2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 111,952
- 52,201
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I am writing this thread in response to this post...
You see, trying to explain why one would want to carry a gun for self defense to some people is like trying to teach math to a dog...they don't understand what you believe and come back with that stupid first line...
Sooo...in an effort to explain why I believe in the right to keep and bear arms as not only a restriction on government's getting out of control, but also as a personal means of self-defense...here we go...
I grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago in the 1970s...it was as normal a place as you will find...especially then...one day I was visiting the Grand parents and I was riding my big wheel with my cousin who was on her bike...all of a sudden we were surrounded by a bunch of bigger kids...I wasn't in Kindergarden yet. They pulled me off of my big wheel and started pushing me around in the middle of their circle...it was shocking to experience at that age...they weren't doing it out of kindness. All of a sudden there was a man there...he stopped the pushing and read the riot act to the morons who attacked us...it turns out he was the gym teacher at the grade school I would eventually attend....His actions made a lasting impression on me...he stopped these kids who for no real reason did what they did...I know...compared to today it is hardly worth noticing...but for me, at that age...I'm 47 and have never forgotten it...
Next...first day of first grade...an older kid wanted to see my Big Jim lunch box as we were standing in line waiting to start the new school year...I said no...and he proceeded to push me down...I was so enraged my freinds had to hold my arms to keep me from getting beat up more...I remember the teacher taking me in to the bathroom to clean me up, and apologizing for what happened...
These two things showed early on that they actually happen...that unpleasant things like that come out of nowhere, often for no reason than the malice of other people...
In response to these incidents I became obsessed with martial arts...after watching Kung Fu and learning about Bruce Lee...I studied self defense and why violence happens...
Now a few more things that I experienced...
--When I was little, I was going to go and spend the night at my grandparents home...but before we left there was an incident across the street at a neighbors...a dog with foam on it's muzzle was confronting a woman...who was pregnant...on her front lawn...she was terrified...the dog kept barking and lunging, but never actually attacked...we called the police...but I left with my grandfather before it was resolved...I eventually learned that the dog wasn't rabid, but that it was just really hot out and the dog was too excited...
--Another time, my father was in the Reserves and was in Wisconsin for annual training...My grandparents were over. My brother yells from the bedroom that some guy was looking in the bedroom window...we called the police...now this was the 70s...no 911...the operator was either rude or incompetent or both...and failed to get the police to respond to the call...nothing actually happened...the guy went away...no harm done...the next day the police chief called the house and apologized about the police not showing up at all...
--as a teenager I had to pick my dad up from Iowa...he was a long haul trucker and parked his truck there...on the way home we broke down a long walk from the nearby oasis...I stayed with the car, he went to the oasis to call for a tow...no cell phones back then...as I was sitting in the car...another car pulled up in front of me...two guys jump out and start running toward my car...I thought at the time...this could be bad...no help...and two against one...it turned out okay...they just stopped to see if they could help...but when it started...I didn't know how it would turn out...again...isolated road...two against one...even with my martial arts training...
--another thing in my earlier life...on Friday night ABC or WGN played movies at 10:30...one friday the movie was "the fearless vampire killers" I always loved horror movies...Dracula (peter cushing and chrisopher lee) the Werewolf, Frankenstein...later the Night of the Living dead...anyway...the love interest was Sharon Stone...and wow...she was really pretty...it was during that movie that I learned that she and the labianca's were murdered by the manson family, lead by charlie manson...sometime in the future I watched the T.V. version of Helter Skelter...I thought at the time...she was pretty, they were rich...and these monsters came in and butchered them...literally...
Soooo...I learned some things growing up, and in no way was my life overly violent...even the bullies I encountered were weak sisters to the things you see today...but the lesson I saw was that bad things come out of nowhere...that you don't know when they will happen and they can be truly horrific...and the police may not be there on time or at all...
Life experience has not changed that understanding for me...now keep in mind...I am 47 and have never been in a fight as a teenager or as an adult...I avoided two possible fights due to my martial arts training...dealing with the instigators in a way that defused the tension...so my life has been completely violence free...but as a martial arts and self defense student I learned about crime, violence and the way humans behave...so I want to be prepared...
