Feeling uncomfortable while parking at Walmart in Kansas City!

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odie1234 said:
According to my leo neighbor, rvs in big box store parking lots make his job harder as people up to no good can use the large rvs and trucks parked in the lot overnight to hide behind. IMO, the above comments about situational awareness are appropriate. Campgrounds are probably safer, but if your goal is convenience and lower cost, it may be worth the slight additional risk. The decision to use parking lots is a personal one.

My LEO nephew sees it as just the opposite. He thinks the more occupied vehicles such as RV's in a parking lot, the lower the crime risk due to the additional eyeballs potentially witnessing the activities. One local police chief even made that point at a building permit hearing for our new Super Wally when an area campground owner tried get no RV parking included as a condition of the permit.
 
Maybe the woman, in the original post, was also an exhausted traveler. Maybe she parked nearby for the added safety of presumably normal people nearby.
Bill
 
gc1966,
I'm an NRA Life Member and support your right to be prepared to defend yourself. However, I'd be more comfortable camped next to you if you would leave the AK and AR in your gunsafe and bring a reliable pump shotgun instead. I don't think the bit of fiberglass, foam and veneer in the wall of my RV will stop a 7mm round. Your first shotgun round will have me wide awake so I can grab my shotgun and cover your back. Much prefer that to bleeding out in my queensize.
Thanks,
Niels
 
ndaugbjerg said:
gc1966,
I'm an NRA Life Member and support your right to be prepared to defend yourself. However, I'd be more comfortable camped next to you if you would leave the AK and AR in your gunsafe and bring a reliable pump shotgun instead. I don't think the bit of fiberglass, foam and veneer in the wall of my RV will stop a 7mm round. Your first shotgun round will have me wide awake so I can grab my shotgun and cover your back. Much prefer that to bleeding out in my queensize.
Thanks,
Niels



Seriously, I usually only carry a 45.. but I have thought about the shotgun.. Thanks for having my back, I will have yours too.
 
Thinking back to the original post, has anyone considered the woman may not have bad intent but parked there for her own security thinking it would be safe close to a big RV than being isolated elsewhere in the parking lot.
 
Hi Josh

I think situational awareness is incredibly important and good for you for trusting your instincts and moving on when it didn't feel right
 
gc1966 said:
I usually keep an AK47 or AR15 in my RV and a .45 in the console beside me (I have a ccw) and I have yet to feel uncomfortable anywhere :)

Thats great as long as you don't drive thru CA or NY or CO or IL and a few more I don't know of.  In fact, I was wondering what to do if I wanted to go into CA.  It is my understanding that having them unloaded and locked up is not good enough.  You are not allowed to have a "large capacity" magazine in your possition. And , of course, forget Canada or Mexico .

Believe it or not, this is one of my biggest concernes about going full time.  I have been legally carring concealed for 40 years.  I have only pulled my weapon twice, and never have had to discharge it.  Thats one of the reasons I like the 1911.  Both time I have pulled a gun, it had little effect, but when I cocked that hammer back the young men left the area.

BTW- I don't have a black rifle- I have a short barrel long mag-tube 12 gage.  I have often said that any perp will hear that sound a pump makes when loading a round, and if he has ANY brains, he will look somewhere else.

So do you just avoid some states?
 
You said in 40 years, you have pulled your gun twice. Then, the odds are very good that you will not have to pull it in the next 10.
When you do and the young men leave the area, you can put it away and  leave also. I am not overly concerned with the gun laws because I do not plan on shooting anyone. If I do, it will be to stay alive. I will not shoot anyone in the defense of property. I have carried a gun for 21 years and will continue to do so. And, I will take it into any state I travel in. It will stay where it is now, in a cabinet by my door. The police have better things to do than searching an old fat man's fifth wheel.
 
Campfire RV said:
Have you ever parked in a parking lot for the night and just didn't feel comfortable for some reason?

NO,, but I have pulled into a parking lot and decided, before I even shut the engine off.. that I wished to park elsewhere for the night.  And thus.. I did.
 
halfwright... I was stopped recently for turning right on red (after a complete stop), which I believe is legal.  What alarmed me about this stop was that after the police person returned from his car, he asked if I had my firearm on me.  There is NOTHING on my DL that says I have a CCW, so I can only guess that they have some sort of link between the two when a DL is called in.  It was one of the few times I was not carrying as I was going to a restricted area (School).  If I had one of my weapons, I would have told him at the beginning of the stop. The point is that if I had been in the RV and had been asked, I would not lie about the guns I have on board.  Just as I would not have them on board if I crossed into Canada.

