Close Quarter Concepts of Revat and Firearms
You need to realize that firearms are just tools, and that with such powerful tools comes great responsibility. Powerful tools such as firearms, used without proper training and in the wrong way can become a threat to both the user and society. Legal issues, safety issues, control and effective deployment and use of such tools is critical to the existence of a safe, secure and functional society.
If specialized training and instructions at various levels such as beginner, intermediate and advanced would not be important and necessary then why do our elite protection agencies of society such as law enforcement groups and military forces engage so extensively in it? The prestige and reputation of various agencies is distinguished by the amount and type of training each has received. Special military forces such as army rangers and navy seals are held in higher regard than the average soldier because of their higher level of training. For the same reason the FBI and the Secret Service is held in higher regard and status than the average municipal police officer.
As a private citizen, it is our responsibility and duty to engage in regular training to understand the responsibilities of owning and handling firearms.
If you live in an urban environment and find yourself in a situation where you need to defend yourself against an attacker, many times it is not the best choice to use a firearm. First, you need to make sure that you can legally carry a weapon. Please keep in mind that you can shoot someone across a distance and you can get shot from a distance. I am not sure that allowing every civilian to carry a firearm will make the city a safer place. That is a different discussion for another time.
The next step is that you usually do not have the time to pull out a firearm when you are attacked. There is no time – remember the “2-Second-Rule”. However, all that is not the most important factor in this equation. The most important factor is your skill and ability to handle a firearm. Let us say you can legally carry a firearm and furthermore you somehow managed to pull the gun when you were attacked. You are pointing the gun at your attacker and you tell him “Freeze, Dirt bag!” …and he does not follow your command. What do you do now? Are you going to pull the trigger? There are two aspects I’d like to mention at this point.
The first aspect is your skill to handle the firearm and shoot the target. Can you hit the target in this high stress situation under the enormous pressure you will be feeling? Have you had extensive training where you were put in a high-pressure situation and all you could do was follow your instinct and kill the target? There is nobody else around you who will tell you what to do. You are on your own and fully responsible for your actions (just like any law enforcement officer). You screw this up and you may go to jail because you shot an innocent person. Maybe the attacker did not have a weapon and you shot him anyway because you lost control over your emotions and the situation. Maybe the attacker had a weapon and you pulled the trigger. But your training is almost none existing so you missed the target and killed a bystander, maybe even a child. This is not self-defense anymore; you just killed someone! How are you going to explain this to the victim’s family and parents, and your family and maybe even your children? Is this the role model you want your children to look up to? And to put things more in prospective – once you pull the trigger you can be certain that the attacker will start shooting as well. If he knows how to shoot he will kill you. If he is as bad a shooter as you are than both of you will probably be shooting at innocent people around you. Both of you will kill innocent people and both of you completely screwed up. Think about that for a moment..."
