Unless you're involved in a largely random shooting, in this country you have to be really pushing it to have someone shoot you. Stab you or smack your head in? Not so much. Friend of mine almost got himself killed for sleeping with another friend's ex-girlfriend. Fella who owned the girl tried bludgeoning him to death. Shootings however are rare and carrying a gun on a regular basis, unless you get yourselves involved with drugs and the like, generally isn't worth the bother.
Were I to carry a gun it would be concealed, even assuming it was legal to do otherwise in this country. Fights tend to be built around a game of one-upmanship. By the time he's in your face or his mates are standing behind you - or both - you're pretty much screwed. Always a laugh when you see people walking past a line of folks against a wall or the like, that sort of stuff can go south quick and it doesn't matter what you've got if that happens. Someone walks along behind you, another lurks at the end of the street. Bad mojo. Someone comes up to you 'Can I have a light, can I have some money?' Waits for your hands to go into your pocket and strikes hard.
If he knows you've got it he can take steps to counteract it just as you can take steps to get out of those situations. If you notice them in time. People who go around showing off their guns and their paranoia to everyone in real life are idiots. If you were planning something who would you shoot first? Where would you stand? Yeah, thought so; them, preferably from behind. Hell at any point you care to pick you've got your back turned to more than half the world. That's one of the reasons friends are so important. Man without friends is blind and deaf.
You've got to know the moment to escalate, the point where it'll do the most good, and a lot of that's about knowing or guessing one extra fact. It's like playing cards with magicians who are cheating like hell. You don't twig things like that what're you going to do with it? 'If I ever get into trouble I'll pull my gun!...' Yeah, trouble'll that'll be defined for you by someone more aware. Go on, see what happens; maybe you'll get lucky.
Think I'd rather not have a weapon than have it in plain sight.