Yesterday, during my weekly gun shop crawl, I was talking with my gunsmith Mike. He said something that's been running around in the back of my head. And it's gotten me thinking not so much about the decision to protect myself, but about it's aftermath.
He said:
"A concealed carry gun doesn't need sights. Because if you've got time to use your sights, you've got time to run away."
Which will cause no end to the arguments on both sides of that thought. But it wasn't that that's got me thinking so much. It was what he finished that thought with. He finished it this way:
"And the DA knows that."
That's the scary point. I live in Oklahoma and as friendly we are to guns in general and carrying and self-defense, the politics of the city I live in suck. I've got the only mayor in the entire state that belongs to Bloomberg's idiocy against guns. And the DA she hired is in lockstep with her. If there is any way for him to make a case against a self-defense shooting, he'll take it to a grand jury.
The fact is, a self-defense situation doesn't end after the cops show up. It's just starting. I'm NOT a lawyer or associated with law enforcement in any way. I'm a private citizen. I am not qualified to give advice about what to do in the aftermath. I will offer no advice other than to suggest that there are people who are much more qualified by virtue of training and education (hint, hint, Lawyers) to give you advice. If you don't talk to one before the situation arises, you better talk to one as soon after the situation as is humanly possible. And even that will be cast in a bad light by a cop or DA if he/she is so inclined.
5 comments:
Excellent point Jim, and one folks are well advised to remember.
Yes but I don't buy it that if you could use your sights you could run away. Unless they can prove you are an unpracticed, untrained shooter, using the sights takes one or two seconds. I'm sorry, but one or two seconds lead for me, a woman approaching midlife, against some 25 year old gangbanger is NOT going to hold up in court.
Does that mean they won't try to use it. NO!! Practice. Prove that sights or not, you are trained to defend with the weapon you carry, not run away to be shot or stabbed in the back as you are pursued by someone faster or younger, with no conscious.
Know your laws, and as they taught me in a state that required a CCW course in gun safety, legal dynamics of CCW, and range training to get the permit, have the name of a good attorney specializing in this sort of thing in case you need it.
I have asthma, I run for 5 seconds seconds and I can not breath without using the inahler. Now of course if I use the inhaler before hand then I am fine, but I am sure a criminal is not going to give me advance notice.
Apart from that, if I shoot my handgun for "sport" I need sights and it is only responsible to carry the same gun that I shoot on a regular basis.
Now onto defense, if I am defending my home and I am in my room, police on the way and the bad guy comes through that door I have no where else to go. Anticipating the bad guy coming into the room the gun was in the ready position and the sights would of course have been used.
Will the gun grabbers still try to string you up and flay you while letting the BG walk....absolutely. So I ditto Brigid on the good attorney.
I hope I never have to train my sights on an attacker, but I'm not a very good runner...
I knew I would get lambasted for this post.
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