Let me shift gears on you here:
Let's say you don't know me, never seen or heard from me before, we're perfect strangers. Let's assume that for some ungodly reason you ordered a new cabinet set from Lowe's, wanted it installed by someone else (since I know you're in the field, let's say your injured) and Lowe's in turn taped my employer to install it. When we go on a Lowe's-install, we wear a Lowe's t-shirt.
What could an installer do to establish a good enough repore(sp) with you, so that if you noticed them wearing a concealed pistol a few hours later, you would be ok with it?
This is open ended, anything at all, answer any way you wish. The question is open to everyone. I would really like to know because I do care.
The hypothetical is almost to strange for me because even if I
was injured (and I'd have to be severely injured in a damned near permanent way in order to get someone else to hang cabinets for me) I would
never go through Lowe's or Home Depot for the work. I know way too many people in the trades personally to go with strangers. So it's actually a bit difficult for me to imagine myself in that scenario.
But I think I'd be pissed off that some random dude came into my home carrying
without making it known to me. I'd probably ask him to leave then and there because he didn't tell me first because he's already shown himself to be untrustworthy by virtue of keeping it a secret while he was in my home, IMO. Had he said from the start, "I'm carrying concealed, I just want to let you know that before I do any work here" I'd be much more inclined to let him in and just tell him to keep it well hidden since my wife might freak out if she saw it.
Right now in my internship, I am working with foster children who are often in very,
very bad neighborhoods here in the Chicagoland area (everyone has been hearing about the crime and murders here lately and I'm talking about the neighborhoods where that is going on).
Even though I'm going out there to help troubled kids, I
am an intruder in these people's homes. They are trusting me by letting me in there. I'm there as a mental health professional working with children who are often the relatives of the foster parents, so you might think that they are already trusting me with more than enough to feel comfortable with me carrying in their home, but it's a different animal entirely because being a competent mental health professional is a
very different thing than being competent with a gun.
I would
never violate their trust in such a manner, even though I
am very much putting myself at great risk of becoming the victim of a crime by going into those neighborhoods without any protection. That's a risk I have chosen to take. If I
do become a statistic because of my choice, then that's on me for making that choice. That's my stance on things.
Granted, it's flat-out illegal for me or anyone else to carry concealed due to the laws in Illinois (laws I firmly disagree with, btw) but the point I am making remains. I'm saying what I am saying as someone who is probably at a
much degree of risk than most people, when you consider the crime rates in the neighborhoods I am going into alone, unarmed, and at night. I do something where carrying concealed for protection purposes not only makes sense, but I would guess that
most people wouldn't even
consider doing it
unless they could carry concealed. Yet I would never consider carrying in these people's homes because it would be a violation of their trust.