Moving along ...
Quote:
Here is the scenario I want to address:
A person learns safety, operation, troubleshooting, and marksmanship in a self defense class. The legal and ethical stuff has been gone over, they get it and pass all segments no problem.
Then they approach you explaining that even with all that they have learned, they just cant see themselves shooting another human being under any circumstances.
So, there they are with their new gun, they know they are unlikely to be able to use it, they are looking to you to help them, what do you say?
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I look them in the eye and tell them, "Then you should not carry a firearm."
And I stop there.
It is up to the student to make the connection for him- or herself from that point.
And they
do ... sometimes awhile later. As an example of this type of process, one friend of mine attended LFI-1, then put her gun away for nearly three months while she emotionally digested the class. She re-armed a few months after the class and has never stepped out of her house unarmed since then. She says that class deeply affected her because she suddenly understood the huge responsibility the firearm represented, and that it caused her to pull out her ethics and really
look at them. That's a meaningful change -- though probably not within the comfort zone of enough instructors who want to
force their students into the right mindset immediately.
You just gotta have a little faith in what you're presenting, and enough faith in your students to let them find their own paths.
pax