I threw that last statement in there about “use it if you draw it” at the last second without really explaining myself. I agree with what you posted. One should draw intending to use it, but by all means do not fire if the situation changes (i.e. the perp turns and runs). The point I was trying to make is that brandishing a weapon just for the sake of intimidation is a bad idea. If one has not prepared themselves mentally to pull the trigger if they feel it is the right thing to do to protect their self or loved ones, then you have a situation where a perp that may have had many guns waved in his face will overpower and take the victim’s weapon. I guess that is all I was trying to say.

Personally for me, I would probably not draw (i.e. let someone know I even had a gun on me) unless I was 99.9% sure I was going to pull the trigger as soon as I got my gun into position. Yeah, there’s always that 0.1% chance things might change though, so that has to be taken into consideration. Thus, why I just decided that for now I won’t carry. I just haven’t come to the point where I feel like I would make the right decision. I believe my judgment would become clouded by my emotion, and I don’t want to do anything “stupid”.

The big thing in all this is the mental preparation. I just feel too many people own and carry guns that haven’t put 5 minutes into thinking about the consequences of their actions if they use them (I have actually met plenty of these people…they kinda scare me). I understand that there are people with extensive firearms training, people who may have military training, or just people who have a lot of experience using a firearm. These aren’t the people that concern me. It’s the one who has had a bad thing happen, and suddenly goes and gets a gun cause that’s gonna protect him/her from said bad thing happening again. Or the person that knows someone who had something bad happen to them, so they get all freaked out and get a gun. These are the people who load it up and stick it under their pillow or carry it around, and haven’t put the time into practicing using it, getting training in using it and thinking about when it would be appropriate to use it.

At any rate, on another train of thought (while I’m at it) I was watching 20/20 one night (yeah I know, tabloid style crap), and they actually had an interesting story on there. It was about a guy that was hiking and came upon a strange situation. The background is that the guy was a standup citizen (no police record) that legally carried a concealed weapon (has extensive firearm training/experience) when he hiked. On one of his hikes he happened across a strange fella with 2 dogs. The 2 dogs ran at him and did not appear friendly, so he drew his gun and fired into the ground to scare them away. After that then the strange guy ran at him. Not knowing his intentions or if he had a weapon, he shot him (the guy ended up dying). What ended up happening? Well, turns out the jury decided that since the strange fella wasn’t armed the other guy had used excessive force, and he went to prison. I know this is an extraordinary circumstance, but I ask…what would you do in that situation?

Me…I wouldn’t have had a gun on me so who knows what would have happened. I would like to think that since I am fairly large I could either over power the guy or at least outrun him while trying to get away (although the dogs factor in here if they are vicious). If I had a gun in that situation…well, I probably would have done the same thing or something similar to what the other guy did.