I carried one on and off for several years. Then, when I was 19, I took a job overnight at the local grocery store up the road, a real mom and pop place. About 3 or 4 o clock every morning, my supervisor would always ask me to round up the spare carts in the parking lot. I always liked doing this in the summer because it gave me a chance to break out my MP3 player for a few minutes and smoke a small cigar in the process. One morning, while gathering carts, there was a drug deal that went very bad in the parking lot of the small BBQ joint that was in the same shopping center. Four bullets were fired but thankfully no one was hurt or killed. Since that day, I have carried a knife religiously. Its usually a large size Kershaw folder with a good sized blade and nice rubber grips on the side.