Interesting article

[Oleg Volk]

http://www.velocitypress.com/gun_debate.htm
I might nit-pick at details but find the format intriguing. Thoughts, serious nit-picks?

[Scix]

The article is overly harsh when detailing the downsides of carrying. Some of it is honest information, and everyone SHOULD be aware of just how legally hazardous CCW is, but the author is very heavy-handed about it and comes off sounding anti-carry.

"[You should only carry if] ... you have already been threatened, or have good reason to believe your life will be at risk in the immediate future."

You only get a CCW if you can prove a need. Humbug to that.


"[unless you fear an immediate threat] ... it is not useful because the high actual liability of carrying (discussed below) outweighs the low potential reward."

Yes, there's a good chance your CCW will get you in trouble if you ever have to use it. But it's better to have it and not need it than the other way around.


The author also has a misconception about just how life-changing a CCW is.
"Once your have that great secret weapon pressed against your belly or on your hip, life will no longer be the same." ... "[other people] are socializing with you under the flag of open and honest relations; you cannot be open and honest because you are secretly armed and dangerous."

The author has obviously never been to rural Texas.



The article isn't bad, per se, but it could use a re-write.

[Pendragon]

This guy is about half right about most of the things he discusses

Here is a great "trade" secret: The effectiveness of self-defense training to reduce the effectiveness of an untrained aggressor with a handgun is so high (and so poorly known), that a self-defense expert can be forced on his knees, with a gun pressed execution-style against the back of his head, and still disarm the aggressor and kill him. (4) Here is another secret: holding an expert at gunpoint inside a room will probably result in the expert disarming you. If the expert is of low moral character, he will then kill you in "self-defense." Not what you expected to hear? Let us compare some common gun fantasies to harsh realities.

He likes to construct scenarios where the least capable CCW holder just happend to brandish at an ex-special forces type who happens to be down on his luck and panhandling.

Then we have this little gem:

(For this reason--reaction time delay--it should be the law (but it is not) that anyone with a gun in his hand when approached by the police should be shot on the spot. This law would train the criminal population to quickly drop the gun in the their hands when approached by police--or maybe give up using guns (!) and many lives would be saved, and many wrongful-death lawsuits avoided.)

I am sorry, but I cannot take seriously anyone who would write that.

----------

A CCW does not guarantee anything. It is not a magic amulet, carrying it does not automatically mean you will be the victor. What it does do is give you a chance where you would not have one. A chance to live, a chance to fight or repel an attack. Sometimes the good guys lose - like that guy from the GT board recently.

The fact that you are free to go get a job does not guarantee you will never be hungry. The right to free speech does not mean you will ever say anything worth while.

Freedom is about possibilities and opportunities - not outcomes. If anyone tries to guarantee you an outcome - in any endeavor - that is your cue to get very very skeptical.

[Jim March]

The guy doesn't even believe that stuff himself, the article starts with:

[WARNING NOTICE: This discussion is a draft strawman, written to highlight self-defense problems, to explore various potential stratagems, and to solicit rebuttals and uncover flaws. IT IS NOT INSTRUCTION, and should under no circumstances be relied upon as a suggested course of action.]

[MuzzleBlast]

For this reason--reaction time delay--it should be the law (but it is not) that anyone with a gun in his hand when approached by the police should be shot on the spot.

Surely to God he doesn't really believe that. Real life is way more complicated than that. This guy mostly comes off as a Cliff Claven type: Talks much, knows little.