Back when I lived across the street from a low income housing apartment, crime was a constant issue. I can think of at least two times that someone had their door kicked in and was home invaded. Usually it was several times a week the police would be on our street doing something. Over all crime is not that bad here but it just grows out of some places, such as the low income housing. While there were some good people in there, there were some bad ones as well who made everything worse for everyone around them.
I always would keep a loaded firearm within reach there, just in case I would hear the door getting kicked in. I also would answer the door armed if I didn't know who I was seeing out there or if I couldn't see someone. When leeches and parasites would come to the door wanting something, I made sure they would see that I had a pistol in my other hand before they were gone.
This would happen a few times with each new worthless person who moved in to the street. They would literally go from door to door asking for shit. Do you have any smokes, can I come in and use the phone, do you have a lighter, can I borrow 20 dollars, can you drive me to the store, can you do this or that or some other shit. I would watch them go from house to house pulling this shit.
They want to get in your house, see what you have and how they can rob you. These fuckers did nothing all day but sit outside and wait for someone to leave a car door unlocked while they sat there trying to figure out what they could steal. They pulled my garden plants up and stole them one night. My car got broken into 2 times, once on Christmas morning. If you have anything outside it will be stolen. You couldn't own anything there because some worthless fucker would be mad that you have something and then try to damage it. My car had been hit and run a few times. We've our cars totaled while they were parked because some drunk fucker would zoom out of the parking from the apartments and plow into our cars. Had a fence ran through, one of the neighbors had their porch smashed through with a car.
I grew up in that neighborhood. It was pretty decent until they built the low income housing. Worthless fucks started moving in and then we had crime. Good people moved out of neighborhood, the houses got bought and turned into rental property, for more low income because no else would live there. The whole area is almost all rental property. A few people still live there. My neighbor next door had his vehicle and garage set fire too by one of the local kids.
There were very few of the crimes that I know of in the area that involved firearms. The home invasions that I know about, the attackers did not have any guns. The old people they attacked did not either.
I got to know one of the local police officers who was constantly on our street. I knew her boyfriend at the time and we would all go out and do things. I bought a new large firearm one day and had her drive me home. So the criminals across the street see the cop they know pull up and then I get out of the car packing a large firearm and head off into my house. I don't think anyone from across the street ever even spoke to me again after that.
I quite believe that being armed and making sure the locals knew I was armed became a large part of why I mostly got left alone while living there.
Most crooks are just cowards and they want things to be easy. Because they are also lazy, just by making things less than easy you can save yourself a lot of headache. Now sure you get the crazy desperate drug people, but really they are hard to account for. There is just no telling what they will do when they become desperate enough but still by making things difficult for them you stand a better chance of them finding a different victim.
I believe that citizens should be taught firearm safety and at very least basic working knowledge about firearms. I really think it should be something taught in high schools as an elective for those who would like to learn. You can safely have classes with training arms that are not capable of firing and fake ammunition. You could teach handling safety, use, and all sorts of things. The classes could even go to a local gun range and get to do some supervised live fire exercises. Instill some respect for firearms in young people so its not all call of duty, and action movie they learn from.
Back when I was in school we still had those back glass gun racks in trucks. Lots of the high school students were hunters. They would have been out hunting before school and you would see rifles in trucks in the school parking. In the county high school, you were expected to take your rifle in and leave it with the office until after school, mind you they had to be unloaded. They would put a little tag on it with your name and keep it the principals office. Times have changed quiet a bit though and not at all for the better.
is lame I agree]
