re: #204 Political Atheist

Put yourself in his spot. What would you want to have available given escape has failed, no police are apparent, and the attacker is forcing his way into your van with your wife & child?

A big dog.

What would you want, assuming you had the training to go with it whatever that might be?

That latter part is a gigantic addition. To be trained to the level where you could effectively use a gun in a wild, panicky situation would require a serious time commitment. Obviously, right when the biker gang is attacking you want to be a highly-trained pistol marksman, just like when the car breaks down in the desert you want to be a gimcrack mechanic, or when your kid breaks his leg you want to be a trained EMT.

But there’s not enough time in the day to acquire the training to face every emergency situation. So I’m not going to go out and get a gun and spend the hours a week training it’d be necessary to use it tactically on the extremely remote chance something similar happens to me. It’s not rational or reasonable, it’d be a panicky, totally irrational reaction. I’m also not going to get a big dog.

I also find it annoying that you always decide we need to cut arguments short. I have no idea why you do it.