Me And A Gun

[SFA437]

Who's going to stand there and not try to defend their lives against imminent danger? You don't need a gun for that. Sometimes you need the strength and will to survive.

Shooting at the walls of heartache, bang bang. I AM the warrior.

Strength and the will to survive are a mindset and are the singular most important tool to surviving a violent encounter. There are however other tools. Everything from a kubotan to pepper spray to a firearm.

Stand in front of me while I shoot at you with a 357- all the will and strength in the world won't help. Quite simply you will die. If you run, you will die tired. If you move to cover and return fire you stand a chance.

Uh, DC isn't THAT bad. I feel safe there. I do know guy friends who have been mugged in Georgetown and Charles Village, Baltimore. In all honesty, the guys I know who got mugged could've been mugged by Elmo or Cookie Monster. I mean these are your typical yuppies or hipsters. They just have "victimize me" written all over them.

Me and my girls put on our ***** face and go to town, without men around. You don't need a gun when you have on your ***** face. You better recognize!

I chose DC because it consistently ranks, along with other cities where firearm ownership is restricted, in the top 10 per capita murder rates. Again you've touched on mindset. I've done details in Port Au Prince and Petionville Haiti unarmed and came out unscathed. Wasn't fun but a brain is your best weapon, everything else is secondary.

A gun is not going to stop a determined 280 pound man from raping a 110 pound woman. My mom has had patients who had guns, on their person and in their homes, and knew how to use them who were still victims of sexual assault, both by strangers and people they knew.

Again, mindset. Along with having the firearm, the person must also be mentally prepared to take human life. Not many people have that within them in the US due to social conditioning. I have seen 110 pound women and dead 280 pound rapists. I've also seen what you describe.

A few of these people now realize that a gun doesn't guarantee ANYTHING.

You are 100% correct. A firearm GUARANTEES nothing. What it does do is help to equalize a disparity in force. Notice I did not say it DOES equalize a disparity in force, just that it helps. Again mindset and training come into play here. Not just "I know how to load and unload it" or "I can put holes into paper" but proper training.

A gun DOES NOT make you automatically safe. But that it does is what I hear from gun proponents all the time and there's evidence everywhere to the contrary.

Nothing makes you automatically safe, nor have I ever said that. I take my evidence from the Federal Bureau of Investigations Uniform Crime Report Annexes. 1.1 million defensive uses of firearms in 2006 (haven't seen 2007's stats since I'm where I am). That does not mean someone was shot- simply the presentation of the weapon in most cases dissuaded the skell from his/her chosen course of action.

If you don't feel safe enough just armed with your wits, since most times that's all the "weapon" we have, then nothing is going to make you feel secure.

So you propose I do patrols through Baghdad armed only with my wits? Surely you jest . Here's a question for you- if wits are enough, why do police officers carry firearms? Even better why does the Secret Service carry them? Surely you do not posit they have no wits about them....

A gun isn't a "tool." A band saw is a tool. A gun is an istrument designed and devised with only ONE real purpose: to destroy and end life. That's why they were invented and that's continue to be made. Why does everybody glass over this fact like it doesn't exist?

A firearm is indeed a tool. It is used to harvest game, it serves as a badge of office (a military officer's sidearm), it serves as a visual deterrent (a police officer's sidearm) and it serves to defend one against violence.

As for destroying life, there is something I instilled in every rookie I had on my range (over 400). In a deadly force incident, you do not shoot to kill. You shoot to live.

As I stated before, if I was not armed on numerous occasions I would be dead. I'm happy with the drugged out lunatic on the slab rather than me.