Why did you get your CHL?

[steve817]

I had talked about since the day the legislation had passed. I even discussed it with my wife and had her full support. But as time went by I always felt like I didn't have the time or money to spare. Besides I always had a gun in the house and that was all I needed right?

Despite the fact that a good friend of ours was assaulted and robbed right in front of her kids in a Sam's parking lot, and despite the fact that a couple of houses in our neighborhood had been broken into, I had one in the house and that was all I needed. Even after the MPA passed I still didn't carry one in my car because I didn't have a full understanding of the law and figured it wasn't worth the potential trouble. That came from a previous arrest for UCW.

Then it happened. One night, my wife, daughter, and myself were pulling into our garage in our van. I was horsing around with the kid as my wife exited the vehicle, when out of the corner of my eye I saw my wife raise her hand and yell Stop! A guy was walking up our driveway and about to enter the garage. She reached up and hit the button to shut the garage door. Still I was clueless as to what was going on. She told me and I bolted through the house and grabbed my pistol. It turned out to be some goof supposedly trying to sell newspapers (it was after dark). It was after everything was all over I looked at my wife and said "I know it turned out to be nothing this time, but if he had been up to something he would have had us. I'm getting my CHL".

As Samuel L Jackson said in pulp fiction "I had what alcoholics often refer to as a moment of clarity". I booked a class online and found this site a short time later. I know some of you probably were among the first in line to take the CHL course but I'm curious about other holdouts like myself. What finally pushed you to that point?

[TheMilkMan]

For me it started with having a defensive gun for my home and generally worrying about my home security. The more I realized the importance of taking safety into your own hands, the more I realized my vulnerability outside my home. That and the fact I have to deal with cash and drunk people where I work.

[SRH78]

I don't actually have mine in hand yet but it is something I have wanted to get for a long time but time and/or money always seemed to be in the way. I finally decided to quit wanting and start getting. Part of the reason I want it is simply because I can but also because I would rather have the means to defend myself and my loved ones and not need it than to need it and not have it.

[alexrex20]

i didn't wait for a near-miss to get my CHL

[yogihat]

I had knee surgery a couple years ago and went quickly downhill 2 days afterward from some nasty blood clots. After not being able to walk for almost a year, I felt that I could no longer react or act with my physical ability and I am only in my early 40's. So as a matter of being able to protect my family I decided to get my CHL. I had thought about it prior to my medical situation but the aftermath pushed me to get it. I will probably never be able to run again but I no longer limp and have more pain free days than not. My sense of surroundings and mental awareness have gone up tremendously. Finding this site was a helpful bonus in itself also. Good luck to you and your family. Practice often and be safe.

[Dave2]

I think calling 911 to report shots fired (heard them coming from a parking lot that I was driving by) is probably what set the gears in motion, but saying that's what caused me to get my CHL is a bit like blaming the wellspring for the waterfall.

[The Annoyed Man]

I had several concurrent motivations. Certainly a concern for my personal safety as well as the safety of my wife and son were among them, although we had not had any specific incidents were a CHL might have made a difference.

The primary motivation was, "because I can." I had moved here from California in April of 2006, staying in a hotel room for a couple of months down in a less savory part of Dallas near where I worked before my family was able to join me after the end of the school year. (My son was winding up his sophomore year of high school, and it just wasn't a good time to move him yet.) Anyway, I had brought a 1911 with me to Texas, and although I didn't carry it, I certainly kept it handy in my hotel room, and occasionally in my car. (IIRC, this was pre-MPA.) But in any case, I had just moved from a state where the firearms laws were increasingly restrictive and the political climate increasingly repressive, and arriving in Texas was like a huge breath of fresh air. In conversations with people I had begun getting to know, it was apparent that CHL, while not widely practiced, was generally well thought of, and I thought to myself, "Why not?"

So in the same way that immigrants to America who become citizens tend to vote in higher numbers and better appreciate their American freedoms than do complacent and apathetic citizens who were born here, I was most appreciative of how accepted the the 2nd Amendment was here in Texas, and I decided to pursue my CHL and carry a gun so that I could fully express my 2nd Amendment rights. Because I can.

The personal safety issues, while important to me, were secondary to that first one. That said, I also arrived here at a time in my life when my physical capacities were beginning to diminish at an increasing rate. I had undergone major back surgery in 2004, just two years before, and now my back was beginning to deteriorate again. Realizing that I was not likely to prevail in the event of a physical confrontation, carrying a gun made sense. And also, after we got here, my wife's parents moved here to be near us (she's an only child), which for very different reasons turned out to have been a blessing to us. But, I was now not only responsible for both my own and my wife and son's safety, but also for the safety a couple of octogenarians.

I took my CHL class in late December of 2007. At that time, applications were taking insane amounts of time to process. My own, which wasn't near as bad as many others, took 74 days, and I received my plastic in March. I've been carrying every day since. My current license expires in October of this year, so I'll be taking my first renewal class this year.

