Looking into a gun muzzle in a criminal's hand will get one's attention. So will getting mugged by superior numbers. So will the cold chills and shakes after having backed off a developing bad situation involving multiple possible assailants. Their internal predator had sensed that something was wrong with their victim selection process. And it was; I was armed and absolutely certain I going to use that gun, in my hand in my coat pocket.

The culture that is fermenting up from the bottom is not stopping stop at the walls of a gated community. It's festering in every socio-economic strata. It's true there are reasons it is driven from the betrayed masses, who are far worse off morally and educationally than before the GREAT SOCIETY sold them out to be political tools.

However, it is also true that the criminal anti-hero thug mojo kewl kulture is readily adopted thru out the bell curve, because outlaw life is glamourized in word, song and screen. And has been for a century and a half, as an off shoot of the 19th Century Romantic Period. In the late 19th and early 20th it picked up steam, and aided by electronics, is galloping into control of young minds as effectively as the Mongols thundered into the West.

We have met the barbarians, and they is us, bro. Created by us, fostered by us, and funded by us. And the byproduct pollutes every level of society. The political rejection of the need for immediate accessible self defense, is nothing more than fear and denial of the consequences of failed social engineering: a integral flaw in reasoning. The very intellects that have made it so, now must needs find blames to shift from their tender and rarefied hides. And so follow the sheep; rich or poor.

Buddy, safety don't exist by geographic or social insulation. One part of society cannot be a festering plague, while the other part parties whilst being 'concerned.' There is spill-over. Mo' bettuh this country stands up to the situation and states it's "I Will Not BE A Victim" dictum. Very unpalatable, no? ;~`)

And sure political suicide to mos' publically declare that the version of the welfare state chosen was flawed from the start. It's not only a an urban failure: it's a rural failure as well. There ain't no halcyon refuge, and in fact, there never was.

I was raised in a town of 700 people surrounded by relatives on their farms in NW Ohio. Yet, I didn't know of single family that didn't own guns, and were familiar with them -- in town or out. There simply has been a terrible change in our CIVITAS that is not remediable at the polls.

It is time for responsible individuals to realize that their personal and family and community safety is up to them in the first person. And that said safety requires tools and training and a mindset.

Don't let me stand in anyone's way, but I'm no too worried about being trampled in the rush, neither. ;~`) I mostly refrain from posting on this subject, because it is a waste of life minutes, and convinces no one. The 'Net is great place to pedal opinions, and it's free, and one may gauge the value of the exercise from that.

Anyone who actually should want go so far as informing ones self might look up Masaad Ayoob's websites, order books or tapes, and pay for an education in how to defend that which is of value to ones self.

In the end, I can do little better than to endorse Jack Maloney's prescription. A J-frame Smith, in hammerless or otherwise, with a Barami hip grip is the quintessential "have it with you" emergency response tool.

Well, adios.

Relax; we're all experts here.