If you are robbed by someone with a weapon, escalating the confrontation by pulling a gun out dramatically increases your chance of getting hurt. It doesn’t make you safer.
That's not a safe assumption (rationally). People often falsely assume that pulling a gun in a confrontation will intimidate the other party. It does not, but instead escalates the scenario beyond recovery.
I definitely agree. A gun on your person isn't going to stop the bullets you don't see. The robber or psycho will always have the drop on you. If you watch the Youtube channel "Active Self Protection", he goes over tons of scenarios caught on camera and a lot of them DO NOT end well even if the victim is armed. And THEN if the victim does manage to defend themselves they can end up dealing with legal issues afterwards even if they never fire their weapon. Even pulling a pistol is technically assault with a deadly weapon in most cities and if you don't follow the rules you can go to jail for a long time.
Yeah, that just seems crazy. The OP said he wanted to feel like he had the option to escalate, but as far as I’ve seen, it’s typically the act of escalating a situation that harms a self-defense argument.
I mean, maybe you could block a thief’s exit while producing a handgun, and create a standoff until the cops arrived. That still sounds pretty reckless for something like shoplifting; getting into an altercation that results in firing a gun in a store is a risk to everyone in the vicinity. I remember when some woman shot out the tires of somebody trying to steal a ton of stuff from Home Depot—she was arrested. Both the cops and other gun owners thought that was incredibly irresponsible.
How does the proper defense scenario play out with a gun?
Someone pulls a gun on you to rob you, and you then pull yours out without getting shot? Once you do pull out your gun, do you shoot the robber(s)? I find it hard to imagine any of this working out very well.
Or is the possibility that you may be armed supposed to act as a deterrent?
In states that have strict gun laws, the way it plays out is that the victim never has the opportunity to defend themselves. Read any story where an attacker tries to rob a person with a concealed firearm to figure out how it plays out when the victim is armed. It usually doesn't end up well for the attacker. So I guess we should just all be victims and never defends ourselves when attacked. It actually drives crime up when everyone plays the victim and doesn't defened themselves. The attackers feel emboldened to commit the act over and over and over again with impunity. Why should they stop? No one is preventing them they should continue to rob people, it is working for them.
It's possible that pulling out a gun may defuse a situation, but lots of people seem to think "I'll just wave my gun and it'll stop the people harassing me."
You should only pull out a gun if the situation, at that time, is dangerous enough to warrant pulling the trigger.
Really? Because pretty much the only situation in which I'd be tempted to shoot another person is if they also had a gun (otherwise they're pretty likely to shoot me).
If I'm unarmed, then I'm likely to be safe, even if I do get robbed.
It all depends on what the situation is. Some people get mugged by people without weapons or who only have a knife or are bluffing about having a gun. But yeah I wouldnt have it somewhere I couldnt reach for the gun immediately.
Aside from starting a gun race with the burglar and fearing losing your life altogether with your possessions, I never follow this reasoning. How is it worse facing without guns a unarmed intruder than facing with a gun a well armed one?
Why on earth would you jump straight to that conclusion? Even if the firearm was drawn, which is a huge if assuming the carrier was attacked, almost all defensive gun uses end before a shot is fired.
Someone carrying a firearm should be more willing to nonviolently confront a thief than someone that's unarmed.
You are less likely to attack someone if there is the risk that person has a gun. Just like you are less likely to speed in your car if there's a cop driving next to you.
It also escalates the situation from one where an individual was just using the gun as a show of force but didn't intend to use it, to one where guns are now being discharged in a high stress and crowded environment. The vast majority of "using" a gun by criminals is just brandishing the gun to scare other people.
> Try to rob me or hurt my family - be carried away in a body bag.
If the criminal expects you to be armed, they'll just shoot first, before you even have the chance to reach your weapons. Remember they have the surprise on their side. This expectation should by itself increase violent crime and turn violent crimes that wouldn't be.
> It seems way more likely that people own guns when the likelihood of murderous break ins is high, rather than the idea that the same break in situations are happening and they're just getting into firefights and losing.
A person with a gun may feel like they can "handle" the intruder more than someone who is unarmed. If you're unarmed you may take the less risky action of barricading yourself in a room and calling the police.
Stalemate? Double homoicide? Flight? You survive but get injured? Or worse yet you injure yourself?
Have you ever been in a situation where you pulled a gun on someone in a moment of fear? Are you sure you can? Have you trained? Or do you just have a permit?
There's a very good reason why the police recommend letting the burgler get his money and leave. Macho posing about hollowpoint bullets aside, the money isn't worth anything compared to your life and your general well-being. If you haven't figured that out yet, you haven't escaped poverty yet.
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