Gunner wrote:
Rules of Gunfighting

I'm surely wasting my time here; but...

I've always liked Izaak Azimov's idea: "Violence is the last refuge
of incompetence."

In other words, if you're in a gunfight, then you've already made at
least one mistake, and all your subsequent choices and decisions are
suspect. In fact, if you can't make good choices BEFORE the shooting
starts, then the odds that you'll do any better when surrounded by
noise, bullets, and mortal danger, are vanishingly small.

This also applies to knife fights, fist fights, road rage, and even
arguments that involve loud voices or foul language. If you think of
life as fundamentally confrontational, then YOUR life WILL be; and you
will NOT enjoy what happens when you meet someone else just like you.

The trouble is, most of the people who write things like these
"Rules of Gunfighting" don't believe a word of what they've written.
And, somewhere deep inside, most of them are secretly praying that
nobody else believes them either. There AREN'T any rules for gunfights.
Gunfights only happen when rules are ignored, and when order, logic, and
all other forms of reason have already been tossed aside. To propose
some logical, "intelligent" way to plan or conduct a gunfight is
preposterous.

If you're holding a gun, and thinking in terms of some prescribed
course of action, or attempting to rely on some accepted codes of
conduct, or acting on the advice of someone who wasn't in a gunfight at
the moment he wrote his list of rules, then you're probably going to
die. In fact, the surest way to LOSE a gunfight is to imagine that
rules, order, or planning are even possible. Those who kill and destroy
most successfully are the people most willing to understand this fact,
and to take advantage of others who won't. This is why a sneak attack
is more likely to succeed than an overt assault. It's why ambush is
such a staple of warefare at all levels. It's why shooting someone in
the back is always safer (for the shooter) than a face-to-face
confrontation. It's why guerilla warriors are so often successful even
against larger and better equipped "regular" armies.

And, it's why terrorism has become such a popular form of combat
among so many of the world's most confrontational people. If you think
it's a good idea to bring a knife to a fistfight, or a gun to a knife
fight, or a bunch of armed friends to a gunfight, then you have no right
to be surprised or angry if your enemies decide to bring a fleet of
hijacked aircraft to attack you and all your armed friends. The
terrorists are only doing what you did; but they're more honest about
it. They understand that there aren't any rules, once violence has
begun, and that people who imagine themselves able to be armed AND
reasonable make very easy targets.

And if you CLAIM to be armed and reasonable at the same time, then
it's very likely that you're either badly mistaken, or lying through
your teeth.

I'm often amazed that people who own guns, who understand guns, and
who've invested time and effort in knowing how to use and maintain their
guns, so often attempt to reassure their friends and neighbors about
matters concerning gun safety, and about how their skill and knowledge
offer protection against accidents, and against improper or unauthorized
use of their guns, etc. These same people, who take such great care to
ensure the safety and responsilbe use of any individual firearm, seem to
have no corresponding concern for the much bigger and more important
matter of safety and responsibility regarding ALL firearms, and of the
principles which guide (or ought to) the choices about ownership and use
of guns throughout an entire culture.

Someone who'd never look down the barrel of a loaded gun too often
seems more than willing to look at loaded, dangerous ideas and
proposals, and not to worry about what those ideas mean, or the harm
they could do if not challenged and refuted. Someone who'd never
carelessly fire even a single bullet into a crowd of innocent people
will fire massive salvos of half-truths, self-serving lies, and
undiluted paranoia into any public forum, without apparent regard for
ANYONE's safety or well being. Someone who would never allow his gun to
harm even one small child, or innocent bystander, or falsely accused
criminal suspect, seems to care not a bit about the fact that his ideas,
proposals, and politics, can become a real and constant danger to EVERY
individual, and to our society as a whole.

And the reason for all this is a simple matter of dishonesty and
self-deceit.

Charleton Heston does NOT really want me to pry his gun from his
cold, dead fingers. He's lying when he says that. What he really wants
is to convince me that he's mean enough, dangerous enough, and crazy
enough, so that I won't ever disagree with ANYTHING he says, for fear
that it'll be MY cold, dead body that really ends up being at issue.

