RoyGBiv wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 7:22 am
Pilgrim wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 9:21 pm
I think we need a gold standard to live by.
I would hope that a good citizen would engage a bad guy with a gun if my wife, daughter, or son were there and the police were not. I can only hope God would give me the grace and courage to do the same.
Perhaps your wife could carry a gun and protect herself and your children as well.?
Why risk leaving self protection to strangers or uncertainty?
That right there is a big step in the right direction. I had my first CHL less than a year before I convinced my wife to take the class, and she’s been armed ever since. As soon as my son was of age, I gave both him and his fiancé (now his wife) their first CHL class as a Christmas present. I realize that not everyone can afford to do that, but if you can, there’s a great deal of peace of mind that comes with knowing that your loved ones have the same ability to protect themselves that you have, for when you’re not able to be there.
My other comment, and this is specifically in answer to the OP’s statement: “ I would hope that a good citizen would engage a bad guy with a gun if my wife, daughter, or son were there and the police were not.” Pilgrim, my answer would be, “
if it were appropriate, then yes I would. I use the word “appropriate” very deliberately here, because it demands a question, which I put to you: “Would
you (A) lay down
your life for
my wife and child in their defense; or (B) at some point does your responsibility to get home safe to
your own wife and child outweigh any obligation to lay your life down for
my wife and child?” It has to be phrased in terms of laying down one’s life, because if you run to the sound of the guns, you stand a significant possibility of never ever coming home again. No
thinking person can blindly answer in the affirmative without considering what impact that would have on his own family.
I don’t ask that question flippantly. It’s a serious question. Please understand that it has nothing to do with whether or not I think the lives of your family have value. As a religious person, I believe that their lives have
great value. But I .....and anyone else who carries a firearm in public..... have to weigh that value against the value of their own loved one’s lives. So that begs a secondary question:
Would you, Pilgrim, be willing to step in and make up for the vacancy my death would make in the lives of
my family, if I were to die in the defense of
yours? Those are two
BIG asks.......
- Will I run to the sound of the guns in defense of YOUR family; and
- if I am killed running to the sound of the guns in defense of YOUR family, will you step up and fill the void my absence will leave in MY family if I am killed in the defense of YOUR family?
I think that, when you frame the question that way - not leaving out the 2nd part of it - it becomes easier to understand why some people of perfectly good will, sound mind, and firm moral character make statements saying that they carry their guns for the defense of themselves and their loved ones, and that they’re willing to do the next best thing, which is to be a good witness and medical first responder, in defense of a third party. That doesn’t make them bad people. It simply means that they have given full consideration to BOTH sides of that question. So that leads to the next consideration..... Are the other families total strangers to me, or are they friends, or are they relatives of mine? This is an important distinction for the following reason: I can be
very sure that if I laid my life down in defense of the family of one of my brothers, my brother would step up and make sure my family was taken care of going forward; I can be
reasonably sure that if I laid down my life in defense of the family of a good friend, that friend would step up and make sure that my family was taken care of going forward. But if I lay down my life in the defense of a total stranger’s family, I have zero guarantee that that stranger will be a big enough man to step up and make sure my family is taken care of going forward.
THAT is why it is a BIG ask to expect that a total stranger would be willing to lay down his own life in defense of your family. It doesn’t make that stranger a selfish person, it merely means that he (or she) has made a very sober consideration of the full implications.
That is why I say in my own case that, “if it were appropriate”, then yes, I would use my firearm in defense of your family. What does “appropriate” mean to me? It can mean a couple of things. It can mean that I believe at the time that I have a high probability of both survival AND success. It can mean that their defense is incidental to my own self defense. For instance, your family is trapped by an armed robber in the back rows of the same 7/11 store where I am trapped in the same way. Then I would probably have my gun drawn and ready to use if the bad guy came back there. So your family would be under its protection. But if your family is in the back of that 7/11, and I am outside pumping gas, and I witness an armed robbery, so long as the bad guy stays focused on the cash register, takes the money, and comes out the front door, I am NOT going to go in there guns up to confront him ..... and provoke him into a gunfight that didn’t need to happen. Better I should stay by my car, behind cover if possible, and be a good witness. I have no obligation to stop the robbery. I’m a 65 year old gimpy guy with a bad back. I don’t get paid for that kind of crap. But even if I were a young father in good shape and just starting out with a new family, the calculus would be the same.
That’s why it really isn’t an easy question to answer, or a reasonable question to ask. Every situation is different, and every individual involved in any given situation is different. Not everyone has the same capacities or capabilities ......or even level of training, for that matter. When someone like Abraham answers like the grump old poot that he is (
), I totally get it......because
I am a grumpy old poot; and grumpy old poots no longer live to the same standards as the young fit ones do.