I have what might be a hot take for an internet self-defense argument: The world isn't as dangerous as some people think it is.
THIS.
I am an American, I do own a guns, I do carry, but I'm also aware that that the majority of unarmed people on the planet go about their lives without ever being at risk so I tend not to sweat the details. Being prepared is great but modern self defense culture has developed a kind of fearfulness that can't be healthy to live with.
I got tired of this back when I was initially getting into guns - this certainty that every stranger is out to rob, shank, or double-tap you if you so much as
flinch. Sure
anything can happen, but the likelihood of the specific scenarios that eat up so much mental bandwidth are
quite low. And for everyone that carries a
piece, spare mag, backup
piece how many carry a far more likely to be needed first aid kit?
As one bit of advice put it,
carry to live, don't live to carry with the unspoken corollary that life itself needs to be lived with carry under normal circumstances a secondary concern.
I've seen people online say "don't go to that town, you'll be murdered for your shoes in broad daylight" meanwhile I live there and the worst event within living memory was a cat getting stuck in a tree.
Used to live in a rougher part of town. Not like drive-by's and gang wars, but obvious drug dealers and other shady characters living in the same apartment complex. And of the ~dozen-and-a-half immediate neighbors I had in my 5 years there all but three were forcefully evicted. Worked second shift and thought nothing of walking the neighborhood for hours at a time between midnight and 4 AM - main hazard was occasionally being propositioned by said drug dealers ... and being "hunted" by coyotes along the waterway.
Most exciting thing that happened? Some low IQ cretin blasted out of his mind
(on something that surely permanently deducted a full point just for that hit) broke into the neighboring unit. I watched it happen through the peephole in my door - dude was bellowing to an imaginary cellphone in his hand as he tried to kick the door down, falling over almost every time - nearly taking a tumble down the stairs immediately behind him every fourth kick. I called the cops immediately and stood by my front door baseball bat in hand, intending to sever his skull from his abdomen should he decide to try to kick down
my door. He eventually broke in and started trashing the place, still bellowing into his imaginary phone. Once that was done he started throwing things off the balcony. At about that time the cops arrived and gave him about 500 milliseconds to surrender before closing in and administering a drubbing which ...
may ... have resulted in a tumble down the stairs in the end.
Related, the SO is adamant that I never take the train to work because of decades of FUD about public transit. I'm 6'4", far from skinny, and get a lot less lip from randos than the average person. Meanwhile co-worker whose build is decidedly
slight and is clearly not a native of the area rides the train daily without issue.
Yes you WILL get shot or stabbed, or beat up in some areas, almost guaranteed.
Sure. But those areas aren't
the entire world. Every city has a some very bad neighborhoods - the ones that literally
make their violent crime statistics.
