[supersloth]

it's an unprovable point to begin with, so you can pretend it makes you safer if you want. everyone in that store was just as safe as you were. only difference is you were the one capable of taking lives.

i guess we could give you a slow clap for not doing it? if that's what you wanted.

[Craig328]

Well no. But some seem to be suggesting less guns = more safety. Ergo, if I disarmed myself, I'd be safer, right?

[supersloth]

i never said you would be safer (edit: i don't think), i have said you wouldn't be any less safe.

people in general would be more safe with less guns.

ergo, you would be contributing to the overall safety of everyone by not carrying around something designed to inflict harm.

This post has been edited by supersloth: 13 May 2011 - 12:37 PM

[skyhawk133]

I'm not sure anyone has argued that CCW makes you safer (and if I did, I apologize for using that language), the risk of being on the receiving end of a violent attack is no different whether you are armed or not. The difference would be the percentage of violent crimes that result in whether or not the victim was injured/killed by the attacker when compared to those with or without CCW.

There are stats on that, and I'm working on finding them so I can properly cite them, but it's something like 14% of victims in a violent attack were injured/killed when they defended themselves with a gun, compared to 25% when the victim did nothing. These are in cases where the victim was unable to retreat to safety.

So yes, not any "safer" with CCW (although you could argue those with CCW are more aware of their surroundings and less likely to find themselves in a bad situation due to the pure difference in mindset, although anyone could heighten their awareness and avoid the same situations). But less likely to be injured/killed during a violent attack... the statistics do support this. I just need to track them down again and cite them for you.

[supersloth]

ALSO, just to sum it all up, i know we live in reality, i don't see guns going away or any rainbows in the sky horseshit. i just believe that 1. if we already disallow guns someplace there is no reason to start allowing them there. status quo seems pretty nice, all things considered. 2. i don't have any thoughts that we should actually try to remove guns from homes. i just don't see the point of carrying the guns elsewhere. 3. people with CCW's are kidding themselves.

[Craig328]

supersloth, on 13 May 2011 - 03:37 PM, said:

i never said you would be safer (edit: i don't think), i have said you wouldn't be any less safe.

people in general would be more safe with less guns.

ergo, you would be contributing to the overall safety of everyone by not carrying around something designed to inflict harm.

However, I asked "I'm now considering disarming. If I do, am I safer?" so I was, for purely selfish reasons, wondering about MY safety and not the safety of anonymous others. I assume that others, were they concerned with their own safety, would not reply upon me as a complete stranger to assure or help assure their safety for them. That seems kind of naive and irresponsible.

If there is no positive benefit to my personal safety being disarmed, why would I choose to be so?

[supersloth]

yes, but it was also a question with no answer because i cannot prove that. for the same reason i cannot prove that your dockers weren't the reason you weren't attacked today. (if you wear dockers that is. you seem like an occasional dockers man)

also, the equal and opposite question would be if there is no negative to disarming for your personal safety why wouldn't you do it? but of course, same problem.

[Craig328]

Alas and alack, I do not own Dockers (at least I don't think I do).

Of course, the line of my inquiry was facetious as there are no stats that I'm aware of regarding relative safety armed vs unarmed. However, there are stats that show the outcome of encounters for CCW holders is markedly better than those who are not armed (as soon as Skyhawk digs them up).

I mentioned early on the one factor that cannot be measured and that is the number of situations that evaporated when the aggressor was made aware of the potential victim not being as helpless as they were assumed to be. They don't keep stats on the number of rapes/robberies/murders/abductions that are prevented...but it surely happens. I've mentioned my own personal experience before of being confronted by a guy who hopped out of his delivery truck in stopped traffic threatening to kill someone...and once he got a glimpse of the pistol in my hand resting calmly in my lap, he retreated. I know others with similar stories. Those sorts of things aren't reported so there's no way to measure their frequency. I know my father has a similar experience when I was a kid of confronting a group of people who were trespassing at night at our summer camp to divide up a bail of weed. He advised them they were trespassing, they began to approach his truck with comments like "what are you going to do about it" and he produced a double barrel 20 gauge that only 1 dude could actually see (we lived way out in the Florida sticks at the time and he was closest). Pop asked them again nicely to leave and the one dude says "he's serious, let's go".

CCW simply means you don't have to choose to be at someone else's mercy should an encounter occur away from home is all.

