Glock Talk banner
81 - 100 of 240 Posts
It might seem so, but really it isn't, and that is something I've pushed for years. We do some form of risk analysis with almost everything else we do in life, and usually do a faiarly reasonable cost/benefit analysis. But when it comes to carrying a firearm it seems so many toss all logic and reason aside and fall back onto the "just in case" model. If "just in case" is the reasoning, there are many better ways to avoid problems. My $.02.


perhaps, but can you name a billion examples of places where things "seemed" safe and all hell broke loose more than once? Of course, don't forget that often when we think something "seemed" safe it was becaue we did not properly understand the risks.
No, predicting the future really is an exercise in futility. Always has been, always will be.

Just in case is the part of the reasoning. Do you put your seatbelt on? Is that because you know you will need it, or is it just in case? Is there a better way for you to get to work, travel etc? Or are you taking a calculated risk of getting in the car, and mitigating that risk by putting your seatbelt on? It's the same concept. It's about risk mitigation. Maybe that seatbelt we put on each day will save us, maybe it won't. 99.999% of the time we don't need it. But neither you nor I KNOW when we will need it, so we put it on.

The other part of the reasoning is exercising your rights.


I think the most important thing I can leave you with is this..

Understanding and predicting events and therefore the risk is all about calculating probability. Same as an insurance company actuary, or a casino game. Is an actuary ever wrong? Absolutely, they are only correct on the average. Does a casino lose money at any give table? Yes, they are only right on the average.

So, assuming you can understand the odds to the level that they can, you still stand a chance of being wrong many, many times. The risk of being wrong can be catastrophic to my wife, my child and me. I'm not playing odds with that when I can make a simple decision to carry and be in the best position I can to mitigate the risk.

Analysis complete. :thumbsup:
 
This is rediculous; you either have a Standard Operating Procedure or you're left to improvise. Each one of us knows what our daily / weekly routine is for the most part. If I CAN carry, I DO carry - period. If I decide to leave the house (or go about the house) unarmed, not PLANNING to go anyplace I might need a sidearm (like we know where that is these days), I cannot always determine where my travels will take me until I return to the 'safety' of my home. If a friend or family member calls from someplace he / she should not be and I need to go where I didn't plan to, I'm not going back to the house to correct my tactical miscalculation.

This whole thread reminds me of a friend of mine who recently commented, "Who needs a gun? If I were going someplace I thought I needed a gun, I just wouldn't go there." He was making an unqualified assumption in this day and age that the places he was going (church, the mall, child's school / college campus, a military base, etc.) were places where he could be SURE he would not need a sidearm to protect himself or those in his care, or to stop a threat within his purview before it escalated.

I agree that these are places where sidearms should not be needed to defend against a developing threat to the safety of ourselves or others but, sadly, we can no longer say these are places where sidearms are not needed, or at least potentially needed, for that purpose. To pick and choose when and where we carry (when carry is not limited by law or other restrictions we have otherwise submitted ourselves to) is to introduce hesitation into our initial decision to be responsible for our own safety, which becomes systemic to the process and leads to hesitation at the point of attack. The only decisions that should need to be made at the point at which the threat reveals itself are: 1) engage or redirect and 2) target or non-target. Anything else leads to uncertainty and hesitation; and he who hesitates is lost.

There's so much more to say, but the point is this: if you carry, you carry - that's it; if you don't, you're playing with it and you should just leave it at home for the benefit of yourself and others - you're not ready to be part of the solution. You're going to hesitate because your mind isn't SET from the beginning on what you are doing and why you are doing it, and you're going to get yourself or someone else hurt at the critical moment. You're not a sheep dog; you're a dangerous sheep.
Very well said.
 