I also learned that no martial art is unbeatable...and that any fight even if won can change your life forever...for example...Mayor Daley in Chicago...his nephew got into an altercation with a guy at a bar...he punched the guy...the guy fell down and hit his head on the curb and died...one punch...and the guy died...
No martial art is a gaurantee of success in a fight...but the one thing I have realized through actually studying the issue is that of all the methods of self defense out there...a gun will give you the best chance of survival when you life is on the line against a violent criminal or group of criminals...it doesn't matter if they are armed, attack from ambush, or you are injured or outnumbered...of all the arts I have studied and researched, firearms are the most effective means to win...not perfect of course...but compared to anything else...they will help a woman survive, an older person...a person in a wheel chair...
Now as I have gotten older and watched and studied the issues of gun and self defense...you see cases of where a gun in the hands of a good person could have saved lives...
For example...along the lines of the monsters that came out of nowhere and destroyed Sharon Tate...This happened a couple of years ago...a woman started her day...she took her daughter to the local store to get groceries, her Doctor husband was napping on the couch at home...she packed up her groceries and she and her daughter headed home...not knowing they had attracted two monsters....they thought the mother and daughter were pretty and drove a nice car. The monsters followed the woman home, they took a baseball bat out of their car and entered the home...they woke the husband up from his nap by beating him in the head repeatedly...they captured the wife and two daughters...they raped all three. Later, they drove the wife to the bank to get money...she told the teller what was going on and they called the police...as the police surrounded the home, the two monsters killed the women and set fire to the house...the husband was the only survivor. Now imagine the wife has a concealed carry permit, or the husband...as the attackers come at her she draws her weapon and kill on or both or scares them off...even the husband...as he is getting hit with the bat...if he had a gun, he could have stopped the beating...and don't tell me that would be impossible...I have studied violent attacks, and it is entirely possible that he could have succeeded in shooting or driving off these monsters...I have read the real world stories of people stabbed, and strangled and hit with clubs who still manage to unholster their guns and shoot or drive off their attackers. A gun could have saved three lives and the existance of the surviving husband...
Do you think any member of that family woke up that day expecting that to happen?
Another one that always sticks in my mind...a girl was on her way back to college in Iowa...her car was found abandoned by the side of the road...she was never seen again...I think about that and I realize that today...if she had a cell phone...and a pistol...she could sit by that car all night...and all day...and safely wait for the police or a tow truck, because with that pistol...she could handle almost any random threat...it doesn't guarantee success...but she would have had a better chance with a pistol and the training to use it...
Another story I remember from a while back...4 teachers in Iowa or Indiana...they got together one night for dinner and conversation...two men break into the home...they herd the 4 educators 2 men and 2 women into one room...they rape both women...then, for giggles...they make the 4 people engage in various sex acts for their amusement...this happened in January...below freezing weather...the two monsters took each of them individually, naked and stuffed in the trunk of their car to ATM machines to get money...they then drove all four, naked, out to a snow covered corn field...made them kneel down...and shot each teacher in the head...however, they shot one of the women in a glancing blow...she was alive and played dead, in the freezing weather and snow, until the monster left, and then she walked a mile or more to a distant house for help...
If any of the four teachers had a carry permit, or if there was a gun in the house, they could have shot or driven off these two monsters...again...I have read the stories of actual encounters...people in situations like this using a gun have won, and survived...I have read the stories...
Another story a few weeks ago on the new show "NY Med" a man was walking his dog when two guys rushed him as he tried to enter his apartment...they had guns, he didn't..it was New York after all where the criminals have guns...one of the criminals held the guy at gun point, the other guy found the girlfriend in the bedroom and sexually assaulted her...they brought the two to the main room of the apartment, and after robbing them, they made it obvious that they were going to rape the woman...the boyfriend fought, empty handed against the two and they beat him mercilessly...while that happened the girlfreind go to a phone and called for help...now if either one had a gun...they could have stopped the attack...I have read stories like this where the victims defeated attackers...even in situations like this...Oh, and on the television show...the doctor didn't want to tell the boyfriend...who had extensive injuries that his girlfreind had been sexually assaulted in the bedroom...the boyfriend thought that he had saved her from the rape..
