A gun is unlikely to make you much safer in public. It will significantly increase your risk for gun related injury or death in your own home. A concealed weapon in public opens you up to liability, as well as an easy excuse for any police to murder you if they discover your gun before you can completely submit and follow their often confusing and conflicting orders. An unconcealed gun just makes you a higher profile target for an armed maniac like in the article and also the police. The statistics just don’t support the idea in general that getting a gun ever makes anyone any safer from gun violence.

I understand your motivation to protect yourself and I support your right to do so through responsible and informed gun ownership. Go take the prerequisite gun safety classes first. Go find a range that will let you shoot with their equipment. Start the process of getting a gun with as much education and experience as you can. Read the about the statistics of gun violence, paying attention to where the funding for each paper comes from. Read up on your rights, but also train yourself on how to deal with police encounters, now that you’re going to be the thing most police are pants passingly afraid of. This will help in dealing with police even when your not armed. If you’re not already going to therapy, make it a regular part of your gun maintenance. If you and the gun will be living with anyone old enough to grasp objects and understand language, make sure they go to gun safety classes also. If you have children that will have friends over know that a lock is not enough to keep kids safe (gun locks are notoriously easy to bypass), they all need age appropriate gun safety education.