What’s not to like?

A bit of Photoshop bravado, but would it do any harm to have such an engraving on your primary self defense arm?  Kinda sorta.

Lots of people will say that, should one be forced to defend lives against violent criminal attack, there is a good chance of being sued by the family of the guilty.  All it takes for an ambulance-chasing lawyer to ruin your life and take all you own is to get the jury to feel mad or uncomfortable about the person who had to pull the trigger.  Outright expressions of confidence, let alone aggression, will go a long way towards convincing the jury that it is reasonable for the judge to award half of every paycheck you will ever earn to the aggrieved.

Let me put it another way.  It might say “WRONG HOUSE” on the muzzle, but you won’t be able to afford anything but a cardboard box behind the convenience store after the jury gets a gander at your gat.

My take on it is a bit more immediate.  It takes money to get a gun engraved, money that can be spent on the ammunition and range time needed to become a better shooter.  Why waste it on something that won’t help you survive an emergency situation?

If that argument doesn’t have any weight, then consider this.  After you are forced to defend, the police will confiscate your gun.  After all, it is evidence!

That means the gun you spent extra money to bling up will be sitting in an evidence locker somewhere, uncleaned and rusting away, until after the trial is over and the judge hands down a decision.  If the criminal skips bail and the trial is postponed until he is caught, this might take decades.  Any extra money you spent on the gun will be a waste if this happens.

I have spent most of my life terrified beyond measure!

A powerful organization, vast and impersonal and unaccountable, would collect my most personal information.  Every year they would publish it, and spread thousands upon thousands of copies all across the city or town where I lived.  Anyone could find out how to find me simply by thumbing though a few pages, even those who wished me harm!

I’m speaking, of course, of the phone book.

Wait a minute!  Didn’t I start this essay by stating that I was terrified of the phone book?

Yeah, well, that was a total lie.  Not only have I never been even slightly anxious at the thought of anyone in the world being able to find out my phone number or where I live, I actually found it to be very convenient.  Most of my students heard of my services through word-of-mouth, and they would call my personal number after looking it up in the telephone directory.

I have received three death threats from people who wanted me to stop training this or that student, and I can’t see how the criminals who called me found my phone number any other way than by simply looking it up.  I could have paid for an unlisted number, but then it would have been very difficult for prospective students to seek me out.

Not that I gave it much thought, as my reaction was not what the criminals were looking for.

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Hunger has driven her mad!  If only I was there to save her!  I would share my lunch, stat!

Yes, I did just eat an entire pizza by myself.  Like you have never done that!

(The gun is a BB gun.  You can tell by the odd slide.)

What is a fallacy?  An argument which uses poor or erroneous logic.  Fallacies are always wrong.

One such fallacy is the slippery slope.  Advocates of 2nd Amendment rights have resisted laws which require government registration, saying that it is just a first step before outright confiscation of their firearms.

Those which advocate gun control laws say that these fears are based on a fallacy, and so must be wrong.  For some reason they never admit that they are wrong when the government starts to confiscate guns.

What happens if you get a round stuck in the barrel of your .357 Magnum?  The proper response is not to keep firing in the hope that the next bullet will unblock the stoppage.

That is a terrible way to ruin a good gun.

(Originally here, but this page led me to it.  Thanks to Greg for the heads up!)

People who are interested in armed self defense always want to discuss certain details about their defensive arm.  Make, model, caliber, type of ammo.  There is endless conversation concerning the relative merits of this or that gun, this or that after market feature, this or that defensive ammunition.

Why talk about it so much?  Mainly because people want others to know that they have given a great deal of thought to maximizing their potential for surviving a violent criminal attack.  They reason that they are more effective in a gunfight with this gun instead of that one, this style of grips over another, or this particular brand of hollowpoints.  These details are sexy!

I generally don’t mind if people want to talk to me about such things, but there are more important issues at hand when it comes to choosing a handgun for concealed carry.  Issues such as reliability, concealability, durability, and price.  You have to deal with these before you get to the sexy.

I have been spending a fair amount of time over the past two weeks trying to help a student of mine with an interesting problem.  You see, she is a runner.  Not only that, but she is a marathoner who spends five days a week heading at speed for the far horizon.

She wants to take her gun with her when she is fleet of foot and on the road, a decision I approve of.  The problem being that the only place she can carry it without throwing off her stride or causing a major distraction in some way is in a shoulder holster.  This means her handgun is going to be steeping in underarm sweat for a couple of hours every day she trains.

So the question is : How does she protect her gun, the device she needs to rely on to function correctly in an emergency, from the corrosion that saltwater brings?

Hmmm.  Tricky.

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