First, who are ". . . the gun nuts on this forum. . ." and what do they continually advise? Do they recommend suicidal responses in surprise situations?[...]
I'm walking up the street to my home. A plain car pulls up and two guys, who are wearing no type of uniform and never identify themselves at all, jump out of the car and pull guns on me. I wouldn't figure out that they were cops until later. But in the moment, had I been walking around packing heat like the gun nuts on this forum continually advise, I would have naturally used it to defend myself. Depending on how good a shot I was (and they were) there would have been some degree of fatality. For no reason at all --- I'm pretty sure cops are required to identify themselves as such. For all I knew these were kidnappers or random murderers/robbers, or whatever.
[...]
You say you were walking home when two guys jumped out of a car with guns (presumably) pointed at you. Then you say if you were carrying you would have done exactly the wrong thing, which is to reach for your own gun -- which, without being absolutely certain these guys intend to kill you, would be stupidly suicidal.
Applying basic logic, if those two guys intended to kill you they would already have begun shooting, so what makes you think you would have time to reach for your own gun? So it follows the only sensible thing to do under those surprising circumstances is to freeze, hope, and wait.
So I strongly doubt that anyone has advised you to do something stupidly suicidal.
Believe it. I've seen this wacko comic book fantasy advice posted here over and over. And again --- obviously I don't believe in said advice, and never have. It's stupid. And I've told them as much, using this same story.
Thus I'm still here, voilà.
And lived to get my three hours sleep before I had to walk out to the same trolley on the same street to go back to work.