Thursday, December 4, 2008

Tam Puts One in the 10-Ring

Excellent advice to anyone with a CCW license. I have to say, read this a couple times and then read it again. And if you were looking for another blog to add to your list, View From The Porch would be a nice one to consider.

9 comments:

cnick said...

This sounds like something from an alternate universe. Where do you people live, the Korengal Valley?

MeatAxe said...

Keep dreaming, grass eater.

cnick said...

Hey, I have no illusions about bad people out there. I just think if your goal is to maximize personal safety, guns are likely not a cost-effective or time-effective means of doing so. Like the article says, if you are going to use a gun for self-defense, you need to train and train heavily, otherwise you won't be ready if you need it. And the amount of time, effort, and money you spend on that training is time, money, and effort you aren't spending on something else; things that dollar-for-dollar, minute-for-minute, probably have a much higher impact on your personal safety than the vanishingly small chance that you will be confronted with a situation in which (a) a gun is necessary and (b) you are lucky enough to use it effectively in that situation.

If you like guns because they're fun, that's fine. If you believe carrying a gun actually make you safer, I don't buy it.

Tam said...

"And the amount of time, effort, and money you spend on that training is time, money, and effort you aren't spending on something else"

In my case, that something else is, say, golf, or watching teevee, or scrapbooking.

How neat! The time I'd otherwise be spending on the links or in a flower-arranging course, I could be spending on a fun and healthy hobby that may, in an unlikely event, actually save my life. Even if it doesn't ever get used (and I fervently hope it doesn't), I had a good time and got a self-confidence boost, much like any other practitioner of the martial arts...

MeatAxe said...

I'd just like to add -- the more training you do, the more chance you have of reacting well in a life threatening situation. But you don't have to be Rambo, or Jerry Miculek, either. Its a sliding scale, not a binary proposition. I

n a Mumbai-like situation, or even a hypothetical bank robbery or convenience store stickup, you have more of a chance if you are holding a firearm than if you aren't.

And if you're interested in actual government statistics that support that point of view, I'm more than happy to point that out to you.

Also: Cool. Tam posted on my blog!

cnick said...

What is more likely - that you are severely injured in a convenience store stickup, or that you get in a life-threatening car accident? Perhaps you might choose to spend time, money, and effort on improving your own driving skills and on maintaining the safety of your vehicle. I'd be willing to bet that you'd get a lot more return on your safety investment on stuff like that than you would on handgun training.

The point isn't that training with guns doesn't make you safer; it's that in all likelihood any improvement you see is small compared to the opportunity cost of other safety investments.

But again, if you get enjoyment out of said training, then go ahead and do it! Just don't try to justify to rational people like me that its all about safety.

Tam said...

"Perhaps you might choose to spend time, money, and effort on improving your own driving skills..."

Ah, another hobby of mine that has real-world benefits! (And more frequently used ones than action pistol shooting.)

You should go try a good driving school! w00t!

MeatAxe said...

Its not a zero sum game. You can do both. And owning and knowing how to use a gun does makes you safer.

"There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993."
URL: http://www.guncite.com/gcdgklec.html

Also:
"In general, self-protection measures of all types are effective, in the sense of reducing the risk of property loss in robberies and confrontational burglaries, compared to doing nothing or cooperating with the offender. The most effective form of self-protection is use of a gun. For robbery the self-protection meaures with the lowest loss rates were among victims attacking the offender with a gun, and victims threatenting the offender with a gun. For confrontational burglarly, attacking with a gun had the second lowest loss rate of sixteen self-protection measures, bested only by another mode of armed self-protection, threatening the offender with a nongun weapon." (p. 291)

"[W]hile defensive gun use is generally safe, it does not appear to be uniquely safe among self-protection methods as data from earlier NCVS data suggested. Nevertheless, there does not appear to be any increase in injury risk due to defensive gun use that counterbalances its greater effectiveness in avoiding property loss." (p. 292)

URL: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgeff.html

MeatAxe said...

PS. And its fun.

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