The rest of the story...the couple moved out of New York, now live in Ohio...and they now own guns for self defense....
another story...on an ABC show about crime a couple of Fridays ago...a teenage girl meets her ex-boyfriend outside her home for an "alleged" last hug...he ends up stabbing her in her face and neck over 17 times...the program followed her recovery and the court case against the ex boyfriend...the interesting thing...at the end of the show it showed her at a firing range...with her husband...one of the paramedics who helped save her life...they both shoot and her words at the end were that she would never be helpless again...so she now knows how to shoot, and has a gun for protection...
These stories happen...they happen everyday...so far nothing like it has ever happened to me or mine...but I try to be a stage 2 thinker...I know that though I am safe now...that may not always be the case, and when it is not the case I will very likely have no warning, nor will my family, or my friends I may be with...I am not paranoid, just rational. Every day people are raped, brutally beaten, robbed, murdered and tortured by men and women who have no compassion, no remorse and no regard for civilization or its rules...
I also know to people who were robbed at gun point...
A gun offers the best chance of survival when you encounter a monster...a human being without any of those qualities that would stay their hand from hurting you...I have studied martial arts all of my life and I know this to be true...
No, I have never used a gun for self-defense...but I know that if I faced a monster, a gun might very well save my life or the lives of my loved ones...and yes...accidents happen...and yes bad guys also use guns...but the important part is that guns give good people a chance to win, and live...
From my life experiences I know, know, that the police can't always be there to save you...you may be on your own while you are waiting for help...
So this foolish statement is completely wrong...guns don't make me feel powerful, manly or strong...I try to be a two stage thinker...I am safe now...but life experience shows that there actually are horrible people out there...and you won't know when you will encounter them...as Sharon Stone, the Labiancas and those teachers discovered...as their lives were destroyed...
It is like that commercial about heart attacks...where the person is going about their business and they get a note that you see says..."your heart attack will happen tomorrow" violent crime is like that in that you don't know where or when it will happen...and having a gun and knowing how to use it may very well allow you to live...
That is why I chose a gun as part of my plan for self defense...as Massad Ayoob points out...it is like a fire extinguisher in the home...you may never have a fire...but if you do...a fire extinguisher may save your life...the same as that device you put in your car that allows you to cut your seat belt and break your window in case of an accident...you may never end up upside down in a lake in your car...but just in case...
You see, trying to explain why one would want to carry a gun for self defense to some people is like trying to teach math to a dog...they don't understand what you believe and come back with that stupid first line...
Sooo...in an effort to explain why I believe in the right to keep and bear arms as not only a restriction on government's getting out of control, but also as a personal means of self-defense...here we go...
I grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago in the 1970s...it was as normal a place as you will find...especially then...one day I was visiting the Grand parents and I was riding my big wheel with my cousin who was on her bike...all of a sudden we were surrounded by a bunch of bigger kids...I wasn't in Kindergarden yet. They pulled me off of my big wheel and started pushing me around in the middle of their circle...it was shocking to experience at that age...they weren't doing it out of kindness. All of a sudden there was a man there...he stopped the pushing and read the riot act to the morons who attacked us...it turns out he was the gym teacher at the grade school I would eventually attend....His actions made a lasting impression on me...he stopped these kids who for no real reason did what they did...I know...compared to today it is hardly worth noticing...but for me, at that age...I'm 47 and have never forgotten it...
Next...first day of first grade...an older kid wanted to see my Big Jim lunch box as we were standing in line waiting to start the new school year...I said no...and he proceeded to push me down...I was so enraged my freinds had to hold my arms to keep me from getting beat up more...I remember the teacher taking me in to the bathroom to clean me up, and apologizing for what happened...
These two things showed early on that they actually happen...that unpleasant things like that come out of nowhere, often for no reason than the malice of other people...
In response to these incidents I became obsessed with martial arts...after watching Kung Fu and learning about Bruce Lee...I studied self defense and why violence happens...
Now a few more things that I experienced...
--When I was little, I was going to go and spend the night at my grandparents home...but before we left there was an incident across the street at a neighbors...a dog with foam on it's muzzle was confronting a woman...who was pregnant...on her front lawn...she was terrified...the dog kept barking and lunging, but never actually attacked...we called the police...but I left with my grandfather before it was resolved...I eventually learned that the dog wasn't rabid, but that it was just really hot out and the dog was too excited...
