Brigid has a great post on preparedness
and defense, and it’s excellent reading as always.
The thing you need to remember is the training and the drilling and the workout will get you to that moment. The moment when you are face to face with an attacker and you have managed to get your firearm pointed at him/her.
That moment in time is important. Either you will take out your attacker, or you will be taken out yourself, and the difference is a different kind of preparedness.
Are you prepared to take a life? Are you prepared to deal with the legal ramifications of taking a life? Are you prepared to hit the road and never go back, if you have to? Are you willing to go to jail because of what you are about to do? Odds are good that you might, in this world. Are you morally prepared to end another human life? this is not a deer or a bear. This is a human being, capable of thought, a fellow traveller no matter how deranged. Are you at peace with God and the idea that you are standing in God’s stead, preparing to take someone’s life away?
That moment when your adrenaline is pumping and your attacker’s is too, and the muzzle of the gun is trembling a bit, perhaps, that moment is not the moment to be having these thoughts. Spend a part of every day picturing yourself in that situation, so that when the time comes, you have already had that inner dialog. If you are sane, it’s a godawful decision to make, and if you are normal, if you’re not heavily prepared ahead of time, you will falter, and die.
The mental preparedness to take a life is what separates victor from victim. The will to understand when it’s time to shoot, shoot. An awful lot of people think they’re ready to make that split second decision, but until you find yourself in that situation, you just don’t know. It would be a horrible shame if, at that moment, when your physical training has saved your life, if your lack of mental preparedness lost it agian, for you.
Sherriff Tom Bell(Tommy Lee Jones) is not the hero of “No country for old men”, it’s Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). He’s the one constant in the film; he has a specific job to do, and does it, with precision and thoroughness, through the entire film. he’s portrayed as the heavy, but he is really a guy who just has a job to do, and does it extraordinarily well. He does some things that are extremely distasteful to normal people, but he has the will to do his job no matter what.
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I came to the thought that if I need to use the weapon, the person I am using it on is going to take my life.
I did watch No Country for Old Men and the haevy was relentless. But he made a descision early in the movie that he was after the money, so that seemed to delute it some. I liked how the film ended for that character. Seemed to support Karma.
Have a great day all.
Didn’t get to Brigid’s post yet, but I will.
Kim duToit had an essay on this some time back. I’m paraphrasing from memory, but in a nutshell he recommended preparing yourself in the same manner as the military trains warriors:
1) First, train with your weapon until it’s second nature. When the stuff hits the fan your weapon should be on target without you having thought about it.
2) Second, form a bond with your fellow warriors. The military does this thru shared experiences and hardships, but most of us should already have a firm bond with our families or those others we’d kill to protect.
3) Dehumanize the enemy. He’s not a person, he’s (in Kim’s words) a Goblin. This strikes me as easier in self-defense circles than warfare, in war the other guy may be a perfectly nice guy, the goblin, by his actions, has proven himself otherwise.
I’ve wrestled with this since I got married, and especially since I’ve been a father. Its my duty to protect them, with my life if that’s what it takes. I pray that I won’t fail that test, if it ever comes.
This, after an armed home invasion in my neighborhood last night. I live in Jersey, where only cops & criminals are permitted to posess firearms.
My only response to such can be preparedness and violence of action, however unlawful it may be. I’ve regretted the need to eliminate some destructive critters on the property, but I’ll not shed a tear for eliminating some cruft from society.
“I’ve regretted the need to eliminate some destructive critters on the property” yeah, the critters are there sans malice, and it’s upsetting. I hate to take the life of anything I’m not going to eat, unless it threatens myself, my family, or my home, and varmints of all types fall under that category, but I don’t always like it.
To help with the financial strain of dispatching a goblin.
Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network
http://www.armedcitizensnetwork.org/learn
Same thing with martial arts. I had an instructor who used to ask if I was willing to kill someone, maim them, blind them, or anything else if my life depended on it. Some people get queasy at the thought, and it could get them killed. As my instructor used to say, attitude is one of your most important weapons.
Yes, but am I ready for that cheesy meat fondue you make for deer camp?
Not just you- is deer camp ready for it?
There are some advantages in being a controlled sociopath, heh, heh, heh…
Several times over the years I’ve had someone ask me about getting a gun for self-defense, and I’ll ask three questions, the third of which is “Comes to it, can you look over the sights at another human being and pull the trigger?” Usually makes them stop and think, which is the idea.
H&H range here in town doesn’t allow bad-guy targets with faces except for LE, which I think is a mistake; might be better at not upsetting an Eloi, but it would be better training for self-defense. Several years back I read of a trainer for a LE agency who got a mannequin upper body, put on a mask that gave it a face, shirt and hat and had that pop up as a target; said that officers who’d shoot wonderfully at paper would often freeze when faced with a target that actually looked like a human.