Do you carry at home?

[safety1]

Yes

[mojo84]

Nope. We live in a small rural town in the Pineywoods. Should someone come unannounced to the door after dark, they will be cordially met by me with my Compact 1911 by my side.

I think we'd be long gone from any location that required me to walk around the house/yard with a gun on my person.

I tend to agree as to moving out of a negative situation.

My view on carrying, though, is that I carry not because I am required to do so but rather because I choose to do so. I do not "need" to carry. I need to breathe. I find it prudent to carry. Since I cannot accurately guess when a violent threat may present, I use my firearm as a control to reduce risk to a manageable level for me. I am certain that others, presented with the same information, would decide differently.

We each must decide for ourselves which risks we are willing to manage and which benefits matter most to us. Y'all carry your way and I will carry mine.

If I remember correctly, you purchased your first handgun a couple years ago when you obtained your CHL. What caused such a drastic change from not even owning a handgun to almost always having one openly carried on you? I'm not attacking or critizing you. Just curious what changed.

[puma guy]

Yes

[Lynyrd]

Nope. We live in a small rural town in the Pineywoods. Should someone come unannounced to the door after dark, they will be cordially met by me with my Compact 1911 by my side.

I think we'd be long gone from any location that required me to walk around the house/yard with a gun on my person.

Required is a pretty strong word. I always carry a sidearm on my place outside the house. Snakes, hogs, coyotes, and any other number of varmits are apt to be encountered at any moment. I don't like varmits, especially around the house. And I wouldn't choose to live anywhere that i have to worry about gunshots hitting a neighbors house, or a neighbor seeing me on the porch in the morning in less than acceptable public attire.

I understand people not wanting to be armed in their own home. Different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm not criticizing anyone for carrying in their home, or not carrying in their home. I just wanted to find out how many other like minded people there were out there.

[jed]

Nope. We live in a small rural town in the Pineywoods. Should someone come unannounced to the door after dark, they will be cordially met by me with my Compact 1911 by my side.

I think we'd be long gone from any location that required me to walk around the house/yard with a gun on my person.

Required is a pretty strong word. I always carry a sidearm on my place outside the house. Snakes, hogs, coyotes, and any other number of varmits are apt to be encountered at any moment. I don't like varmits, especially around the house. And I wouldn't choose to live anywhere that i have to worry about gunshots hitting a neighbors house, or a neighbor seeing me on the porch in the morning in less than acceptable public attire.

I understand people not wanting to be armed in their own home. Different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm not criticizing anyone for carrying in their home, or not carrying in their home. I just wanted to find out how many other like minded people there were out there.

[viking1000]

I carry at home, When I am out in my motorized wheel chair I carry. I have a fearless Blue Heeler, she loves to go for walks at 1 AM in the morning.
I live in the Hill Country and we have folks with issues up here.
The have not group. They want what those who worked there butts off for years have.
Its easier to take it, than work for it .
One thing I have learned over the years, a gated community only means they have to get creative to get in. They may even live in the community.
Just being safe...

[The Annoyed Man]

While I'm not Lynyrd and you didn't ask me, I will tell you what I do. At night I have a fairly obnoxious blue heeler with alpha issues with people she doesn't know sleeping beside the bed. Any sound not normal in or outside of our house at night, she goes ape-poop. She will wake me with plenty of time to reach for any one of many firearm options.

That's the kind of thing I was looking for. A good dog which doesn't know how to make nice with strangers is a great addition to a household's night time security features. I have such a dog myself.....a boxer/lab mix, not a blue heeler....but he barks when a flea farts down the block during the day time. I don't imagine that anyone will be able to enter my house at night - either by stealth or by force - without eliciting a noisy and aggressive response from him. And that response is what gives me the time to acquire either a handgun or shotgun next to the bed.

I already mentioned that I don't usually carry at home unless I'm either on the way out the door or have just returned home, but that I always have a loaded pistol close at hand. There's a reason for that, and it has to do with comfort and pain relief. I already carry OWB rather than IWB for comfort/pain reasons. When I get home, I may leave my holster on, but I loosen the belt a notch and set the gun aside.

Others have mentioned small children in the home. We have a precious granddaughter who is getting to that "I must walk everywhere and touch everything" stage. Until recently, I've usually kept more than one loaded pistol on my dresser, just so that I can easily pick the one I'm going to carry before going out. Now, the only one on my dresser is the G17, with a TLRs light mounted, as my primary home defense/carry pistol. If I want to pick another one, I'll have to go to the safe, which is on the far side of the house. My shotgun has been leaned against the wall, in the corner near my side of the bed, chamber empty with a full 8 round magazine. This weekend I'll be putting some kind of mounting system on the wall, high enough to be well out of her reach, and the shotgun will go there.

Honestly, I don't know what I would do if I had no back problems and the attendant discomforts. Would I carry at home all the time? Maybe. Maybe not. I've adapted to this reality, and I don't feel particularly at higher risk. But contrasted against that, I feel absolutely naked when I leave the house without a pistol, even if it is just to go down to the mailbox. So I am willing to admit that my comfort with not carrying inside the home may simply be a psychological adaptation to the realities of my life—otherwise, why would I feel so naked outside the home without a pistol? I can't say that I'm actually conflicted about it, but, it is this dichotomy in my own life that caused me to ask others the question about being disarmed while asleep versus armed while awake, and how they personally reconcile that dichotomy in their own lives. It wasn't a challenge to their reasoning, since I've made a similar calculus in my own life regarding carry inside versus outside the home. The question was motivated more by a curiosity to know if their reasoning process was similar to my own.