[Nykc]

Craig328, on 13 May 2011 - 03:56 PM, said:

CCW simply means you don't have to choose to be at someone else's mercy should an encounter occur away from home is all.

I don't have my CCW, I am not at anyone else's mercy. If it is my time to die, it is my time to die. I will not submit to an attacker nor will walk around pretending that (if I did) have a CCW that I am immune from being victimized.

Just because you have a CCW does not mean that you are exempt from becoming their next victim. They have the advantage always.

This post has been edited by Nykc: 13 May 2011 - 01:12 PM

[Craig328]

Nykc, on 13 May 2011 - 04:03 PM, said:

I don't have my CCW, I am not at anyone else's mercy. If it is my time to die, it is my time to die. I will not submit to an attacker nor will walk around pretending that (if I did) have a CCW that I am immune from being victimized.

Just because you have a CCW does not mean that you are not at an attackers mercy. They have the advantage always.

Well, I can see how adopting a fatalistic viewpoint of your own mortality could relieve you of the steps you could take to help ensure it's not simply the whim of fate that decides when you expire. As I've said, all a CCW is is the freedom to make a choice for yourself. If you believe that being armored in your pure soul and being an all around good egg insulates you from the minute chance to be the victim of violent crime, great. You're the same guy who posted links and articles to situations that could easily have turned out differently had someone been armed and confronted the perp...but what is important, after all, when you adopt a fatalistic viewpoint, is how you feel about it and not the result itself.

The bald statement that you will not submit to an attacker and that they always have the advantage is more the product of wishful thinking and placement of an amount of faith in humanity that your posted article examples would tend to show to be...well...foolish or at least somewhat myopic. The good news is that there is no law forcing you to arm yourself and you can rest easily with the knowledge that those who do go about the process of obtaining a CCW and putting it to use are no threat to you (as shown by most statistics you can dig up).

So, it's all good. Nobody forces you to do something you don't want to (hopefully) and you don't have to discover whether having a means at hand to deter them from that course would be helpful or not. In your case, the answer if, God forbid, it were to happen will be "100% not".

Good luck.

[Nykc]

I just don't live my life in fear.

I can't speak on that for everyone though.

Maybe some greenhorn Che Guevara type CCW hero can save me when I'm forcibly compromised in Denny's parking lot.

This post has been edited by Nykc: 13 May 2011 - 01:26 PM

[supersloth]

they don't HAVE to help you, they'll remind you as they cower in the booth.

[Craig328]

Not many do. However, equating prudent preparedness to fear is erroneous.

Way back when during the Rodney King trial I was working in St. Petersburg when the riots broke out. They had to have us leave the campus of the electric utility I was working at via the back entrance because people were scaling the front fence. We all had to drive around 10 blocks through some sketchy neighborhoods just to make the interstate. Got home in time to see some guy on TV get yanked out of his truck and get smoked in the head with a brick. When you're driving through crazy traffic with people hanging out of windows yelling and shouting and you see something like that later on the TV, you begin to appreciate the value of being unnecessarily prepared.

I have friends who have folks who live in Gretna, LA who have some pretty riveting stories to tell about the first several days after Katrina. I adjusted property claims in south Florida for about 3 weeks after Andrew hit years back. The places where the national guard had humvees in intersections with a mounted .50 on the roof: safe as can be. A few blocks away out of sight: not so much.

Such things can happen and there's not always going to be people around to assure your safety.



Sometimes, the "help" is worse than the bad folk they're supposed to be helping against. But it's all a choice. Prepare and hope you never have to use your preparations or don't prepare and hang everything on the pretty good chance that nothing happens.

[RetardedGenius]

Thank you skyhawk133! Whenever I try to make this important point to people, who disagree with me, they never really seem to grasp the gravity of what I am trying to convey to them.

Over here the overwhelming majority of people have only even seen a firearm in the hands of a Police officer. Yet when I point this out to them they're not at all concerned. Has history taught us nothing!?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[WolfCoder]

skyhawk133, on 13 May 2011 - 12:13 PM, said:

...
Stop with the bullshit like every gun owner in America has some sort of fucking Rambo complex. It's blatantly inaccurate and paints one hell of a large swath across literally MILLIONS of good people who wouldn't harm a soul unless their life depended on it.
...

I was only referring to people with the hero complex, and not to you or most gun owners I know (includes my friend).