The guy down the street from me, who keeps his unloaded handgun
(with trigger lock) in the closet, his unloaded shotgun in a gun-vault,
and his ammunition in a a safe place in the basement, does NOT believe
that any of those things will protect him if armed thugs break into his
house in the middle of the night. He also doesn't believe that
something like that is really going to happen, or he'd also have bars on
his windows, and a big mean dog in his yard, and more. Or, he'd move to
another neighborhood, instead of letting his family live someplace where
violent crime is a real threat or worry. He also doesn't believe that
his family would be safer if he kept his guns loaded, handy, and
available for immediate use as protection. That's WHY he keeps them
locked away. The truth is that he just happens to like things that are
smooth, and heavy, and precisely crafted, and that feel good and scary
and powerful in his hands. And he's willing to lie to himself, to make
excuses to everybody else, and to keep his toys locked away where he
can't even get to them easily, just for the thrill of taking them out
once or twice a year to shoot at a bird or a paper target. Hunting and
target shooting are fine; but lying isn't. This guy isn't honest enough
just to say that he likes noisy and dangerous toys. So he talks about
security, and about the right to bear arms, and all the rest. And not a
single word of it has anything to do with his real thoughts or motives.

And the guy who wrote those "Rules of Gunfighting" doesn't believe
even one of them. If he did, he'd never have said a word about his
beliefs to anyone else. He SURELY wouldn't have published them, and
allowed them to become magazine articles or internet newsgroup postings.
Why not? Because the rules don't work - CAN'T work - if anybody else
knows about them or believes in them. If the rules actually made sense,
and if this author were successful in his attempt to insinuate them into
popular knowledge and practice, then he'd soon (and often) find himself
among people who carry two guns, who are surrounded by armed friends,
who think distance is good idea, and who therefore never get too close
to anybody. He'd live in constant fear of people who are always
planning how and where to fire, who alwyas have their guards up, who
expect HIM always to keep his hands where they can be seen, who carry
only large caliber or long-barrelled weapons, which are more likely to
injure or kill ANYONE who happens to be in the line of fire - even from
three blocks away, who plan to shoot twice, at least, and who therefore
intend only to kill, and never just to wound or disable any (real or
imagined) adversary, and who are generally as scary, menacing, and
suspicious as possible, because of all the 360 lookout stuff, and the
fast, lateral or diagonal movement toward cover.

Is that REALLY what this rules-writer wants to see when he steps out
of his home every morning? I doubt it. In fact, I'm sure it's not
true. What this person REALLY wants is to brag about how clever he can
be in creating absurd, imaginary situations where he's better prepared
than everybody else to deal with fictitious, video-game scenarios. If
he were serious about all this stuff as a way to keep himself safe, then
he'd want to be sure that he was the ONLY one who knew the rules; and
that he had the advantage of being BETTER prepared than ANYBODY else he
might happen to meet. If he meets someone who believes him, or who acts
just like him, then he's screwed.

And that part about "a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence,
and de-escalation" is hogwash. Someone walking down the street with a
gun in each hand, and a posse of armed friends at his back, won't
convince ANYBODY that he's interested in being reasonable.

And, since we're talking about honesty, let's go all the way and
make it direct and real. Nobody - not Gunner, not Charleton Heston, not
the guy down the street, and not the author of these so-called rules -
could possibly be more safe, more secure, or more likely to avoid harm,
if everyone believed the ideas that too often pass for justification of
firearm ownership. If violence is really a concern, then security comes
from being BETTER armed, BETTER prepared, and more WILLING to act, than
everybody else.

If we all thought and behaved in accordance with what too many
pro-gun preachers keep telling us, then you COULDN'T bring a gun to a
knife fight. There wouldn't BE any knife fights. There'd only be gun
fights. And they'd only involve large groups of people, since we'd all
travel only with armed friends. And nobody'd ever get wounded. Every
fight would be to the death. And we'd all be ready to shoot first,
shoot often, and to kill rather than be killed, every time even the
smallest disagreement sparked any kind of conflict. We'd have to be,
because we'd have to assume that the other guy was that ready, and that
much on edge, and that willing to fire; and because shooting first and
asking questions later really IS the only possible protection in that
kind of environment. And the overall level of safety for EVERYONE would
be smaller. MUCH smaller.

And if you carry this idea to its logical conclusion, then the only
people who'd really be safe would be the ones who understand that there
aren't any rules when bullets are flying, and that order, discipline,
and the desire to interact peacefully with other human beings is a
weakness to be exploited. The only way to be safe would be to make
yourself more dangerous, more menacing, more deadly than anybody else
around you. And that, IMHO, isn't the best way to run a world. If it
were, then folks like Hitler, and Stalin, and Bin Laden, would be heroes
rather than feared and hated criminals.

I'm tempted to say something like "I'll carry a gun when you force
it into my cold, dead fingers"... but somebody'd probably believe me.
And people who believe you are ALWAYS dangerous, when you're preaching
something that's fundamentally wrong or dishonest.

KG

I'm sick of spam.
The 2 in my address doesn't belong there.