I’m aware that carrying a gun doesn’t prevent a crime from occurring. I’m aware that carrying a gun doesn’t guarantee survival. I’m aware that a gun is just a tool that can increase the odds of survival if faced with a deadly situation where I have the ability and opportunity to use that particular tool. Taking in consideration the amount of space a gun takes and how easy it is to carry it, to that add the fact that I already have said tool, it becomes illogical to not carry it whenever possible. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I’ve never been much of a gambler. There are many things in our house and vehicles that are there “just in case”, what is one more?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I became certified in CPR by the Red Cross “just in case”. When I took the class originally I purchased for the home and vehicles a full size emergency kit, a blood pathogen kit and a shield to minimize full contact with the mouth of another person should the need for mouth to mouth be necessary. In the car I carry a fire extinguisher, a sweater (even in summer), a bath towel, a roll of paper towels, a sealed gallon of water that gets replaced twice a year, jumper cables, an empty 2.5 gasoline container, etc. It may sound like a lot of things but it really doesn’t occupy that much space; some of those things have become handy for our family, while some have been used by others that needed them, others I may never use or need. What is one more?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
We cannot be prepared for everything that can possibly happen, but there are a lot of things we can be better prepared for with little effort. What is one more?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
During hurricane season my preparations go off the roof. The idea is to increase our odds and minimize the need to be dependent of others for basic survival. We’ve been fortunate enough to always have enough for our family and even share with others that were less prepared.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Have I gone to places where carrying is either illegal or prohibited without a gun? Yes. Would I eliminate all of those places just because I can’t carry? No. One of those happens to be work. Will I carry wherever legal or not prohibited? Of course, why not?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Being prepared for multiple “just in case” doesn’t hurt or create an unmanageable inconvenience. The odds of us needing the spare tire are a lot higher than needing a gun. I just have both and hope I don’t need either. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Each person has their own meter for accepting risk without mitigation; hopefully we are just over prepared.

Stay safe. :wavey:
 
I’m aware that carrying a gun doesn’t prevent a crime from occurring. I’m aware that carrying a gun doesn’t guarantee survival. I’m aware that a gun is just a tool that can increase the odds of survival if faced with a deadly situation where I have the ability and opportunity to use that particular tool. Taking in consideration the amount of space a gun takes and how easy it is to carry it, to that add the fact that I already have said tool, it becomes illogical to not carry it whenever possible. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I’ve never been much of a gambler. There are many things in our house and vehicles that are there “just in case”, what is one more?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I became certified in CPR by the Red Cross “just in case”. When I took the class originally I purchased for the home and vehicles a full size emergency kit, a blood pathogen kit and a shield to minimize full contact with the mouth of another person should the need for mouth to mouth be necessary. In the car I carry a fire extinguisher, a sweater (even in summer), a bath towel, a roll of paper towels, a sealed gallon of water that gets replaced twice a year, jumper cables, an empty 2.5 gasoline container, etc. It may sound like a lot of things but it really doesn’t occupy that much space; some of those things have become handy for our family, while some have been used by others that needed them, others I may never use or need. What is one more?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
We cannot be prepared for everything that can possibly happen, but there are a lot of things we can be better prepared for with little effort. What is one more?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
During hurricane season my preparations go off the roof. The idea is to increase our odds and minimize the need to be dependent of others for basic survival. We’ve been fortunate enough to always have enough for our family and even share with others that were less prepared.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Have I gone to places where carrying is either illegal or prohibited without a gun? Yes. Would I eliminate all of those places just because I can’t carry? No. One of those happens to be work. Will I carry wherever legal or not prohibited? Of course, why not?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Being prepared for multiple “just in case” doesn’t hurt or create an unmanageable inconvenience. The odds of us needing the spare tire are a lot higher than needing a gun. I just have both and hope I don’t need either. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Each person has their own meter for accepting risk without mitigation; hopefully we are just over prepared.

Stay safe. :wavey:
Misty, very well said, as usual.... :wavey:
 
No, predicting the future really is an exercise in futility. Always has been, always will be.

...... snip ........

So, assuming you can understand the odds to the level that they can, you still stand a chance of being wrong many, many times. The risk of being wrong can be catastrophic to my wife, my child and me. I'm not playing odds with that when I can make a simple decision to carry and be in the best position I can to mitigate the risk.

Analysis complete.
Very well argued. :thumbsup:
 
No, predicting the future really is an exercise in futility. Always has been, always will be.
Nonsense. I can predict, with a high level of accuracy, that an airplane will not land on my house today. I can make lots of predictions about the future that far from futile are accurate to a very high degree. Most of us do that on a regular basis.
Just in case is the part of the reasoning. Do you put your seatbelt on? Is that because you know you will need it, or is it just in case?
I will usually put my seatbelt on when driving as it assists me with greater control of the vehcile during certain types of maneuvers, provides additional safety in fairly common accidents, and is required by law. But that is a good question. Do YOU put your seatbelt on if you just need to move your car in the driveway? Probably not, and you chose not to do so because you have made an accurate prediction that you will not need it at that time. So see, it is possible to accurately predict the future. Carrying a gun is no different, and usually it is not a "can I predict where I might need it" it is instead a "can I predict where I won't need it".
 
