Somewhere on the Internet, someone recently wrote:
The rule is if you are not a cop or a soldier and you feel that you have to go somewhere with a gun stay home.
The sentiment expressed here is valid: a gun should be a last resort, and steps should always be taken to anticipate and avoid situations where a gun might be needed. But this guy’s “rule” presumes that you can always anticipate situations where a gun might be needed.
I don’t carry a gun because I feel that I am particularly likely to need it. In fact, I know that statistically I am very likely never to need it. I don’t carry a gun because I need an injection of courage to go into a particularly scary situation. Like the commenter suggests, I would just stay home. But the fact is that life-threatening situations happen in all kinds of places at all kinds of times. I carry a gun in preparation for the time when I have not anticipated that I would need it.
Do you have a fire extinguisher in your home? What would you say to the argument, “If you are not a firefighter, and you feel that you need a fire extinguisher to be somewhere, you should just not be in that place.”
The quote also presumes that only police and soldiers should be using deadly force in my defense. Bull. Shit. Call it the do-it-yourself ethic if you want. Defending my life against someone or something who threatens it is arguably the most important thing I can ever do, since being dead will deprive me of the opportunity to do any of other other things that I might do. I’ll be damned if I’m going to farm that out to somebody else who isn’t actually obligated to defend me in particular. News flash: crime tends to occur in areas where police are not present. Saying that I should rely on a police officer to defend my life assumes a lot. That I or someone else is able to call 911. That I am not killed or injured in the time it takes for the cops to get there. That the cops are more capable and motivated to defend me than I am to defend myself. I don’t want to bet my life on those assumptions.
