That sounded so wrong...

Niiiiice...

Now that's a bit puzzling to me, since if the opponent has a knife, that's already a situation that poses a potentially deadly threat. And if my opponent has a knife, I'm SURE AS HELL NOT going to want to meet him on equal terms!! THAT just results in two people getting cut up, & I'd just as soon pass on that, thanks.

Well... Best of luck!

Yeah, I understand that, & I think that we MAY be "sort of" on the same page - but the advice that I received was that "You're not trying to kill the intruder, and you're not trying to wound the intruder - you're just trying to STOP THE THREAT."

Perhaps a miniscule distinction, but possibly one worth making.


I'm sure that SOME people would argue with that - I'm typically not one of those people...

Oh yeah, it wasn't that subtle...


AMEN brotha. (And thank you!) I ALSO hope I never do - but these days, I'd rather HAVE the training & not NEED it, than to NEED the training & not have it...

Yeah, thank you Reb. Colorado's (apparently) pretty much the same - our "Castle law" shields residents from both criminal AND civil prosecution if you can articulate a reasonable fear that the intruder was going to commit another crime within the residence (which is REALLY nice compared to a number of other states).

It's not a blanket "get out of jail free" card, but it DOES shift the burden of proof away from the resident.

APPARENTLY - He dropped right away. When I spoke with others who'd gone through the scenario, they talked about having to fire three times or more. I fired once, he went to the floor.

Like I said, the room was dark - but his behavior would SEEM to indicate a good hit... <shrug>

Mmmmmmm, pizza....

For the record, this was a training course that I attended. The intent was to show that MANY times, things aren't "cut and dried". Real life is MESSY. Decisions have to be made in a split-second that can have MASSIVE implications.

I don't know that you can say that there was always a "right answer" - I think that the intent was to show how "muddy" and "F'd up" real life situations can be, so that we can be (at least fractionally) prepared for them...

And HONESTLY??!? If I DO make the decision to carry a concealed weapon (a decision which is still VERY MUCH "up in the air"!), I think it's honestly made me LESS likely to intervene in any situation that isn't "cut and dried" "innocent vs. bad guy" (and I know that's MOST of them!)

I'm d@mn sure NOT G*d. And I'm not going to *pretend* that I can make decisions like that...

But at the same time... It's D@MN SURE helpful/useful to be thrown into a situation like that, just to stimulate the thought processes that would otherwise NEVER be activated...

I don't know if it will help anyone's perceptions if I say that his actions justified the shooting...

Basically, it was a messed-up situation all the way around - Nate is a dark-skinned black guy, he was wearing black shirt & pants in a dark room, rummaging around in my stuff, and when I appeared in the doorway, he brought his hands up in the unmistakable manner of someone trying to sight a weapon...

I could hear the rummaging as I was walking toward the doorway, & until I actually laid eyes upon him, I thought that there could be two, or perhaps even three people in the room. No one was authorized to be there, & I certainly didn't expect to hear the voice (or voices) as I was walking down the hall approaching the room.

Holding the gun before me, I "sliced the pie" as I'd been taught, & it was only at the very end as I actually entered the room that I saw him - and I only had a FRACTION OF A SECOND to make a shoot/don't-shoot decision as I saw his hands coming up in the familiar isosceles shooting stance... I pulled the trigger once, & saw him drop right away.

FORTUNATELY, this was a training exercise. Nate is an instructor with the team that I was training with today, & the gun that I used was a "RAM pistol" which uses CO2 cartridges to fire .43 caliber hard-rubber balls, you can think of them as "BB guns on steroids". (I've been on the receiving end of these projectiles, & while they *definitely* sting, they're 99.999% non-lethal. (The marks that they left on me looked like someone put a cigarette out on my skin.)

After it was all done, I freaked a bit - I *KNEW* what I'd seen, but I *also* knew that what I'd seen was incomplete. I'd seen his hands come up in the classic "acquiring sight alignment" manner, but I *hadn't* actually seen a weapon. Had I been bluffed?? Had I shot an "unarmed" man???

My "coach" for the exercise (initially) wasn't much help - he asked me "Couldn't you have verbally challenged him?" My response was "I saw his hands coming up like this" (and I mimicked someone bringing a gun up) & I didn't have time to do anything but decide to shoot or not!!" I then followed up with the question that was foremost in my mind - "Did he really have a weapon, or not??!?" My coach looked me straight in the eyes & grinned - "Yeah, he had a weapon, you did good!"

HOLY CRAP. It's no exaggeration to say that I'd *SERIOUSLY* second-guessed the decision that I'd made - but at the same time, I don't know how I could do anything differently in the same situation. I found that I'm *REALLY* glad that I'm not a cop, and I *PRAY* that I'm NEVER in a situation where I have to make a judgment call like this - because your *ENTIRE LIFE* can balance on a decision made based on the basis of information gathered in a fraction of a second...

"...planned for Sunday"

Good - that gives me a *BIT* of time to load a couple more magazines for the b@st@rds...

Every time I see a headline like this, my "BS antennae" start twitching - you know the saying, 'there are lies, d@mned lies, & statistics'...

In this case, I find myself wondering exactly WHO is being counted in this study - I know it says 'American kids', but are they including the families of illegal immigrants, perhaps by passively not filtering their data?

Is this "National Center on Family Homelesness" behind the scenes pushing for increased funding?

What's the ultimate objective behind crafting a headline that's so obviously intended to manipulate emotions??

Believe it or not, I HATE to be such a cynical @$$, but entirely TOO often, cynicism has proven to be justified. It reminds me of a saying that I've read - "The more cynical I get, the more I realize that I just can't keep up!"

Depends on which one you talk to, I guess.

I had one that, YEARS after we'd split, asked a mutual friend to tell me that she was going back to school, etc. That bummed me out a bit, because I knew that there was NO way I'd go back to her, & I don't want anyone pining uselessly after me.

My current "ex" (still feels weird to think of her that way) still tells me "You're a good man!" which raises at least as many questions as it answers...

She looks like one of the girls that's started to attend the workout class that I go to...

I'm thinking "It's getting a bit cold out there - I think I'm going to build a fire tonight..."

True - but life without the occasional shot of adrenaline just isn't worth living!