[ssssmashing]

You mean fools like the USMC?

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...
My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life...
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

If you don't like "gun talk" a weapons forum may not be your best hangout.

[hilbilygangsta]

Originally Posted by IMAF#1

True, runing away should always be the first option. But I'd always keep a knife or a stick in my house. I'm not a fan of guns.

Except guns are a way better form of self defense.

[XTrainer]

Originally Posted by ssssmashing

You mean fools like the USMC?

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...
My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life...
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

If you don't like "gun talk" a weapons forum may not be your best hangout.

If the OP didn't feel like a tool before, I think it's safe to say he does now

[peregrine]

Know Guns, Know Peace, NO Guns, No Peace.

[Vector_X]

there are some things you can't outrun. If you want home defense go buy yourself a mossberg 500. It's a simple to use 12 gauge that will scare the shit out of any sane robber breaking into your house. As far as a weapon goes I carry a HK p2000sk in .357sig and I have faith that it won't fail when it matters most.

[Sugar J]

No, XTrainer, no, I feel that DrSatanDracula is the only one who gets it.

[Chris B]

I am too lazy to retype a response to this thread so I will copy and paste one from the what weapon would you carry thread. It applies equally as well here. I think anyone is a fool who relies solely on weaponless combat or weapon based training "exclusively" with indifference to the other.

I agree that the best defense is to not put yourself in the situation, but it is a bit naive to ignore the fact that someone could be forced into a situation without looking for trouble as previously mentioned without the ability to escape (ie. blocked exits, small children with you that could not run, etc.). An example from my own life is that I use to have to pick up some of the Boy Scouts that were members of my church's scout troop. They lived in a relatively run down area of Houston, Texas that was predominately African American while I am as white as white can be. He lived in a gated apartment complex but in an apartment that required my leaving my vehicle to get him (11 years old). On more than one occassion, multiple males in their early to mid twenties would circle my car or me once I was out and say things like, this white boy looks lost or what is this white boy doing up in our hood (I kid you not). I felt like I was in a bad 80's movie. Everytime, I had hand on weapon, thumbsnap already broken while I was moving to cover as I talked to them and tried my best to talk the situation down. Thankfully, they never got stupid.

Research has shown that someone can close 21 feet with a knife and stab before you can unholster a firearm and fire a shot. That research shouldn't say that carrying a firearm is useless, rather it should stress the importance of the hand to hand and control technique training as well. I am former federal law enforcement and heard these types of discussions often. "I could control you before you could get a weapon.....No you couldn't.....yes I could" Pointless to argue, they both are wrong. A person training in weapons based combat would be a fool to ignore weaponless training and a person training with a handgun would be equally as foolish to ignore training without a weapon. They both have there time and place. At MINIMUM, a person carrying a weapon for defense should know how to control an opponent long enough to displace and transition to an intermediate weapon or firearm. The two elements giving a person an advantage with a gun is TIME and DISTANCE. If you take away those two elements, the advantage switches to the one with "hand to hand" training.

People thinking that carrying a weapon is somehow psychotic are extremely naive. Think about being in a restaurant with a family and a gunmen comes in and starts shooting or in a mall in a position where the exit is blocked and your family is with you. This happens in the US all the time (Texas Luby's, School Shootings, Recent Mall - can't recall where, Etc.). My first priority would be to (1) Move to cover and protect my family while working to the nearest exit, (2) make a good witness of the person shooting to pass along to law enforcement on scene during this process at minimum (3) After family is safe behind cover, draw weapon and return fire if safe to people around. There are plently of examples of people carrying weapons that have stopped a massacre by gunmen. (Side note, funniest is two old men that were WW2 veterans stopping two gunmen in a restaurant in Florida because they were armed). Anyways, without getting into a rant, weapon carry does have its benefits under the RIGHT circumstances.

Primarily, I agree that one should rely on their avoidance of the situation, situational awareness, fleeing when the option is present and noone else is in danger, hand to hand technique when forced into the situation without a weapon present in a close encounter and weapons when your life is in mortal danger. For LEO's here, I use the same threat response model as I did when I was law enforcement for my personal protection. I think it is applicable to trained civilians as well. If you are training for a defensive application of martial arts, you have to train in both methods. I would much rather have the skills and never use them, than need them and not have them. It would only take you losing a child, spouse, sister, brother, etc. once for you to have wished you could have prevented it. Not a proposition I am willing to accept.

[AmericaOverAll]

You cant run forever. Some things are worth fighting for.

[Dog Soldier]

The Tueller Drill is what is the scenario referred to when there's a discussion of a knife vs. gun encounter. The purpose of the drill is to demonstrate to gun carriers that they should be more aware and not hesitate to shoot when confronted by a knife wielder.

Face it, if knife work was all that certain then cap and ball revolvers would have never replaced bowie knives and tomahawks way back when.

[CDCdirector]

Not sure if this is what OP meant but... the way I interpreted the quote was to mean that you shouldn't rely on your gun to keep you absolutely safe. You aren't going to be able to outshoot everyone, sometimes the gun won't be there for whatever damn reason, so be prepared to use other means. Every reasonable soldier can tell you that retreat is always an option, especially when you lose nothing by giving ground. Don't be an idiot and walk into bad situations because you have a gun. Most of these things are common sense but you never know with people...