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not trying to be rude to the people who think that this situation could never really happen but you must live in the sticks
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My wife and I had just moved into our current home 10 years ago. Our town has only 385 year-round residents, but we probably get up to three times that number in the summer. We are 20 miles from next closest town to have a police or sheriff's department. Moose sometimes wander up our driveway, and we are well out of sight of any neighbors.
When I asked the chief of the volunteer fire department who did the law enforcement for the town, wondering if the area was covered by the troopers or the sheriff, he looked at me strangely and said "Law enforcement? Don't you have a gun?" (I don't tell strangers about my gun collection, so I was circumspect in my response). Most emergency aid can be 30 minutes away under good conditions, and double that in winter.
It was a very cold and snowy December, and the boxes we'd used to move weren't even unpacked yet. I was alone one dark evening (in Down east Maine in mid-December, that's anytime past 3:30 pm) trying to get walls painted before the furniture was moved in, when four cars pulled into my driveway, and several people (maybe a dozen) exited the cars rapidly began running toward the house through a foot of snow.
I had my 1911 in a kitchen drawer, and opened the drawer to take the gun in to my hand. The attacking mob turned out to be enthusiastic, early-season Christmas carolers.
The gun went back in the drawer with no one the wiser, and I went to the door with a smile rather than a frown.
Perceptions of events do vary. Trust, yet verify.
