Just a reminder - Guns kill 31,000 Americans each year

[spin]

84. You are suggesting that a responsible person can predict when he might need his firearm ...

for self defense.

If a responsible person realized that he would need his concealed weapon to go somewhere, he would simply avoid going there.

Would you admit that it is there is a possibility that a person might be merely walking through a parking lot and find himself attacked by an individual who not only wished to steal his money but intended to also severely injure or even kill his victim.

Parking Lot Security
by Gary R. Cook

Security for parking lots seems to be getting a lot of press lately. If you look at the statistics, roughly 80% of the criminal acts at shopping centers, strip malls and business offices occur in the parking lot. Lawyers make a good living off liability cases based on a lack of sufficient security measures or not taking "reasonable care" in the protection of employees and customers against criminal threats. The lawsuits often revolve around lack of sufficient lighting, surveillance and response. Once crime takes a foothold in an area it is difficult to break the trend, but there are some things you can do that can improve security, deter crime, reduce potential liability and make your customers feel safer. It's interesting to note that where parking lot security has been implemented, customer use has actually increased because they feel safer. Increased customer use means increased profit which can be used to justify the increased cost related to any security improvements
http://www.crimewise.com/library/parking.html

On Location: Wal-Mart Parking Lots

Chris Bottoms, one of our cinematographers, and I met Megan Holden’s family in mid-July in Henderson, Texas, a very small town in the western part of the state about four hours east of Dallas.

Megan HoldenWe didn't know what to expect from the Holden family. Megan Holden, a young woman of 19 years, had been kidnapped out of a Wal-Mart parking lot. She was brutally murdered. The killer had been hanging around both inside and outside the store for hours. He later turned up on the grainy tape that the cameras outside pick up. But nobody was monitoring the cameras. At Wal-Mart stores nobody ever monitors the cameras. It would take one low paid worker to do it for every eight hour shift, not much money when you add it up, but the cameras at Wal-Mart stores go unwatched.

***snip***

There were other crime stories that crystallized the "Wal-Mart way" for me. So many cameras to protect merchandise, so much money spent on keeping people from stealing mascara, or a microwave. So little spent on the safety of customers in the notoriously dangerous parking lots of Wal-Mart, too little. During one of our crime story interviews, I asked a man what he would tell his daughter who was going out to shop at a Wal-Mart at night: "Don't go," he said. That sort of sums it up.
http://www.walmartmovie.com/crime.php

PARKING LOT SAFETY FOR WOMEN FAQ

This is what you need to know about parking garage and parking lot safety for women. Lessons from crime victims teach you how to stay safe.

A man pointed a gun at a woman in the parking lot of an Arizona restaurant and ordered her into his vehicle, but she ran into the business and called the police.

A petite woman was getting into her car in a California parking garage when a man came up to her, put a knife to her throat and told her to get in the car. She knew that whatever harm he’d do to her in a parking lot would be worse if she went with him. She pushed the knife away but he put it back. The woman shoved her purse at him and ran for help. The man jumped into her car and sped out of the garage.

Parked cars provide ideal hiding spots for a crouching, stealthy predator to close in on you unless you’re especially aware of parking lot safety. Also beware of cars cruising the lanes; they can suddenly stop and jump out to attack or rob you.


http://www.crime-safety-security.com/Parking-Lot-Safety.html

I will agree with you that:

" Responsible gun owners don't leave firearms lying around where they may be stolen or found by curious kids. Responsible gun owners don't shoot people who pose no immediate threat."

I partially agree with your statement:

Responsible gun owners don't encourage others to carry firearms in public places unless there is overwhelming evidence that it is necessary.

I don't encourage anyone to carry a firearm and in fact do my best to discourage those who ask me about owning a firearm let alone carrying one. Firearms are not for everybody and the decision to own or to carry one involves serious thought and a thorough knowledge of yourself, your weaknesses and the potential of harm to others in your family. I have personally experienced the tragedy that firearms can cause. A person that I trained to safely handle firearms had been abusing alcohol and in a moment of shear stupidity managed to kill herself while handling a firearm. I use her example to point out how dangerous mixing firearms and alcohol can be and why you never handle a firearm while drinking just as you never drive when you have been consuming alcohol and are above the legal limit. Many people that I know were surprised by her death and said that she always appeared to be very safe around firearms.

However I don't discourage those who do decide to legally carry a firearm from carrying their firearm in public places. I often ask a person who has a carry permit if he has an app on his phone that tells him that he definitely should carry his firearm on a given day.

I have never had a person tell me that he has any reliable means of determining just when he might have a legitimate reason to carry his weapon.

At one time I told the range master when he asked me if I always carried my firearm, "I only carry it when I go into bad areas."

He proceeded to chew my ass. He told me, "The state of Florida after running a background check on you and making sure that you had the necessary training to carry a firearm decided to give you a license to carry. Now carry your damn firearm everywhere you go because you never will know when it might save your life or the life of another person. I definitely don't want to pick up the Tampa Tribune and find that you died because you were attacked and later find out that you didn't have your firearm with you. I also don't want see you come in here and listen to you whine about how you might have been able to stop an attack on another innocent person but was unable to because you left your carry gun behind in your safe."

I recognized the wisdom in his tirade. Therefore I carry unless I am going into an area where firearms are prohibited.

Of course you disagree and nothing I say will change your viewpoint. I have no problem with that.