Sawyer, 38, now has a concealed-weapons permit and carries a pistol wherever he can. He feels safer. "I decided it was up to me to protect myself," he said. "It's nice to know, the same way [as] if I'm driving somewhere and get a flat tire, I have the tools available to deal with the situation."
But to Lauren Becker, a 30-year-old designer from Brooklyn, that feeling of safety will come only with more gun regulation.
"I don't believe in guns. Period. I don't think guns should be allowed, even for the government," she said. "I think the regulations . . . should be broader and less influenced by the gun lobby."
In Seattle, Eric Freytag, a barista at an espresso parlor, also said he saw no place for handguns.
"A handgun itself is a machine with one purpose: to kill people," he said. "A machine like that should not exist in public environments."
Freytag, 25, said the presence of guns does not resolve conflicts -- it just escalates them.
"Better if neither side had them," he said, as he leafed through a copy of Wired magazine on his break. "This protection was granted in a very different time. America has come a long way."
Back at his Texas taxidermy shop, Cromeens said he never thought of guns as anything but American. In his mother's and father's families, he said, guns and ranching "just went hand in hand."
He said his gun-loving friends had been worried about what the court might have to say. But to him, self-defense wasn't even the controversial part of the 2nd Amendment.
He said that the revolutionaries who founded the U.S. were worried about authorities disarming citizens in order to abuse power. The guns, he argued, are really supposed to protect people from the government.
"But when you say that now, even here in Houston," Cromeens said, "people look at you like you're loco."
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miguel.bustillo@latimes.com
louise.roug@latimes.com
Times staff writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, John Mitchell in Los Angeles and Stuart Glascock in Seattle contributed to this report.
