MF1433V
Gold Member
It's not cliche and when it is said that if you have a gun you had better be able to use it to kill if needed is good advice. It does NOT suggest you should or will need to kill someone. What it means is a criminal may be robbing / burglarizing and have absolutely no intention of harming anyone. But if you introduce a firearm into the situation to stop the robbery that is a game changer, as it escalates the situation. At that point the criminal could see it as a mortal threat and decide to kill/harm you instead. So if you display a gun you had better be ready to kill if necessary otherwise you may be increasing your chances of being killed yourself.
Defending yourself IMO is an absolute right. The right of self preservation is as natural as the right to breath (or keep breathing). But defending yourself against a crime is an escalation of the event. My belief is every citizen has the right to escalate the event until the threat is gone.
In line with this if an unarmed robber is the criminal, and the victim introduces a firearm but will not use it (or does not know how) the victim may be doing nothing but providing a weapon for the criminal. Same goes for any weapon. Introduce a knife in a fight you better know how to use it. If your opponent is better at knife fighting and knows how to disarm you, than you have escalated the situation to deadly threat by pulling the knife and have now provided a knife to your opponent if he obtains control of the knife. Scary stuff if you don't know how to knife fight.
So I think your point was you don't have to intend to kill you can "bluff" out of it, which may be true, but I wouldn't bluff on my life. A better weapon for someone who could not pull the trigger is pepper spray, stun gun,...etc.