--Another time, my father was in the Reserves and was in Wisconsin for annual training...My grandparents were over. My brother yells from the bedroom that some guy was looking in the bedroom window...we called the police...now this was the 70s...no 911...the operator was either rude or incompetent or both...and failed to get the police to respond to the call...nothing actually happened...the guy went away...no harm done...the next day the police chief called the house and apologized about the police not showing up at all...
--as a teenager I had to pick my dad up from Iowa...he was a long haul trucker and parked his truck there...on the way home we broke down a long walk from the nearby oasis...I stayed with the car, he went to the oasis to call for a tow...no cell phones back then...as I was sitting in the car...another car pulled up in front of me...two guys jump out and start running toward my car...I thought at the time...this could be bad...no help...and two against one...it turned out okay...they just stopped to see if they could help...but when it started...I didn't know how it would turn out...again...isolated road...two against one...even with my martial arts training...
--another thing in my earlier life...on Friday night ABC or WGN played movies at 10:30...one friday the movie was "the fearless vampire killers" I always loved horror movies...Dracula (peter cushing and chrisopher lee) the Werewolf, Frankenstein...later the Night of the Living dead...anyway...the love interest was Sharon Stone...and wow...she was really pretty...it was during that movie that I learned that she and the labianca's were murdered by the manson family, lead by charlie manson...sometime in the future I watched the T.V. version of Helter Skelter...I thought at the time...she was pretty, they were rich...and these monsters came in and butchered them...literally...
Soooo...I learned some things growing up, and in no way was my life overly violent...even the bullies I encountered were weak sisters to the things you see today...but the lesson I saw was that bad things come out of nowhere...that you don't know when they will happen and they can be truly horrific...and the police may not be there on time or at all...
Life experience has not changed that understanding for me...now keep in mind...I am 47 and have never been in a fight as a teenager or as an adult...I avoided two possible fights due to my martial arts training...dealing with the instigators in a way that defused the tension...so my life has been completely violence free...but as a martial arts and self defense student I learned about crime, violence and the way humans behave...so I want to be prepared...
I also learned that no martial art is unbeatable...and that any fight even if won can change your life forever...for example...Mayor Daley in Chicago...his nephew got into an altercation with a guy at a bar...he punched the guy...the guy fell down and hit his head on the curb and died...one punch...and the guy died...
No martial art is a gaurantee of success in a fight...but the one thing I have realized through actually studying the issue is that of all the methods of self defense out there...a gun will give you the best chance of survival when you life is on the line against a violent criminal or group of criminals...it doesn't matter if they are armed, attack from ambush, or you are injured or outnumbered...of all the arts I have studied and researched, firearms are the most effective means to win...not perfect of course...but compared to anything else...they will help a woman survive, an older person...a person in a wheel chair...
Now as I have gotten older and watched and studied the issues of gun and self defense...you see cases of where a gun in the hands of a good person could have saved lives...
For example...along the lines of the monsters that came out of nowhere and destroyed Sharon Tate...This happened a couple of years ago...a woman started her day...she took her daughter to the local store to get groceries, her Doctor husband was napping on the couch at home...she packed up her groceries and she and her daughter headed home...not knowing they had attracted two monsters....they thought the mother and daughter were pretty and drove a nice car. The monsters followed the woman home, they took a baseball bat out of their car and entered the home...they woke the husband up from his nap by beating him in the head repeatedly...they captured the wife and two daughters...they raped all three. Later, they drove the wife to the bank to get money...she told the teller what was going on and they called the police...as the police surrounded the home, the two monsters killed the women and set fire to the house...the husband was the only survivor. Now imagine the wife has a concealed carry permit, or the husband...as the attackers come at her she draws her weapon and kill on or both or scares them off...even the husband...as he is getting hit with the bat...if he had a gun, he could have stopped the beating...and don't tell me that would be impossible...I have studied violent attacks, and it is entirely possible that he could have succeeded in shooting or driving off these monsters...I have read the real world stories of people stabbed, and strangled and hit with clubs who still manage to unholster their guns and shoot or drive off their attackers. A gun could have saved three lives and the existance of the surviving husband...
Do you think any member of that family woke up that day expecting that to happen?
