Now that I’m all graduated, I have a few seconds to respond.

He puts GHB in your drink while you weren’t looking, and your gun is pretty much useless because you can’t focus enough to use it.

True, true. See, I was focusing on the issue of straight-up attack. Actually, though, when I took self-defence, they spent four hours teaching us how to avoid being attacked in the first place, and an additional eight hours teaching us how to fend off attackers. Arguably, if you follow their model, you will be out with friends when the guy slips you a roofie, and your gun-toting friends can then pull out a Colt .45 on them before they haul your drugged self off into a back room.

As for self-defence training in general… do you have any idea how hard it is to get girls to do it?!? I’m tried dragging my girl friends to RAD (which does a fantastic job), and they don’t want to go. They’ll never be attacked. Or they have cell phones. Or they don’t have the time. Or, in the case of a (now-former, for semi-obvious reasons) friend, because she always has guy friends around her. No one would dare try anything with a guy nearby. When I pointed out that she ought to a) rely on herself, instead of being a parasite, and b) know how to defend herself because the guys aren’t going to accompany her to the bathroom, she got into a snit. Sigh.

If you’ve got the gun, and freeze up and don’t use it, you’re in worse trouble than if you didn’t have it at all…and if you panic and pre-emptivly blow someone away, you have to live with that for the rest of your life. Even highly trained preofessionals make mistakes in judgement in the use of their fire-arms.

Thing is, you don’t need to shoot a gun in order to use it for self-defence. A lot of criminals are deterred by the presence of the gun; I’ve heard numerous stories of people who got out of bad situations simply by holding a gun in the palm of their hand and showing it to the would-be-perps.

Apparently, some guy pulled a gun on her and demanded her purse.

She went completely ballistic on him, took away his gun, and began hitting him. He was apprehended by police. This is an average-sized woman with no training, apparently…and a criminal who was far too reliant on the gun commanding obedience, and was not prapared to use it.

There’s no real point to that story…

I just thought you’d get a kick out of it.

You forgot one.

He puts GHB in your drink while you weren’t looking, and your gun is pretty much useless because you can’t focus enough to use it.

I think there’s too much stress put on guns as defense against rape. there’s a lot of things you can do to protect yourself before you even come face-to-face with a rapist…and frankly, anyone who is carrying a gun for self-defense should have the proper training…which people tend not to do. They do the bare minimum required by law, if that. Beyond that, you should do other types of self-defense training for situations where you are without your gun.

If you’ve got the gun, and freeze up and don’t use it, you’re in worse trouble than if you didn’t have it at all…and if you panic and pre-emptivly blow someone away, you have to live with that for the rest of your life. Even highly trained preofessionals make mistakes in judgement in the use of their fire-arms.

Also, if you have children in the house, they should be properly trained to handle (and NOT to handle) firearms…especially if you are going to use them for self defense, since they will not be locked up, will be loaded, and will not have trigger locks.

I’m not arguing with you that the gun is one useful tool…but the general approach to the use of guns for self-defense is wrong-headed, and until I see that improved in the general population…I’m uneasy about making them eaiser to carry around casually than they already are.