OMG CCW!!11

Susan Storm wrote: CarbineKid wrote: That is what training is for. Its called a gun fight, because thats what it is, a Fight. The gun is a tool used in that fight, but its not the only tool you have. There are many self defense classes that teach you how to get the upperhand, even if you are unlucky enough to be looking down the barrel of some thugs gun.     True.  But ask youself - honestly - how many non-military/LEO/militia gun owners actually take any serious training beyond range plinking?  How many even bother practicing drawing their weapon, let alone train for actual scenarios? In my experience, that number is VERY low.  Just this past weekend, my sister-in-law asked me about getting a gun.  I asked her where she planned on keeping it, where her expected shooting lanes and backdrops were, how she planned on carrying the gun outside the house and how that would affect her clothing/purse selections.  I asked her what her plans were for combat training and weapon retention training, what her theories were on rules of engagement for in-home and on-street shootings, and so forth. Not surprisingly, she had not thought about any of those things.  Her thought process was "Hey, I should get a gun.  Then I'll feel safer."  It was only random that she happened to ask me first - otherwise she might now be another dee-dee-dee gun owner. I have no problem with well-trained folks with guns.  It is the untrained fools that frighten me.  All too many people think buying a gun is like buying a new TV, and it is not.

I agree completely. The mentality, thanks in no small part to a gun-crazed (yet ironically anti-gun) entertainment industry, is that the person with the gun is automatically armed and dangerous. People don't realize alot of factors that go into a bullet exchange-

A-Bullets go where you point them. Unfortunately, alot of people (even the gun owners) have never spent extensive hours at the range, and therefore have no clue as to the handling and firing characteristics of a firearm. These people are a danger to themselves and the people within killing range of the bullet.

B-Logic tells us that few people rob you from the regulation 25 yard target distance. If a person is going to threaten your life, odds are they will have either planned it out, or taken their own actions into question before you have the chance to plan out a counter-attack. Therefore you can honestly never be prepared for a lethal encounter, and even with the proper training, even a SEAL is vulnerable if he's shot at pointblank range with no warning. You will not be warned, and the attacker will likely not tell you what method he's going to kill you with. It takes time to get to a handgun-alot of people aren't going to give you that time.

C-Killing someone is a mental block that must be overcome. Alot of people brag about it, but few have the ability to move that block when the time comes. In my experience, even hunting an animal provides you with a certain thought process you have to overcome. You have to train your mind not to consider human compassion, or details. You have to not weight in consequence.

D-My favorite myth about deadly civilian encounters is that the adrenaline rush will provide you with the means to overcome human emotion and thought process. However, I had a deeply interesting conversation with a military/firearms instructor where I bought my Sig. I was trying out the feel of a Glock, and he asked me to pick it up and point it again. Now generally, I hold my right hand on the gun, and my left hand around my right, with my index finder over the trigger guard. His response was that this was the first thing he teaches people not to do in training. He said when you're under an adrenaline rush, your left index finger will actually pull your aim off, because you're not used to the additional strength and movement speed provided by the fear.

Where I'm going with that, is there are a million small details that you can never account for without experience. You need to understand this when taking a firearm out of your house/pickup. Because for most people, a handgun is a liability to their own lives through the added false confidence it gives.

My dad, who was an officer and a marine, told me as a kid and growing up that the most dangerous thing about a gun is the idea that the very presence of a weapon will scare people off. Most people don't pull a gun with the 100% expectation of using it, there are a thousand scenarios playing through their mind. Unfortunately, when an ecounter escalates to that point, the only course of action is to use the gun. There really are very few other options, other than a downhill slope that endanger everyone around you.

tl;dr-Guns are dangerous if you don't know what you're doing with them.

Mephistopheles wrote: Depends. I haven't found a Canada Homicide/Murder stat yet. Just violent crimes. Unless of course the people making the stats are including murder as a "violent crime." But so far Canada has double the crime rate as the US... However I do recall hearing about Canada having a pretty high machete situation, due to the gun control people hacking away with those. Of course I haven't found any official source just hearsay. So I can't really toss that into the hat. But if that's true, sorry I'd rather be shot than chopped up. That's just me. Either way we might have more guns, but Canada is more violent!

I found one.  Here.  Don't know how good it is, but it shows that the US had/has a higher murder rate than Canada.  But again I certainly don't want to draw any real conclusions based only on crime stats.

As to getting shot versus cut - I agree that knives can be scarier, but I would rather be "assaulted" than "murdered", and if facing a knife versus a gun leaves me alive versus dead, then I choose knife.

My biggest problem with guns is that they immediately escalate any situation to a life-or-death-instant-decision-time situation.  If somebody is standing two feet from you with a knife, you have a second to evaluate intentions and determine the seriousness of the situation.  With a gun you don't and can't.  You have to decide, basically immediately, whether you want to start the shooting.  No other common hand-held weapon in the history of man has had this ability.

Simply due to their ability to create instant death, guns can often create violence that otherwise might have been avoided.  Guns certainly have their place, but I think it is naive to believe that they don't change every situation they enter.

stratoaxe wrote: Carrying a handgun is a valid right, IMO, with a proper license, but at the same time in a situation where you're on the street and someone makes an attempt on your life, odds are you won't have time or reflexes to use it. Defending yourself with a handgun does require a little bit of timing to work properly.

Most intelligent post I have seen in a CCW thread here in a long time.

Now, I generally caution against using crime stats out of context, but Meph - it would seem that your stats support Carl's point.

If Canada has higher assualt rates but lower murder rates, would that not support the thesis that guns convert assaults into homicide?