Is Concealed Carry Worth It? Should You Carry A Gun Or Not?

Violent crime occurs everywhere, but more happens in some places compared to others. Therefore, a realistic picture of your risk depends on where you are.

Think of it this way: you have a certain risk of being in a car crash. However, your odds of being in a car accident is literally 0 if your car is parked in the garage and you’re inside your house. Your odds go dramatically up once you’re driving!

So let’s get a little more specific.

This image is a picture of all crimes committed from Nov. 2020 to Feb. 2021 in Spokane, Wash., the nearest large metro area to Alien Gear Holsters. We’re located in Post Falls, Idaho, about 25 miles east.

The map is provided through the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Regional Crime Map. Non-violent crimes (ie property crimes) are filtered out, so what you’re seeing is assault, sexual assault, robberies and homicides.

Without completely explaining the entire region, the map shows you that crime in that city is concentrated mostly around the main roads (highways, Spokane’s main arterials of Division, Maple, Monroe and others) working class neighborhoods with higher population density and the downtown area.

The bottom of the map is the upper South Hill area, referred to locally as “Snob’s Knob.” The northern and eastern edges are urban-rural interchange where civilization (and population) thin out. Crime is rare in those areas.

For context, Spokane…is a little rough. Violent and property crimes are higher than the national average.

In fact, Spokane crime rates are about double the national average for violent crime, and about 4 times the rate of the national average of property crime per the FBI Uniform Crime Report.

However, what you can see on the map is that there is clearly more concentration in some areas than others, especially in the downtown area, and that’s the concept here. Crime rates, risk, etc., are localized; there’s economy of scale, so to speak.

In other words, if you’re in downtown Spokane, there’s a higher chance that you might need a concealed carry gun. If you’re, say, further up north, it’s much lower, and this same phenomenon exists basically everywhere. Let’s look at a different city.

This is a heat map of crime in Chicago, IL, often used as an exemplar of crime-ridden cities. Worse still, they believe casseroles are pizza and that the Chicago Bears are a football team, despite all evidence to the contrary. The map is from the real estate site Trulia, using data from SpotCrime and other sources.

As you can see from the map, some areas are hotspots. About a mile south of the highlighted Lake View neighborhood is Lincoln Park, a hotspot of crime in that city. The large cluster of hotspots to the southwest of Lake View is Oak Park, another high-crime area in Chicago.

At the bottom southeast corner of the map is the South Side of Chicago, long considered to be the baddest part of town. And if you go down there, you’d better beware of a man nam…nevermind.

While the Second City is often portrayed as being one of the most dangerous places in America, the truth according to data (rather than sentiment) is that PARTS of Chicago are very dangerous indeed, but others are as just as safe as some idyllic small town in corn country or what have you.

So, your relative risk of needing a concealed carry gun? It’s impossible for us to give you a number on it, because it has everything to do with where you are. In some places it’s minimal, if not next to nothing. In some places…there is a real chance of violent crime happening.