&quot;I just can&#x27;t imagine living in fear of some concealed-carry-permit holding goon deciding to shoot the place up.&quot;<p>You don&#x27;t need a concealed-carry permit to carry a concealed gun; you just need one to do it LEGALLY.  I would venture to guess that a person who carries concealed with the intent of committing murder will not have bothered to get a permit.<p>My reasoning for keeping a killing machine (it lies around either in a safe or on my person at all times) is because crime happens, and criminals are willing to do things like use force and&#x2F;or weapons.  Police can&#x27;t be everywhere, and while their response time here is pretty good, it&#x27;s generally more than enough time for the criminals to do what they want and escape.  I&#x27;d be happy to go back in time and un-invent guns, but as it stands, I don&#x27;t see any way to remove all of them from all criminals&#x27; hands.  So it seems to me the only viable preventive measure is for citizens to defend themselves with the same tools the criminals illegally use to commit their crimes.