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Very few, if any, police departments are organized, managed, or staffed to protect most people and their property or to deter significant amounts of crime.
There just aren’t enough policeman anywhere to do all of that.
Generally police departments are more effective at apprehending criminals than they are at stopping a crime before it takes place.
It isn’t the policeman riding in a squad car that ultimately deters crime - it is fear of the resultant punishment once caught.

But that deterrence is vanishing because of lenient judges, sentencing laws and guidelines and the change in philosophy from punishment of criminals to attempts at rehabilitation.

How many times do we read of a criminal with 10 or 20 previous convictions and very little or no prison time?
And then when they do get sent to prison, instead of confinement at hard labor they have access to TV, gyms, libraries, conjugal visits, etc.

After a recent shooting here, in which I believe two people died, the local police revealed their average response time... That is, to "priority 1" calls - those in which there is an active assault etc. (murder, rape, shooting, etc.) the average response time is 9 minutes.

I don't know about you, but in 9 minutes I can raise a lot of hell. I expect someone assaulting a loved one would be able to too. Therefore I think we all need to be able to defend ourselves.

The police are there to defend society. ie. they will eventually capture and put the bad guy behind bars. However, that my not help the individuals. (ie. me and you) Therefore, everyone needs to be able to control a situation for, oh, say, 9 minutes... Grin, in 9 minutes I can take care of business (armed or not), and have time left over... The bad guys had better realize that there is a growing grass roots movement to kick-a$$ first, and ask questions later, if at all. Out west here, we get the job done, as the female security guard at New Life proved beyond a doubt.