That's why I never intended the questions to come off as condescending or intrusive. I am by nature a very introspective person.....not in an antisocial way, but rather in the sense that I spend a lot of time examining my own motives about almost anything, and it is often helpful to me to know how others answer these kinds of questions as a backboard against which to judge my own motives. A LOT of the time, when I ask questions that appear on their surface to be rhetorical during discussions like this one, I am actually engaged in this process of self examination. So apologies to all who were offended by my line of questioning.

[Texas_Blaze]

With kids in the house, my options are on me or in my safe -locked up. I choose on me.

[surferdaddy]

If my eyes are open...it's on me. If my eyes are closed...it's REALLY close.

Surfer

[Oldgringo]

Nope. We live in a small rural town in the Pineywoods. Should someone come unannounced to the door after dark, they will be cordially met by me with my Compact 1911 by my side.

I think we'd be long gone from any location that required me to walk around the house/yard with a gun on my person.

Required is a pretty strong word. I always carry a sidearm on my place outside the house. Snakes, hogs, coyotes, and any other number of varmits are apt to be encountered at any moment. I don't like varmits, especially around the house. And I wouldn't choose to live anywhere that i have to worry about gunshots hitting a neighbors house, or a neighbor seeing me on the porch in the morning in less than acceptable public attire.

I understand people not wanting to be armed in their own home. Different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm not criticizing anyone for carrying in their home, or not carrying in their home. I just wanted to find out how many other like minded people there were out there.

Sorry, I reckon I should have used 'any metropolitan area' instead of 'location' in that above sentence. Quadruped yard varmints don't overly concern me, it's the biped variety that I keep a look out for. Around here, folk pretty much know which folk not to mess with.

[Lynyrd]

While I'm not Lynyrd and you didn't ask me, I will tell you what I do. At night I have a fairly obnoxious blue heeler with alpha issues with people she doesn't know sleeping beside the bed. Any sound not normal in or outside of our house at night, she goes ape-poop. She will wake me with plenty of time to reach for any one of many firearm options.

That's why I never intended the questions to come off as condescending or intrusive. I am by nature a very introspective person.....not in an antisocial way, but rather in the sense that I spend a lot of time examining my own motives about almost anything, and it is often helpful to me to know how others answer these kinds of questions as a backboard against which to judge my own motives. A LOT of the time, when I ask questions that appear on their surface to be rhetorical during discussions like this one, I am actually engaged in this process of self examination. So apologies to all who were offended by my line of questioning.

Sir, you did not offend ME in the slightest!

As for the dog, that luxury it is not an option for me. Not being retired yet, I spend way too much time away from the place to treat a good dog the way I would want them to be treated. When I retire, and slow down some more, I definitely see a couple of dogs on my wish list. Makes sense that my habits will then adapt to that situation.

[Lynyrd]

Nope. We live in a small rural town in the Pineywoods. Should someone come unannounced to the door after dark, they will be cordially met by me with my Compact 1911 by my side.

I think we'd be long gone from any location that required me to walk around the house/yard with a gun on my person.

Required is a pretty strong word. I always carry a sidearm on my place outside the house. Snakes, hogs, coyotes, and any other number of varmits are apt to be encountered at any moment. I don't like varmits, especially around the house. And I wouldn't choose to live anywhere that i have to worry about gunshots hitting a neighbors house, or a neighbor seeing me on the porch in the morning in less than acceptable public attire.

I understand people not wanting to be armed in their own home. Different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm not criticizing anyone for carrying in their home, or not carrying in their home. I just wanted to find out how many other like minded people there were out there.

Sorry, I reckon I should have used 'any metropolitan area' instead of 'location' in that above sentence. Quadruped yard varmints don't overly concern me, it's the biped variety that I keep a look out for. Around here, folk pretty much know which folk not to mess with.

No apology needed. And by the way, my choice of where to live gives me the opportunity to shoot anytime I want to without disturbing anyone, and without leaving my own place. It also provides lots of live targets such as snakes, coyotes, and hogs.

[jed]

While I'm not Lynyrd and you didn't ask me, I will tell you what I do. At night I have a fairly obnoxious blue heeler with alpha issues with people she doesn't know sleeping beside the bed. Any sound not normal in or outside of our house at night, she goes ape-poop. She will wake me with plenty of time to reach for any one of many firearm options.

That's why I never intended the questions to come off as condescending or intrusive. I am by nature a very introspective person.....not in an antisocial way, but rather in the sense that I spend a lot of time examining my own motives about almost anything, and it is often helpful to me to know how others answer these kinds of questions as a backboard against which to judge my own motives. A LOT of the time, when I ask questions that appear on their surface to be rhetorical during discussions like this one, I am actually engaged in this process of self examination. So apologies to all who were offended by my line of questioning.

Sir, you did not offend ME in the slightest!

As for the dog, that luxury it is not an option for me. Not being retired yet, I spend way too much time away from the place to treat a good dog the way I would want them to be treated. When I retire, and slow down some more, I definitely see a couple of dogs on my wish list. Makes sense that my habits will then adapt to that situation.

i have a large yard the dog stays in during the day. She's only in the house when we are there. We are home every night so being gone days at a time does not happen. I can understand not having a dog if one has to travel with work.

[Nuts]

If I have my pants on I'm armed. Pants on=belt on=gun on

[bcooper]

I usually put under the pillow when I get home. My sons loves to crawl around on me, so having on me will get in the way of us playing. I have guns around the house if something pops off. Good luck to the person if he tries, because for as soft hearted as my Lab is, he doesn't not like strangers and isn't afraid to express it in a very open manner.... must be like his daddy!