Avoiding the Fight
Rob PincusDescription
Avoiding a fight is part of your responsibility as a gun owner. Personal defense is not about your gun or looking for a fight—it’s about being prepared to respond in a planned and efficient way. As gun owners, if we can choose to avoid the need to defend ourselves, we should do it. In this video, Rob Pincus discusses why avoiding harmful or fatal encounters is the responsibility of a gun owner. He covers techniques including de-escalation, alternative tactics, and simply removing yourself and others from the area to find safety. This video presentation was recorded at the 144th NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 11th, 2015.
If you knew That something bad and horrible was going to happen where you were pressed into the need to defend yourself or others, you'd probably avoid it. Right. Does anybody not agree with that statement fundamentally? Okay, good. That includes inside of our home that extends to outside of our home and includes inside of our workplace.
If we can choose to avoid the need to defend ourselves, and that could be through de-escalation it could be through other tactics other means or it could just simply mean avoiding the fight whenever we can. And I think that is also part of the responsibility portion of owning a firearm and taking the personal defense seriously is that it's not all about the gun and it's not about looking for a fight. It's about worst case scenario in ambush being prepared to respond in a planned and efficient way. If you absolutely need to. We're gonna talk a lot about should versus could.
What should you do versus what does the law say? where are the parameters of when I can use defense and how I can use defense? We have to be very educated about the law but we also ultimately have to make a very specific decision in that moment about what we're going to do. So put this phrase in the background of everything we're gonna talk about and always remember that when we're planning to defend ourselves and our family inside our home We're not planning on a fight. We're not looking for a fight.
It's not combat, we aren't putting on a uniform and going to combat with that person that might be encroaching upon our space in our home and emotionally threatening our stuff or offending us. This is defending ourselves when we truly need to. To put that in the background and it'll help put these concepts in into a context that makes sense. Sometimes when we start talking about defense we all of a sudden flip into a mode where we become maybe more aggressive maybe more assertive than we need to be. This is defense.
And ultimately defense is counter ambush because if you knew it was gonna happen, you'd avoid it. You didn't know what was going to happen. It was surprising. And that's why you're having to deal with it. And having a plan that makes sense is the best way to deal with it efficiently.
Some of you miss the point. I am former law enforcement and carry concealed regularly. In my opinion when you take up arms under the 2nd Amendment you should choose to give up part of the 1st Amendment. You should not instigate any argument and should deescalate or leave before something becomes violent. If you are involved in a verbal altercation leave. If that hurts your feels you should not carry a firearm. Gun owners hoping to use their usually poor outcomes. Also, when someone illegally enters your residence, you may have the legal right to shoot them, however, what if it is your drunk neighbor who opened your unlocked door thinking it was his home or the man with dementia who lived in your hose years ago and is lost? Can you shoot them? Maybe. Maybe not. How would you feel if you did? Would your actions stand up in court with a jury of you peers (who may be anti gun)? There is no black and white in owning or carrying a weapon and there is a lot of grey. Just like the first class of any martial arts, with ability comes responsibility! My advice to all gun owners: Train often, always have an escape route, learn that it takes a big man too back down, and be a good human. If you do all of that you will never have an issue.
If someone comes into my home uninvited, I have the right in my state to assume they are there to harm me or my family. If I am able to retreat to or I am in my bedroom and they approach my or my family I will stop the threat with lethal force if I have the means. I agree that we should try to avoid or deescalate if possible but we also have very little time to react and we may have to make the decision to stop the threat in a matter of seconds.
Example your daughter owns AR-15 she scarfed with her mowing job two years ago. Sarah the Bully has decreed your daughter and her prom date will be savagely attacked if they show up at Senior Prom. Your daughter treats her date to a movie, a pet store visit, and followed by takeout and video games at your home instead. Result: conflict avoided, fun achieved. See/\? not so hard , is it?