As far as pulling a weapon, both times I did so because I feared for my Wife's and my lives.  One time I was shooting a wedding just north of 8 mile in Detroit.  We had to park on a side street as the Hall's lot was filled.  Tow young men came toward us (which caused me to had the camera case to my wife) and pulled out their switch blades making the big show of opening them up near their faces.  My answer to "wha you got in the case?" was to pull my weapon.  And frankly that why I have a pump shotgun in the rv.  Just the sound or racking that shell into the chamber is enough to scare anyone with sense,

As I am older and look much less able to defend my self now, I think the chance of having to draw my wepon is greater now then in the last 40 years
 
Magicshuman said:
  Both time I have pulled a gun, it had little effect, but when I cocked that hammer back the young men left the area.

Even better I just bought a snub nosed S&W 38 Special revolver with a lazer pointer.  Do you think that someone who has a lazer pointed at him might consider leaving the area - pronto?  With that gun the lazer is not really needed because you will be need to be real close to the target when you let a hollow point fly.  Noticed that our local Walmart lot is heavily populated with semi trucks on the weekends.  Then I figured out that is where the local drivers park when they are home for the weekend - but the trucks are empty.  Usually have a few RVs in the lot during the warm months but not much crime of that nature in this area.  The criminals are too busy making meth.
 
KC has both good areas and bad. I've lived here my whole life and there are some places I wouldn't hesitate staying over night and others I would'nt stay long in the daylight. A little discretion goes a long way.
 
Tin man said:
I like the idea of paying the local campground owner $30.00 or more and help put his children to collage or help towards his retirement. 

I can get a good nights sleep and ready for the next day......

Jim

I agree. I can't imagine why anyone would "camp" at WM when campgrounds are available, excepting lack of money, taking a quick nap before resuming travel or perhaps during a public emergency such as flooding.

For those who are simply too cheap to cough up for a campground site... I shake my head in disbelief. All that money for an RV, then settling for a diminished experience. LOL Silly as refusing to buy gas for the RV.

And in all the years I have been reading this forum I have never once read of someone being attacked, raped, robbed or murdered in a Walmart parking lot.

A quick link:

http://www.jrrobertssecurity.com/articles/wal-mart-parking-lot-crime.htm
 
Dan23 said:
A quick link:

http://www.jrrobertssecurity.com/articles/wal-mart-parking-lot-crime.htm

The story in your link reminds me of the quote of a famous bank robber.  "Why do you rob banks?  Because that's where the money is."  Same goes for Walmart.  Thousands of stores, huge parking lots and despite lots of cameras crime does happen there.  None of the stories in the link mentioned any bad things with people in RVs (not that I read anyway).  The author is shilling his Security Strategies business and I distrust people who throw out as facts things they don't bother to source. 
 
Bill

I think you missed the point, although your remark holds some truth.  Dan was pointing out to Tom that his statement of he never read of anything bad happening in a Wallmart parking lot, does not hold water, as per incident.

We all make decisions in life, some good, and some bad.  I personally do not think staying in a parking lot for a night is a good decision.  I do not care who's lot you are staying in. 

I do not own a gun, I believe guns should not be banned, I am not a LEO, but I know many.  When in the service there were two types of fighters, the quick and the dead..my LEO friends and past military training said if you take out your weapon you use it to KILL.  I read a lot of bravado Of how many guns they own or the sound it makes, but what it alls comes down too is are you ready to use it to kill?

If you do use it and you are wrong(somebody lost, drunk, or stupid) you will never have to stay in a Wallmart, the state will give you a place to live.

Waiting to take the big dirt nap......
 
Bill N said:
The story in your link reminds me of the quote of a famous bank robber.  "Why do you rob banks?  Because that's where the money is."  Same goes for Walmart.  Thousands of stores, huge parking lots and despite lots of cameras crime does happen there.  None of the stories in the link mentioned any bad things with people in RVs (not that I read anyway).  The author is shilling his Security Strategies business and I distrust people who throw out as facts things they don't bother to source.

Personally, I'm all for your staying in WM parking lots. Have fun. I'll be over in the nicely landscaped state, Federal or privately owned campground birdwatching and enjoying the company of other campers while you decide whether you should pull your gun on the suspicious pair in the car that parked too close to you. LOL
 
In my ten years of full timing I spent hundreds of nights overnighting in Walmart parking lots. Never once did I feel unsafe. Never once did I witness a crime. I did save thousands of dollars. I am still waiting for some kind of proof that Walmart parking lots are unsafe. I have never seen any statistics on crime in a Walmart parking lot.

I did have a big mean bruiser come after me in a campground in Arizona. I thought he was going to kill me because I yelled at his stupid pit bull running through my campsite. I feel safer in a Walmart parking lot. If the bruiser would have attacked me I would have had no witnesses, no security cameras, no security person to call. I would have been beat up with no recourse. No one would pull a stunt like that in a Walmart parking lot, and no one lets their pit bull run free in a Walmart parking lot.
 
Tom has a valid point. I don't recall hearing of an RV'er being murdered anywhere but a state or national park/forest/monument. I'm sure someone has, but I certainly can't remember hearing of anything happening in a Walmart or truckstop.

Bill
 
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