Fantastic article here. Gun sales are soaring, and people are getting worried, and they are considering purchasing firearms. I received an email just the other day asking me if buying a gun is the right thing to do. They wrote a long email detailing in their mind what were the pros and cons of carrying a firearm. After looking through the whole email, I sat, perplexed at the seeming inconsistencies that were presented, but one thing stuck out the most. The real question behind the email was not "should I buy a gun?" The real question was "How do I defend myself and my property efficiently given my age, physical bearing, and experiences?". When I started writing a response, it dawned on me how much information and training would really be necessary to effectively address the real issues involved in carrying a firearm (as outlined by them, as using a firearm to do the job). My first reaction was to start writing, but after 2000 or more words on my opinion, I had to stop. First things first, I sent him to the citizens self defense page on Hocks website. I read through the whole thing myself, and many of the issues that he had brought up were highlighted and clarified. I say clarified, because they can only be addressed and resolved by the person who is asking. Today, this article, Gun Arm Grappling appeared and brought the brunt of the arguments to the fore. I can summarize a bit in my reply to the email today, and it goes something like this. Are you willing to learn and routinely practice the necessary skills of self protection centered around the firearm as the primary tool of choice? This article shines a bright light on the real dirty, scary, terrible aspects of what an altercation would consist of in real life today. It will be up close, it will be fast, it will be violent. The gun itself as a dead object can really do nothing on it's own. The slight possibility that it is spotted by the bad guy early on, causing him to choose a easier target is "hope" and hope in this case is not a good self defense strategy. Is owning a firearm the means to self protection? I think not. I think a better and more appropriate idea would be to ask; is learning to defend myself with a firearm a reasonable means of self protection? When faced with the real statistics, is a gun going to be able to protect you? Maybe. More appropriately is, are you going to be able to protect yourself using a gun? That my friends, is the question.
Mr. Barnett
