wow; open carry while looking at a cell phone in public? that is a special kind of stupid. this is another reason i generally loathe open carry. not saying it should be banned; just saying it’s generally a very poor choice.

Keep your head on a swivel and help your body avoid the funeral home.

Several years ago I was waiting for my spouse in my car in a grocery store’s fire lane when a man targeted me for armed robbery. Fortunately, I registered him before he even exited his car and my response to his approach on foot convinced him that he had made a serious error in his helpless victim selection process.

Just a few weeks ago, I encountered a potentially dangerous situation at a grocery store parking lot. I noticed a young and fairly attractive woman crouching next to the front passenger tire of a car. She appeared to be in distress–crying and exhibiting very limp muscle movements. A young man was engaging her and, after about a minute, somewhat dragged her to the front passenger door and then proceeded to shove her into the front passenger seat where she “sat” sideways in a semi-fetal position. I confronted the man at that point, concerned that this was a kidnapping or human trafficking and the woman was drugged. Escalating the tension, while I am challenging the man’s portrayal of the situation, the woman cries out, “help.” Fortunately, a fire truck was already onsite for some other reason, other people had noticed and directed the fire truck to my location, and the firetruck came over to investigate as well. Seeing how sketchy the situation was, the firemen summoned an ambulance (suspecting that the woman had a significant medical emergency or was drugged) as well as the County Sheriff. I left the scene after deputies had the situation under control and was happy to learn later that it turned out to be a very sad domestic situation without any abuse, violence, or criminal component. Needless to say, it could have easily been a criminal situation instead.

Both of these events happened in the very nice parking lots of very nice grocery stores in very nice locations. Stay frosty even in “very nice” locations.

There is even a slight chance that a loaded shopping cart could function as cover and reduce/eliminate the lethality of an attacker’s handgun bullet.

100% correct… the bad guy is actually the one that determines who, what, when, where, why, and how. There are things you can do to somewhat a little ‘lessen’ the odds of being a victim but you can never really be sure you are not being targeted and even if you can somewhat a little ‘lessen’ the odds of being a victim you really don’t get to decide those odds because the bad guy is the one that determines who, what, when, where, why, and how – and not you. All you can do is be prepared to deal with it if it happens.

At a minimum, in today’s world, for every six hours a person spends in public spaces they are targeted as the potential victim of a violent crime at least 4 times – and the potential victim doesn’t even know they were targeted as a potential victim. If that violent crime happens or not is 100% decided by the bad guy. Its even worse in large cities, especially cities with ‘blue’ leadership running things, for example, in New York City and Chicago and Memphis, an average person during their commute to and from work daily is targeted at least (on average) 12 times as the potential victim of a violent crime even in the work place sometimes.

All you can do is be prepared to deal with it if it happens.