Another one that always sticks in my mind...a girl was on her way back to college in Iowa...her car was found abandoned by the side of the road...she was never seen again...I think about that and I realize that today...if she had a cell phone...and a pistol...she could sit by that car all night...and all day...and safely wait for the police or a tow truck, because with that pistol...she could handle almost any random threat...it doesn't guarantee success...but she would have had a better chance with a pistol and the training to use it...
Another story I remember from a while back...4 teachers in Iowa or Indiana...they got together one night for dinner and conversation...two men break into the home...they herd the 4 educators 2 men and 2 women into one room...they rape both women...then, for giggles...they make the 4 people engage in various sex acts for their amusement...this happened in January...below freezing weather...the two monsters took each of them individually, naked and stuffed in the trunk of their car to ATM machines to get money...they then drove all four, naked, out to a snow covered corn field...made them kneel down...and shot each teacher in the head...however, they shot one of the women in a glancing blow...she was alive and played dead, in the freezing weather and snow, until the monster left, and then she walked a mile or more to a distant house for help...
If any of the four teachers had a carry permit, or if there was a gun in the house, they could have shot or driven off these two monsters...again...I have read the stories of actual encounters...people in situations like this using a gun have won, and survived...I have read the stories...
Another story a few weeks ago on the new show "NY Med" a man was walking his dog when two guys rushed him as he tried to enter his apartment...they had guns, he didn't..it was New York after all where the criminals have guns...one of the criminals held the guy at gun point, the other guy found the girlfriend in the bedroom and sexually assaulted her...they brought the two to the main room of the apartment, and after robbing them, they made it obvious that they were going to rape the woman...the boyfriend fought, empty handed against the two and they beat him mercilessly...while that happened the girlfreind go to a phone and called for help...now if either one had a gun...they could have stopped the attack...I have read stories like this where the victims defeated attackers...even in situations like this...Oh, and on the television show...the doctor didn't want to tell the boyfriend...who had extensive injuries that his girlfreind had been sexually assaulted in the bedroom...the boyfriend thought that he had saved her from the rape..
The rest of the story...the couple moved out of New York, now live in Ohio...and they now own guns for self defense....
another story...on an ABC show about crime a couple of Fridays ago...a teenage girl meets her ex-boyfriend outside her home for an "alleged" last hug...he ends up stabbing her in her face and neck over 17 times...the program followed her recovery and the court case against the ex boyfriend...the interesting thing...at the end of the show it showed her at a firing range...with her husband...one of the paramedics who helped save her life...they both shoot and her words at the end were that she would never be helpless again...so she now knows how to shoot, and has a gun for protection...
These stories happen...they happen everyday...so far nothing like it has ever happened to me or mine...but I try to be a stage 2 thinker...I know that though I am safe now...that may not always be the case, and when it is not the case I will very likely have no warning, nor will my family, or my friends I may be with...I am not paranoid, just rational. Every day people are raped, brutally beaten, robbed, murdered and tortured by men and women who have no compassion, no remorse and no regard for civilization or its rules...
I also know to people who were robbed at gun point...
A gun offers the best chance of survival when you encounter a monster...a human being without any of those qualities that would stay their hand from hurting you...I have studied martial arts all of my life and I know this to be true...
No, I have never used a gun for self-defense...but I know that if I faced a monster, a gun might very well save my life or the lives of my loved ones...and yes...accidents happen...and yes bad guys also use guns...but the important part is that guns give good people a chance to win, and live...
From my life experiences I know, know, that the police can't always be there to save you...you may be on your own while you are waiting for help...
So this foolish statement is completely wrong...guns don't make me feel powerful, manly or strong...I try to be a two stage thinker...I am safe now...but life experience shows that there actually are horrible people out there...and you won't know when you will encounter them...as Sharon Stone, the Labiancas and those teachers discovered...as their lives were destroyed...
It is like that commercial about heart attacks...where the person is going about their business and they get a note that you see says..."your heart attack will happen tomorrow" violent crime is like that in that you don't know where or when it will happen...and having a gun and knowing how to use it may very well allow you to live...
That is why I chose a gun as part of my plan for self defense...as Massad Ayoob points out...it is like a fire extinguisher in the home...you may never have a fire...but if you do...a fire extinguisher may save your life...the same as that device you put in your car that allows you to cut your seat belt and break your window in case of an accident...you may never end up upside down in a lake in your car...but just in case...
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