If You Carry, You Must Be Willing to Shoot or the Consequences Could be Deadly

A firearm is not a magical defense tool. While many criminals run away at the mere sight of a firearm in the hands of a self defender, not all criminals do. If you draw your firearm, you MUST be willing to pull the trigger.

If You Carry, You Must Be Willing to Shoot or the Consequences Could be Deadly Pistol Drill

From time to time, I hear statements similar to: “I only need a handgun to scare someone off, I don’t need to shoot it.” or more commonly “I only need a small gun to scare someone off.” While it is true that most self defense encounters do not result in shots fired, it is not a guarantee.

A firearm is a tool of lethal force. If a criminal is confronted by a firearm, they will run, or fight back with lethal force. By refusing to pull the trigger, you are bluffing with your life, hoping the criminal will run. If you happen to confront a criminal who doesn’t want to run, the results could be fatal.

This woman carried a firearm, but was unwilling to use it, and paid dearly for it.

A firearm is not a magical defense tool. While many criminals run away at the mere sight of a firearm in the hands of a self defender, not all criminals do. If you draw your firearm, you MUST be willing and capable of pulling the trigger. Furthermore, the tool must be capable of sufficiently ending the threat and the user must have sufficient skills to utilize a handgun as a defensive tool.

1: Don’t carry a firearm that is not capable of ending a threat.

2: Don’t carry a firearm you are not proficient in.

3: Don’t carry a firearm if you are unwilling to pull the trigger.

If you can’t check of all three of those checkboxes, it is generally better to not carry a firearm for self defense and instead comply with an attacker’s demands and hope it is enough.

Written by - always a student, sometimes a teacher.

I don't consider myself a competition shooter - I think of myself as a performance pistol shooter. I am all about performing at as high of a level as possible. Towards that end, I am obsessive about learning how to perform. I spend a lot of my life learning from the best across the entire firearms world and even into other areas of performance and other sports. I am a USPSA Carry Optics Grandmaster, currently working towards my second GM title in the Open division.

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