It's not paranoia - I can only speak for myself, but I was raised with the "sheepdog" mentality. My Grandfather was a cop, and from early on, I was taught that if you have the ability to protect others, it is your responsibility to train yourself to be able to protect others. He taught that to my Dad, and they both taught it to me.
It was many years before I felt that I was mature enough to protect others by carrying a gun, but eventually, that early teaching grew with me, and I stepped into the resposibility that was mine.
It is different in different places throughout the world, but I was taught that part of the justice system in the U.S. is that private citizens, who are able, are responsible for doing what they can to protect other citizens. It is difficult in third-party cases, where you don't know either party, but we are supposed to be connected with our friends, neighbors, and families, so that we are able to protect each other. That is why it is more likely to find non-paranoid people carrying guns in stable, peaceful, suburban areas where there are such things as block parties, neighborhood watch groups, and neighborhoods that actually become communities.
It's not that I strap on a gun when I go to church, because I expect something to happen there. I take a gun everywhere I am legally allowed to (which is a lot). That's not expecting to ever be involved in a shootout in the streets, but that is part of my responsibility as a U.S. citizen.
We have fire alarms in our house, that's not considered paranoia -- we have airbags and seatbelts in our cars -- we have nearly-useless security in our airports -- I have a car that automatically locks the doors for me when I start driving -- I have health insurance, home insurance, car insurance -- dead-bolt locks -- a fire hydrant right in front of my house, I don't set out to utilize any of this stuff, but I'm glad it's there. Nearly all of it in an inconvenience of some sort, but none of that smacks of paranoia?
Even on this board we have hundreds of people who have devoted thousands of hours to studying some sort of self-defense. I have put in my hours, too. But I know that all of that training only gives me a snowball's chance in hell against an armed opponent. Odds are extremely high that any attacker I face will be armed with a knife. It's part of the culture where I live. I don't want to face him empty handed, or with another knife, I want to face him with my pistol, pulled from surprise out of hiding, and take his knife away. I have a knife in my possession that came from my Grandfather who took it from a mugger in exactly that way. My Father was robbed by a man with a gun at his house (fortunately the guy dropped it in the dark) when I was an infant (suburbia, BTW). Why is the time considered for training with a pistol (which is just plain fun, anyway) or the time it takes to drop my pistol into my pocket holster (taking less time than finding my car keys, or making sure I have my wallet) considered paranoid?
Is it simply because guns are scary, so only scary people must have them?
Tez, I'm sorry for all of the continued mis-understanding about England's "Disarmament". For those who haven't read Tez's dozen other threads trying to edumucate us Yanks, Shotguns are very common in England, in people's homes. And, as most of us know, it's hard to beat a shotgun for home defense. Just because pistols are highly regulated doesn't mean that all firearms are taboo.