To pick and choose when and where we carry (when carry is not limited by law or other restrictions we have otherwise submitted ourselves to) is to introduce hesitation into our initial decision to be responsible for our own safety, which becomes systemic to the process and leads to hesitation at the point of attack.
That is a heck of an assumption without anything to support it, AFAIK. There are plenty of instances of folks who are selective about when they have a gun with them that have shown no hesitation at the point of attack.
There's so much more to say, but the point is this: if you carry, you carry - that's it; if you don't, you're playing with it and you should just leave it at home for the benefit of yourself and others - you're not ready to be part of the solution. You're going to hesitate because your mind isn't SET from the beginning on what you are doing and why you are doing it, and you're going to get yourself or someone else hurt at the critical moment.
Given the huge amount of evidence that contradicts the second part of that statement, the elitist "if you don't carry just like I do when I think you should you shouldn't carry at all" first part comes as no surprise.
You're not a sheep dog; you're a dangerous sheep.
Carrying a gun around doesn't make you a sheep dog, and not having one with you all the time doesn't make you a sheep. Way too many folks treat the firearm as if it were some magical talisman, IMO.
 
Nonsense. I can predict, with a high level of accuracy, that an airplane will not land on my house today. I can make lots of predictions about the future that far from futile are accurate to a very high degree. Most of us do that on a regular basis.
It's not nonsense at all. You may be able to predict occurences with a high level of accuracy. Anyone with enough life experience and half a brain can do that. It's almost instinctual. Almost. What you can't do is predict that you will not be in a situation that requires you to defend yourself or your family. It's obvious that you play the law of averages and feel that becuase you avoid certain scenarios, places, what have you that you should be ok. You forget that any prediction falls on it's face as soon as someone doesn't follow the norm. You only get so close to being right. The rest is chance. The gap is closed by preparedness.

You look at history and attempt to predict how to be safe in the future. I look at history, and it tells me the only way to be safe is to protect myself and loved ones to the best of my ability, and to always have the necessary tools to difuse a situation, within reason. Carrying a firearm is completely in reason.

I agree that utilizing your beliefs you should be ok. I don't agree that you can predict when a situation will or won't spark off. You can get close... Thousands if not millions of people in history were close to being safe. You could call them the outliers in your risk analysis. You cannot argue that some of those outliers could have improved their situation by utilizing deadly force. You cannot say that you or I, your family or my family will not be an outlier in your equation.
 
Look, DA (can stand for a lot of things), I'm not going to waste my time with a 'but what about this?' type of philoshophical approach with someone who obviously has way more time than I do and uses it to produce endless rhetorical references to unsubstantiated statistics ('huge amount of evidence??? what, where, when? regail us - I'm talking tactics, your passing philosophical gas). If YOU don't want to carry, then don't - it's that simple. Dial 911 and wait like everyone else who dies at the hands of some sociopath does.

As far as what does and doesn't make one a Sheep Dog, I invested 22 of the 42 years of my life supporting and defending the right of people like you to live safe and ruminate on your own arrogance, so have at it. (ps: I reviewed your resume on your blog and, while your experience and training sounds impressive, I knew from the tone of your posts that 'PhD' and 'Professor' had to be in there somewhere - take that how you want it but if you play with pigs..., and you had the gall to throw "elitist" at me?)

It was the 'carry when you think you need it' mentality that allowed a single lunatic to kill 12 and injure 31 on an Army post before someone who had a gun took him out, and another nutcase to kill 32 plus himself and wound a lot more at Va Tech while CCW permit holding students (i.e. law-abiding people with firearms) were forced to leave their sidearms off campus. :steamed:

The 'sip tea (or whatever you're drinking or smoking), impress ourselves with our own rhetoric, and tell people the really scary stuff happens to others' thread must be somewhere else on the forum, but your groundless retorts and 'hey, look at my blog' posturing are wasted here.

