Even The Odds

I don’t gamble for money. I have my addictions, (ask me how I feel about hot fudge sundaes), but gambling isn’t one of them. Work requires me to go to Vegas every year, and so every year, I get to see people gambling untold sums of cash inside of some of the swankiest casinos in the world. I just chose not to play.

The problem is, when it comes to defending my life and the lives of those around me, that choice isn’t mine. Sure, I can reduce to odds by keeping myself away from places and people where bad things might happen, but those odds are never zero. As one of my trainers says, someone else gets to set the time and place where I might need my defensive pistol, and they’re not going to tell me in advance when that will be.

This is why I carry a gun everywhere I can, not just in places where I think I might need it. In fact, I actively avoid places where carrying a defensive pistol is a necessary thing. Cops need to go to those places, not me. I carry a gun because dangerous incidents happen in the darndest places, with no warning, and the odds in that sort of game are literally mortal.

Having an 81.9% chance of winning seems like good odds when it’s your life that’s at stake. You can shift the odds in your favor if you have a firearm on you when you need one. Anything else, and you’ve put your life in the hands of Lady Luck.

Not a place where I want to be.