srothstein wrote:Brianko,
The resistance is to the concept you are espousing. I do not think you have realized what you said, but you basically have said that the average adult who has a CHL is not properly qualified to carry a gun to defend himself. That is how I took it, and I would bet that some of the others also took it that way.
Obviously I'm carrying the contrarian view here :) But yes, that's exactly what I said.
I understand that some will take great personal affront to this statement, but then again, those are the same individuals that argue from a point of passion rather than a point of reason.
You may or may not mean it this way, but if not, you need to explain more on what situation is different about being on a school campus when I defend myself or others. I do not see a school as any different than a mall or a city street. As a police officer, I have had no training that makes a difference to a school from anyplace else. But no one thinks anything about saying a cop should be allowed to carry in the school.
No, but you've certainly received more tactical training than most CHL holders who aren't LEOs. And the environment in a crowded 400 sq ft area packed with a couple hundred students is definitely different than a typical street environment. So you're a CHL, carrying at school, and you hear gunshots. You're in your classroom. Quick: What are your priorities? Secure the classroom? Secure your own students? Attempt to find the gunman? Let's say you decide to intervene. You've identified the gunman. It's lunchtime; there are several hundred students streaming towards you in a virtual wall of humanity. Where is the priority now? To get these students cleared out a quickly as possible to mitigate their personal risk? Or to forge ahead in the hopes that you can trade time for safety and take down said gunman? So you reach the gunman. You discover that he's surrounded by students too paralyzed with fear to move. What now? Do you take a shot and hope you strike your target and incur no collateral damage? What if there is no clear shot? You've arrived first because you're a CHL and think you can do some good. What now? Do you secure the area and wait for a hostage negotiation team? Do you shift your focus to trying to clear out the students that you can safely access?
I'm saying that a typical CHL holder with no training other than the state-mandated CHL course is not in a position to accurately evaluate and prioritize a scenario, while under stress. What type of training has a CHL holder received to indicate the outcome probabilities of taking on a hostage-taker rather than trying to take the hostage-taker down? How many CHL holders have found themselves completely surrounded, pressed shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of individuals fleeing in a direction opposite that of which you want to go?
Of course, we have the luxury of sitting here on this forum with unlimited time and no external stress to analyze these situations and say "Oh, I'd do 1, then 2, then 3." But I seriously doubt, when the time comes and these questions haven't been analyzed and studied and practiced, that most CHL holders will react correctly.
I know this is a hard pill to swallow for many. No one can deny the subtle underlying machismo current that flows through any CHL discussion ("I'm man (or woman) enough to handle my firearm, and how *dare* you say I am not!") But this is what I believe based upon my own life experiences that have placed me in very stressful situations where lives depended upon my correct prioritization and execution of various scenarios withing a very restricted amount of time and space. Without practice, individuals will make the wrong decisions. In stressful situations, you often don't have the luxury of time to plan out your decisions. This is where practice and additional training play an important role in helping you make the right decisions automatically. It's as simple as that.
