He assures me up and down that all of these stories are true, and many many more besides, but the media won't report them because "nothing happened" and of course, they're the media and we know what they're up to... But yeah, every day, every single day, hundreds of thousands of people at the K-Mart or gas station or grade school are kept safe because a hero with a gun was there to scare off the bad guy... 

Sometimes the story requires the hero to pull out the gun in a parking garage when no one else is around and talk the miscreant  down by describing the make, model, and caliber of his imminent destruction, or to rush around the back of the entryway the guy was heading towards (where no one can see him) and pulling the gun first to ward off the oncoming attack, but usually just the presence of the hero alone is enough to keep the sun shining for hundreds of otherwise dead victims that day.

My friend believes quite powerfully that he himself has a similar calming effect on the criminal element just stomping around in his camo gear and looking like the badass he so very much is with those guns all over his walls and his workbench loaded down with two or three in the works...  And there is no dissuading him.