Wow, you must be so terrified every time you go out of your houses. Either that, or you completely lack any situational awareness in your daily lives.
Wow, the UK education system really fails in teaching you twits how to read or comprehend the written word. Also a major fail in teaching logic.
Most times and places there is no reason to be terrified, but once in a while there may be the unexpected. I've seen too many altercations where if one party is outnumbered, and knocked to the ground, the head kicking and stomping starts. Yet there is no move to outlaw Doc Martins or other heavy boots/footwear.
In my younger years I studied some of the martial arts, and also did fencing. While I might rather carry a rapier or katana, such open carry usually isn't lawful, and they don't have the reach of a pistol if there is a distant threat.
Your snark about my skills at situational awareness show you don't know or understand that concept. More on that in a moment.
While about 99.999% of the time most of us have peaceful lives, there can occur a threatening situation and usually it is sudden and unexpected. Like when your vehicle gets a flat tire or someone pulls their vehicle suddenly in front of you and their is no way to avoid a collision. Both the sort of situations that I've experienced a few times in my 70+ years on this planet.
And it's that 70+ years that means I no longer have the speed, dexterity, agility, or strength of my 20-30s to engage in kungfu with some punk, let alone 2 or 3 or more. And about nine times out of ten, just displaying that you are armed is enough to have potential threats back off and retreat.
So once again I need to relate what is a classic example for consideration.
It was about ten years ago and my oldest son was living in South Tacoma area while finishing college on his GI Bill (he is a combat vet, served in Baghdad, Iraq a few years earlier). That evening, he, his wife, and their almost one year old daughter were heading home and pulled into a 7-11 store to get her a pack of cigs. As he came out of the store heading to get into his vehicle, there was a pimp-mobile parked beside his, on the driver's side, and the "dis-advantaged black youth" in the passenger seat opened his door, blocking my son's path.
So maybe this guy is anxious to get out of the vehicle, but he remains sitting and starts some useless banter with my son, which gradually edges towards potential hostile dialogue. My son is trying to politely respond and hint that he'd like to get into his vehicle. Meanwhile the few clusters of other "dis-advantaged black youths" that have been hanging about in the parking lot start moving closer to this "event".
What the youths in the pimp-mobile didn't know was my son was fingering the pepper-spray in his jacket pocket with left hand, while his right hand was a second away from drawing his pistol. After a minute or so of this delaying chatter, his wife, noticing the potential course events are heading towards and seeing the mob moving in behind my son, her husband, and sitting in the passenger seat of their Escalade, draws her pistol from her purse, holds it up in front of her in a ready to use (and see ~ display) position, and shouts out through the open driver side window, something to the effect:
"Shut the fuck up and let him get into our car!"
Suddenly the door holder becomes much more civil, and pulls his door closed. The crowds start moving back away from the potential "show". My son is able to get into his vehicle and leave. Nothing here to make a substance of police report and hence just one of several such similar situations likely to happen across the USA, daily, but not reported or recorded.
Now tell us how such a similar situation would play out over there in the UK, where you aren't allowed to be armed, if you were in my son's place. I'm sure you can spin some unrealistic fictional and distorted version where mighty 'you' beat off the crowd and get away.
Footnote here; per Ancestry.com my son is one quarter Nigerian. However, what "off white" coloring he has, plus other features, tend to make him look slightly Hispanic.
www.hsph.harvard.edu
