Gun sales up since the electionFollow

Yeah. Wow.

IMO, Ahkuraj is the kind of person who has no clue what responsible gun ownership means and when it's appropriate to use a gun defensively. Irresponsibility like that should be punishable by jail time, and I honestly wish the driver he threatened had reported the incident to the police (or if they did, that he had been caught).

Brandishing a firearm without just cause is far more irresponsible than bad driving. The fact that you neither understand or seem willing to understand why is evidence of your irresponsibility.

There are other means of getting out of the situation, like... pulling over. If they start to pull life threatening moves on you, then stop the threat, ie. shoot them.

Brandishing story: Why you should not brandish, even for self defense

I am not perfect, but I do try to shower at least once a day. No one is wanting you to be perfect, but realize what you did is not legal and it certainly was not your best course of action. A firearm is a tool kept holstered until the very end, when possibly taking someone else's life means you get to keep yours. A firearm gives its owner immense power, but it can not be used until absolutely necessary. There are other, better and safer, ways to de-escalate situations.

Ok. I'm just not getting this. You say that you should pull over and then you should react only if someone pulls life threatening moves on you, then you link to a story about someone who essentially did exactly that and got in trouble for it.

If you wait to pull your gun until you are in a close physical confrontation with someone, it's too late. I happen to think that when someone is running up to your car yelling at you it's *exactly* the point at which you should brandish a firearm if you have one. What should he do? Wait until the guy gets to his window? Wait until he opens his door or smashes his window? Wait until he's reaching inside the car?


Despite an earlier post to the contrary, firearms overwhelmingly *do* de-escalate an encounter. If they are being brandished by the victim of a potential attack. But you rarely if ever hear about the times in which some drunk or just angry person decides to get physical with someone, that person draws a firearm and it makes the attacker instantly stop and leave. Firearms are standoff weapons. The guy who's acting on passion will not respond to a physical response. He wants to fight. You face him and he'll attack. You turn away and he'll jump you. You show him a gun and 99 times out of a hundred he'll turn and walk away.

There's a reason why police carry guns. It's exactly because they can approach someone who is physically violent and get them to stop doing whatever they're doing without actually having to get violent themselves. Yes. Occasionally, some nutter will charge them anyway and get shot, but the vast majority of the time it prevents a fight that would otherwise have occurred.

So in places like Japan where the police don't carry guns, do they have a SWAT like team which does? Seems like it's be free range for robbers if they didn't.

It is true there are cases where pulling out a gun will deescalate a distuation. If i was on the jury pool and the guy pulling the gun was in danger, then I'd vote to let him off the hook. But legally speaking, brandishing is not an option.


As far as when you can draw and fire, thats wholly up to you and your judgement. A guy with a bat? Probably 30 feet. A guy clenching his fists? Probably 30 feet. A guy with a handgun? Probably 75 feet. Why 75? Its the farthest I know I can shoot and hit center mass. Which brings me to my next point.

Practice. Practice as much as you can afford to spend, both in time and money. I shoot 400-500 rounds a week (I'm a nutty rightwing christian who wants cold dead hands, but not white), and I've taken qualification tests at our range to prove to them that I know how to handle a gun safely and effectively. One test includes drawing from a holster, firing 2 shots in seconds at 75 feet and hit an 8in diameter circle. That is how I know I can comfortably hit center mass at 75 feet. Beyond that, I don't know. Why 30 feet? I know I can comfortably draw and fire into that 8in circle with a double-tap within 3 seconds.

No one wants to be caught unprepared. If I pullover because someone is being dangerous, and they pull over, it would not be tactically advantageous of me to sit and wait in the car. Step out of the car, try and get into a highly visible location, call the police, put hand on grip and be ready to draw while shouting "Stop! Drop your weapon! Do not approach or I'll shoot!" Here's a secret about calling the police: If you can call them and talk to dispatch about where you are, great. If not, then you are probably already shouting at the attacker. Dispatch hears this, they record, and if you have the disparity of force on your side and stop the threat, that recording may be useful later.

Back to the main topic of panic gun buying. I wouldn't be too worried about shotguns, handguns, and bolt action rifles. Be worried about assualt rifles and submachine guns. Be worried about .50cal's, full sized machine guns. No one absolutely needs them, but we have a right as American citizens to be armed to the teeth. I believe the founding fathers knew that we may have to face oppression once again, and wrote, not discussed, not put into the editorials, but wrote in our Bill of Rights (yes, rights, not provisions by the government for the people, nor provisions by the people for the people, but absolute, no matter what, rights), that ever important 2A. Whether its oppression by other people (criminals), opression by corrupt governments, or even opression by our enemies, we do have a means of equalizing the force.

Really? You don't think that every cop would actually prefer working in an environment where the firearm is unnecessary? Oh wait, you think cops unholster their weapons to control "unruly suspects". Gotcha. I'm not sure you understand how police operate.



Hey! Hold the f*ck on! Maybe you do get it! See? The goal is to avoid drawing their weapon. That's why they outnumber suspects, that's why they make loud noises and have flashing lights. It's because the last thing a cop wants to do is draw their weapon!

Well I sure am glad you came around.

Of course. in most countries, that's exactly the way it works. If your police is power-tripping and trigger-happy, you need better police training and stricter entrance exams. The solution to a ineffectual police isn't for everyone to become police-militia, it's for the police to be improved.



Heh. I completely disagree. Oppression from whom? From the gun-free police, or the gun-free criminals?

In the UK, most police officers never carry a gun. You know how many policeman were shot last year? 0. The year before? 0. The average yearly death of policeman being shot and killed over the last ten years is 0.1. This, really should give you food for thought.

I understand the US is different, but by the same token, the UK (and most of Europe) is "different" too. Carrying a gun in the UK carries a mandatory prison sentence. If you're caught with a gun, you go to jail. It's a big deterrent for petty criminals. People who go out on ordinary robberies, either burglaries or in the street, are usually armed with a knife. The only criminals that own a gun, and use it sometimes, are big-time drug dealers, or serious organised crime. And they are dealt with by special operations police officers.

So why would the ordinary citizen/subject need a gun? How are they "oppressed" by not owning one?


Edited, Nov 18th 2008 1:10pm by RedPhoenixxx

What do you have against Spiderman?...right wing whacko

Yes, about as meaningful as this:

troll.

You started it!

I'm SO fu'cking pleased right now that LOTRO MoM just got released.

Why?

Because it means that I feel no desire whatsoever to get involved in the plethora of threads around here of late that have become indistinguishable from the OOT.

The last 7 posts have no place in forum=4 imo.

Don't flatter yourself.