florida if you have a concealed weapons permit you can drive to and from work and leave your weapon in your locked vehicle in most workplaces with a few exceptions (such as schools). So far I can't remember one incident where a person with a carry permit got angry at work and used it to shot someone he worked with since the law passed.
Had my co-worker been unarmed because he could not legally have a firearm in his car in his employer's parking lot, our employer might well have lost the services of a well trained technician for a period of time or permanently. Since it took at least one year of training to become truly efficient at the job we were working on, this would have proved costly to the company either in overtime or finding another individual capable of doing the job and training him or another person if the first replacement didn't work out.
Of course when and if an incident ever happens where a person with a carry permit walks out to his vehicle, grabs his firearm and shoots up his workplace -- you can bet that it will make national headlines. If 1000 or more people driving to and from work while carrying their legal weapons use their handgun to stop a a violent attack, the most attention that will result will be a short article in a local newspaper but realistically unless someone ends up shot or dead it will never be reported.
In Florida "shall issue" concealed carry has been the law since 1987. Currently over 800,000 Floridians have Concealed Weapons Permits and if only 10% of the number carried on a regular basis, 80,000 Floridians are "packing heat" almost everywhere they go (with the exception of places like schools). The "Stand Your Ground" law passed in 2005 and the "Take Your Gun to Work Law" passed in 2008.
While it can possibly be argued that abuses of such laws have occurred, they are very few in number. In reality far more lives have been saved because of these laws than lost. However I am willing to admit that every time a firearm is misused by a person to shoot or injure another individual it is a tragedy. Is it better that one such tragedy is prevented or that 100 or 1000 times a firearm is used legitimately to stop an attack by an individual who intends to put a victim in a hospital for an extended time or six feet under? Tough choice. I tend to favor 100 or 1000 successful uses of legitimate self defense over one screw up but many do not.
Nobody who supports these laws claims that all those Floridians who have Concealed Weapons Permits or use firearms for self defense in their homes are celestial angels who are absolutely pure and never screw up and cause a tragic incident. Still the fact remains that those who have met the requirements to get a Florida carry permit are extremely responsible citizens who very rarely misuse their license to commit a crime that involves using a firearm. Only 168 Concealed Weapons Permits have been revoked in the 24+ years since "shall issue" concealed carry passed in October of 1987 for a crime involving the use of a firearm after the license was issued. (source: http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.pdf) Other states that have passed "shall issue" concealed carry show very similar results. (Not all of those rejected licenses involve a shooting.) Many people who do not have a license to carry have been able to protect themselves or their families from attackers invading their homes. Would it be better if they were listed as statistics of injuries or deaths of violent crime? Obviously this would help those who wish to ban the ownership of all firearms but since we live in a nation with over 300,000,000 firearms disarming honest people would not disarm criminals even if every honest citizen turned in their firearms. Firearm confiscation works well in nations with few firearms. In our nation it would be a total failure as if every honest citizen turned in their firearms criminals would not as they by definition do not obey laws. Of course the simple reality is that a high percentage of those who currently own firearms would refuse to turn them in and any attempt to confiscate those firearms would, even if successful, lead to far more violence and bloodshed then we currently have.
But the news media absolutely hates the concept of allowing citizens with a background check and training to carry a concealed handgun. They also dislike allowing an honest citizen with a carry permit to have a firearm locked in his vehicle while parked in his employers parking lot. The media is more than willing to call the "Stand your Ground" laws a license to kill and are happy to promote the view that such laws encourage vigilantism despite the fact that such a view is totally false.
Perhaps we should require a background check and training to get a license to be a reporter or to write an editorial. If the reporter or writer misused his right to report and unfairly reported the facts, he should lose his license. After all the pen is far more powerful than the gun.
If you look at recent history, many reporters have failed to live up to the basic standards that should be required of journalists and this does not only apply to the articles published on the issue of the right to keep and bear arms. I personally feel that the freedom of speech and the rights of the press are FAR more important than the right to keep and bear arms. That is why the First Amendment precedes the Second. If those who own firearms have great responsibility then the press has as much or more to report fairly.
Of course, I really do not believe that those who work for the media should be required to have a license but I do believe that it is wise to require anyone who carries a weapon in public to have one. Still the media should be fair in reporting or writing editorials as they are the guardians of our freedom. If they fail to do their job they also fail the vision of the founding fathers. Those who work in the news media should do their best to not have an agenda but to report both sides of an issue fairly and honestly.
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