[chasfm11]

Those who are involved with burglar alarms have often claimed that 80% of their customers want to install a system AFTER they've had a burglary. I try to learn from other people's mistakes so I've installed an alarm system on every house that we've owned and, fortunately, never had one go off for cause. I don't regret one penny of the expense or one minute of the time using those systems.

We have an RV and have become increasingly concerned about how vulnerable RVers are becoming.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2 ... holed.html
We always carried a shotgun with us but many of the circumstances that we've run into, including a broad daylight near miss in a truck stop just after I got my CHL, have lead me to carry daily as opposed to simply having the gun with us while we travel.

The most important parts of the board are the links to current gun related events, the opportunity to discuss "what if" about situations with other CHLers and the identification of an enormous quantity of reading and reference material. Of the many books cited, those that help to increase situational awareness have had the greatest impact on me. I've always paid attention to my surroundings, on the highway or while hiking and camping in the woods. Learning how to maximize SA in my daily life gives me a more comfortable feeling that I may be able to recognize and avoid something bad about to happen rather than having to deal with. It is yet another facet on learning from the mistakes or problems of others.

[Liberty]

When I moved from the Commonwealth of Mass to Texas I was forced to give up my right to carry. Although I had a a pistol permit in Massachusetts I never really carried, and my interest at the time was in black powder flintlock repiicas. Guns to me were more about a hobby and interest than about protection and security
After I moved to Galveston we had the Great Rita Evacuation. Millions of people people were mobilized Good guys and bad guys. The traffic jams were of historic proportions, no gas to be found. Desperation was everywhere. I stayed at a hotel in Dayton, that was host to several Katrina refugees. Everywhere on the news and around me were desperate people. I understood just how vulnerable I was, my family was at the mercy of any nut or desperado. Fortunatly Rita was a short term event, There was little damage in my area, and we were only away about 3 days.

My eyes were opened though, I now understood that it is my responsibility to myself and my family to be able to protect them.
I took my class from Tom Estap who took our class step by step through the application process, but more important he explained our rights and responsibilities, and did so very clearly. His enthusiasm for the program and our right to defend ourselves made for a very quick 10 hours.

A few years later Ike struck. We were refugees for 9 months while our home got rebuilt. It was a busy worrisome time in our life. But our personal safety just wasn't as big of a concern this time.

[Weg]

I got my CHL because I was tired of carrying illegally. Seriously.

[texanron]

To have a better chance of protecting my family against the criminal element while we're out and about.

[dac1842]

I am an ex-cop, for me it was just part of my daily routine to put a weapon on. I carried for years after I got out of law enforcement. Seemed like the natural thing to do for me. I have more guns now than I have ever had. It is nice having a choice of what you want to carry and not always saying I wish I had a... I probably have it !
Be safe.

[rcasady]

ive had a firearm im my vehicle since i was 18 , i got a chl just to ease concerns with myself and possible traffic stops , did not not intend to carry at all
matter of fact i remember saying it more than once when i told people i was going to class that "i just wanted it , im not going to carry it"
but the second i left class i was holster shopping . go figure now like most of you i cant stand not having , i carry even when im not doing anything just watching tv

[mikeintexas]

I moved to the DFW area in mid-1995. The small rural Iowa community that I had grown up and lived in for 25 years had only 1 murder in that time. The doors on the house were never locked and the keys were left in the car all the time. I remember Dad being furious when someone removed the keys from the car or the pick up and he needed to go somewhere!

In 1995 in Iowa, you were required to ask the county sheriff for a pistol buyers permit. It cost only a few bucks and took a few days to get in the mail. I then asked the sheriff about a carry permit. He said basically that self protection for myself and my family wasn't a good enough reason to grant me a permit to carry and if I carried large amounts of money, that would be a better reason. I was mad and let it go. Since then, Iowa has changed from may issue to shall issue and has gone from accepting no out of state licenses to accepting all out of state CHL's.

I had a case of severe culture shock when moving from that area to DFW. Moving forward a few more years, the wife and I had a couple of incidents that thrust me into reality that I needed to protect my family and the police are only minutes away when needed.

The first incident involved my wife at home in the morning after I had left for work where someone in a hoodie was knocking/pounding on the front door. When she told me that, I went at lunch time and bought our first pistol, a hammerless S&W .38 Special. I went shortly after and got my CHL. Like TAM said in a previous post, it took 2 1/2 month for processing.

The other was on a DART train heading home from the Texas State Fair with a couple of the grandsons. We were on the train with a couple of drunks acting stupid. When we got in the car, my wife said "I wish you had your gun with you." I said I did.

Since then, my wife had her CHL, my step-daughter and her husband are getting thier CHL's next month. My wife's sister and I are also going next month to get our renewals done.

[speedsix]

...to have excercising my God-given rights accepted by the gooberment...