You know something, I must confess that I am rather irritated with the perspective and tone that duxman took on this post when starting it. I am actually from Beverly Hills, ca born and raisied, and currently am in Tucson attending college. Its a funny thing that you mention breaking into your house and having a 12 gauge defense system. I promise you that if there werent certain individuals in the state who created certain firearm laws, I too would have my 12 gauge set out waiting. The mere fact is that in order to have a gun in BH requires jumping through some hoops ( I cant even have my CZ out, it must be locked up). That doesnt mean though you can keep it out freely or even use it freely. But just say that you have your gun in BH or LA, if you use it, any scummy lawyer on earth would defend the people/person who robbed you and that you shot and sue your a$$ for defending yourself and killing/injuring the poor guy who was stealing from you to provide for his family or whatever reason. The worst thing is, you WILL more than likely lose for whatever reason, despite the fact you were being robbed and your life was in danger simply because often times affluent individuals are easy targets and not well liked because we are thought to be snobby or arrogant. So put yourself in someone elses shoes for a moment and ask yourself if you had worked really hard over the course of your life and made a lot of money, and knew that in a worst case scenario if you had to defend yourself, you could stand to lose the bulk or at least a significant chunk of you assests if you use a gun or any weapon for that matter, I dont think for a second you would do it. Instead you would rely on an ADT or some other company to protect you because you figure it would be the safest thing to do. And even then, they probably cant do anything either because they are afraid of getting sued. So you really are left with not many options.
Moving to another point of background checks, it is an unfortunate thing that many of the maids and home aids are in fact illegal aliens or do not have a background or are paid under the table, all for various reasons. So in that case, what do you about a background check? And just say for a second you do a background check, how many times do you think people have lied or falsified info on a reference? Many people do background checks and gee what do you know, they have a colorful background after all that doesnt turn up until something happens. For instance, in arizona, I recently heard from a colleague that a teacher had been hired at ASU and of course at university level, they do a background check, he is hired from what I understand and they find out later that he earned his degree after serving 17 years in prison for murder and revoke the job when it hits the news(
http://www.asuwebdevil.com/issues/20...1/news/545269). So background checks seem to be faulty occassionally, so I dont entirely blame people who do not perform them.
I suppose that my point is, hollywood is a unique environment (and yes it does display a "liberal attitude") and people often see it in different ways than others do, however, you shouldnt lump BH in with hollywood, or any other city, the attitudes of the poeple from BH and other cities might actually surprise you. We arent all hollywood types who hate guns and love glamour and earn our money by sitting in front a camera providing mindless entertainment for the masses. Some of us are real estate agents, some of us are teachers, others are doctors, and some, like me for instance are farm workers and botanists and scientists. I dont want to sound holier than thou or offend, but I want to shed some light, offer a different perspective, and make the point that people should think, and try not make stereotypes... it is a very close-minded and unintelligent thing to do. We all live in a democracy which is governed by majority rule (to put it simply) but that doesnt mean we all agree with the way things are, we just adapt to survive.
-- Well armed citizen of Beverly Hills, California