Kpr OUT
 
It's not nonsense at all.
When one says "No, predicting the future really is an exercise in futility. Always has been, always will be" it is nonsense. People regularly and commonly do exactly that.
What you can't do is predict that you will not be in a situation that requires you to defend yourself or your family.
Just as one cannot predict with absolute certainty that a tiger will not attack them. But we don't worry too much about it because we recognize the probability of that is so low as to be virtually non-existent.
It's obvious that you play the law of averages and feel that becuase you avoid certain scenarios, places, what have you that you should be ok.
It is equally obvious that everyone does that to a greater or lesser degree with all sorts of issues. It is just that some attempt to deny it happening as it relates to carrying a firearm.
You forget that any prediction falls on it's face as soon as someone doesn't follow the norm.
No, at least not if done properly. Failing to fall within the norm is part of the prediction. As an example, few folks carry more than one spare tire with them. Why not two? Well, the norm is that you won't get a flat in the first place. Far outside of the norm is that you will get one flat tire. Even further out is that you will get two flat tires. Depending on where you live, the condition of your tires, how you drive, etc. you can modify that norm and the outliers to some extent.
I look at history, and it tells me the only way to be safe is to protect myself and loved ones to the best of my ability, and to always have the necessary tools to difuse a situation, within reason. Carrying a firearm is completely in reason.
You have just said exactly what I have been saying, whether you realize it or not. "Within reason" IS doing a risk assessment, as opposed to "just in case" wchich provides no reasoning or assessment at all. "Within reason" says you don't need to carry a double rifle with everywhere just in case a tiger attacks. "Within reason" says that we recognize that we cannot prepare for everything, thus we need to assess our actual dangers in order to develop a reasonable plan to respond to those dangers. It says we recognize that there are different levels of danger in different places.
I don't agree that you can predict when a situation will or won't spark off. You can get close...
Sure, just as you can get close but never predict with 100% accuracy what you will need for a situation. Heck, there is always a chance that having a gun with you will make the situation worse. But we don't say better not carry just in case that happens. We predict, we analyze, and we compromise.
 
As far as what does and doesn't make one a Sheep Dog, I invested 22 of the 42 years of my life supporting and defending the right of people like you to live safe and ruminate on your own arrogance, so have at it.
Yawn. If we want to play that game, I was busy supporting and defending your rights to live safe while you were still making fingerpaint masterpieces to take home to Mommy, so spare me that kind of nonsense.
I reviewed your resume on your blog and, while your experience and training sounds impressive, I knew from the tone of your posts that 'PhD' and 'Professor' had to be in there somewhere - take that how you want it but if you play with pigs..., and you had the gall to throw "elitist" at me
No, you did not review my resume on my blog because there isn't a resume on my blog. But that's OK, and as you noted even with the little bit of stuff that is there I don't really need to take a backseat to most folks. As for elitist, yes, I generally consider anyone who says honest law-abiding citizens should not carry firearms unless they do it according to their specific requirements to be elitist.
It was the 'carry when you think you need it' mentality that allowed a single lunatic to kill 12 and injure 31 on an Army post before someone who had a gun took him out, and another nutcase to kill 32 plus himself and wound a lot more at Va Tech while CCW permit holding students (i.e. law-abiding people with firearms) were forced to leave their sidearms off campus.
Again, nonsense. Those have nothing to do with any carry mentality. Those are both the results of bad laws and/or rules that I oppose. Of course, as mentioned before, stuff like that only goes to show how rare such events are.
The 'sip tea (or whatever you're drinking or smoking), impress ourselves with our own rhetoric, and tell people the really scary stuff happens to others' thread must be somewhere else on the forum,
Gosh, sure must be, as I certainly have not said that. Perhaps you should try to focus on what is being discussed instead of making up things?
'hey, look at my blog' posturing are wasted here.
There's some more of that "I'm going to make something up" stuff again. The only one bringing up my blog is you.
 
24/7, never unarmed!
 
Perhaps. It might also make things worse for you and yours. But having a gun usually does not prevent crime, it only changes the responses available to one when crime occurs.

That's very true, for you to be able to use a gun a crime would have to be occurring.


So why would you consciously choose to remove a very effective method of responding to a crime?

Having a spare tire won't keep you from getting a flat tire, but, it does give you the best option to respond to a flat tire.

Do you only put a spare tire in your trunk when you think you will need it?
 
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.&#8221;

-Thomas Jeffersom, Quoting Cesare Beccaria



The same could be said for carrying or not carrying... it only benefits the criminal to not carry.
 
81 - 100 of 240 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top