From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sun Sep 24 2000 - 20:23:23 MDT
Ron H. writes:
> As a young man I worked my way through engineering partially by carry a
> .38 and investigating burgular alarms that were sounding off.
Sounds like dangerous work!
> There is
> something I sense you are overlooking.
> There are many criminals that will attempt to take your weapon if they do
> not believe you will use it. The weapon is worth a fair amount of money on
> the street and the macho value of having taken it from you is also rather
> high.
Did you have to worry about this, and would it have made you hesitant
to show your gun? (Did you ever actually run into a bad situation?)
> There are also criminals that will attack you if you if you pull a gun
> because they simply do not believe you will shoot them. For that reason I
> also carried a nightstick because those same idiots always seemed to believe
> I would brain them. In my view carrying the stick was a small price to pay
> if it bought me peace while I was doing my job.
I'm confused; did you carry the nightstick in addition to the .38?
Did you brandish both, or did you decide depending on the situation
whether to use the gun or the stick?
It's interesting that the bad guys would find it more believable that you
would use the stick and in some ways be more intimidated by that weapon.
It makes sense though, because the gun is a much more binary weapon
(life or death) and doesn't allow for the degree of control that a stick
or club would.
> In summary what I am saying is that if you decide to carry a gun, as you
> have a right to do, then think it all through ahead of time; otherwise you
> could either get badly hurt or be pushed into doing something you would be
> unwilling to do after reflection.
Certainly sounds like good advice.
Hal
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