Painful Lies and Boring
Facts About Being Armed

I'm in a rut. I read the endless stream of 'gun-control' proposals and I have the same reaction time after time. 'gun-control' advocates promise us safety in return for further restricting the ability of ordinary citizens to go armed. Those excuses would be laughable if they didn't cost so many lives. It is easier for us to recognize the false-claims of 'gun-control' if we have a sense of proportion and perspective. Then we can see it is a step backwards when we create a larger problem as we work to solve a smaller one. If we actually want to save lives then we have to see the big picture and do no harm.

Ordinary citizens defend themselves with a gun several thousand times a day. Our armed defense stops tens of thousands of robberies, assaults, and rapes. It saves thousands of lives a year. Many thousands. Despite that immense virtue, nothing is perfect. We are human so there are problems with armed defense.

'Gun-control' runs into problems precisely because armed defense saves so many lives. To change our laws and save a few more lives tomorrow, we can't reduce the many lives we save each day. It is hard to pass a 'gun-control' law that will do no harm. Let me give you an example to make that clear.

Each week I analyze how ordinary people defended themselves with a firearm. I advocate for instruction, training, and practice. I encourage people to plan for lethal and non-lethal defense. We talk about avoidance and de-escalation all the time. Sure, I want gun owners to be trained, but I have perspective.

Week after week we see criminals break into a home. Grandma grabs her gun and says she is armed. The robber runs away because grandma wasn't the victim he expected. The great news is that eight-times-out-of-ten the bad guys runs away before we have to fire a shot. .....