Every day, Bill Kavanaugh carries a stubby, stainless-steel .45-caliber semiautomatic -- at the grocery store or mall, in a booze-free restaurant, on a short stroll around the block, in the car for a quick jaunt or a cross-country journey.

Tucked in a well-worn, zip-up leather daybook, this gun goes where Kavanaugh does -- everywhere except the places prohibited by law, a list that includes schools, churches, courthouses, post offices and anywhere alcohol is served.

"I believe I have a responsibility to make sure my family is safe, that I'm safe, that my neighbors are safe," says Kavanaugh, 52, a telecommunications engineer. "It's a personal decision I've made to refuse to be a victim."

Kavanaugh is a street-legal pistolero, one of almost 76,000 North Carolinians who hold a permit that allows them to carry a concealed handgun under a state law enacted in 1995. Far from being a teenage gangbanger or predator in neighborhoods where weapons are illegal and crime is rampant, he fits the demographic of a typical Tar Heel permit holder -- a white, middle-age man.

Short, bald and bespectacled, Kavanaugh keeps his pistol within easy reach for that moment he hopes never happens.

Until that day, he and his wife, Debbie, who also shoots but doesn't have a concealed-carry permit, live what could be called a "tactical" lifestyle from their modest, brick-trimmed ranch home in southern Durham County.

They've worked out how they'd fight a home invasion. They keep their car doors locked and are careful about where they park at the mall or grocery store. One never goes to a drive-up ATM without the other as a backup, sitting in the car, gun at the ready.

Like an Old West gunfighter, Kavanaugh tries never to sit in a public place with his back to the door -- unless he's covered by another gun-toting friend.

People who hate guns or aren't familiar with them may find his stance distasteful or paranoid, particularly in the face of North Carolina's falling crime rate.

To them, all guns are bad. They see America's firearms fetish -- rooted in frontier myth and a latent Southern celebration of violence -- as a fearsome cultural telltale, a Neanderthal instinct they wish would just become extinct.

To them, people like Bill Kavanaugh are wild-eyed pistol wavers, paranoids who are cocked and locked to spray lead at the barest of provocations.

But if you listen to Kavanaugh explain why he carries a gun -- and does so legally -- you hear a a marked willingness to shoulder this deadly weight responsibly. He isn't content just to punch holes in paper targets at the gun range; he has taken combat pistol courses, learning how to move and look for cover during a gun fight.

You also hear a tightly knit rationale, the product of a deliberate progression. The main threads in this weave are a strong credo of personal responsibility bolstered by religious conviction and a conservative political stand.

"The good Lord requires you to defend your life," said Kavanaugh. "He gave you the power and wherewithal to take care of that life and expects you to do so."

Bill Kavanaugh also believes strongly that legally armed citizens can foil criminals. And a dollop of common sense tells him a little guy in a dangerous world needs a high-powered equalizer.

Born of experience

This last thread is powerful, laced with fear-laden memories of working late at night in the deserted office towers of New Orleans' central business district, at the height of the crack epidemic.

In a recurring, acid-etched image, he also sees the would-be carjacker who jammed a gun barrel against his wife's rib cage at a Union 76 truck stop near Meridian, Miss.

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