Craig Gillette
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One can go to the (US) National Safety Council and get real, unbiased figures, and draw your own conclusions. In the current figures, there were IIRC 649 "accidental" firearms deaths. There are 300 million people in the United States. The risks of an accident are very, very small. One needs to consider that even the anti-gun crowd will discuss the millions and millions of guns out there. Rather frantically most of the time. One has to be extremely careless in handling or in storage to have a negligent discharge or to have a firearm end up in the hands of a child who might have an accident.
Each state has it's own laws. In California it is a variable pretty much solely from where you live as to how easy it is to get a CCW. Some sheriffs and CoPs are very amenable to facilitating the process, some places it's politically sensitive and only favorites and donors get them. Needless to say, criminals seldom worry about the niceties.
The person who uses any kind of force or weapon, let alone deadly force, needs to be aware of the laws of that state (and like anything else, not base their legal knowledge on random musings from photographers on camera forums).
I do some historical re-enacting. We have a wide variety of firearms and edged weapons that we work with. I'm a lot more worried about cutting myself. I used to do some recreational competitive shooting using the same firearms. In all the years involved with all of this I know of one person who accidentally shot himself - with a blank. OTOH, we often have people cut, bruised, splintered, sun-burned, twisted ankles (don't run in "cowboy" boots) and a broken shoulder while doing set-up, take down, or during a performance.
It's up to the individual to make their own decisions based on their own circumstances as to what they are interested or willing to do. The chances of a criminal attempting to rob you while there is an armed guard, or any obvious attention, or a cop around is slim (not impossible though, some criminals are either brave or oblivious). A weapon of any sort isn't a magic shield. People have tried to shoot the President, knowing he (or she) is always guarded by serious security details, they have attacked and robbed armored transit trucks and armed couriers. OTOH, if you are working alone at night or out of sight in parking garages, etc., with thousands of dollars of expensive equipment, being blissfully unaware of the risks is probably not a reasonable position either. No matter what country you are in.
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This has to be one of my favorite posts ever! This thread has spiralled over to the wildest depths of our imagination! I really hope the mods let it continue just to see how creative it gets!