A young man asked me this question yesterday, and being in articulate in verbiage, I somewhat failed to answer it. The pondering of this question has led to this four part examination of the social box which is the framework of what I call The Reduction Engine, in other words, civilized domestication of the human being. The fellow who is aspiring to be well-rounded for survival in the life which looms more than half unfinished before him, was somewhat scandalized that a man would spend his life throwing over 100,000 punches and tens of thousands of strokes with primitive hand weapons in a world where apex violence is conducted with firearms. Below are the elements of my decision not to pursue firearm use as a survival strategy:
-1. As a boy and youth I was absolutely forbidden to own or use firearms. When we lived in a rural area, my parents compromised by permitting my brother and I to use bee bee guns and bows and arrows while the other boys used a wide array of firearms.
-2. As a young man living in a socialist city I found myself unable to use firearms in my defense or the defense of my property. Any use of a firearm in Maryland against a criminal attacker would have put me in prison. The very carrying of a firearm is forbidden to all but a tiny elite of Marylanders.
-3. The total lack of utility of using a firearm in my hometown for anything other than subterranean target practice reasoned against my taking on of the relatively great expense, of joining a shooting range, buying weapons and ammunition on my poverty-level earnings.
-4. As I matured and became able to afford limited firearms recreation, it occurred to me that my survival training would be best served by expanding it from empty hands to hand weapons, as I still resided in an anti-gun location.
-5. Besides, building on my hand fighting ability to fighting with hand weapons utilized that crucial adolescent training experience without which no man becomes a high-level expert in the application of force in dynamic situations. No man who begins training after 21 is able to beat a man of equal ability who began training at 11 years old in any sporting or survival context.
-6. If I were such an expert, a Carlos Hathcock or an Audie Murphy, what would using a firearm to defend myself on the streets of any major American city get me? It would get me a battle with a thousand-man strong police department which could not possibly be won, but would definitely cause great harm to the peace of mind of my family members.
-7. Less than 15% of violence not initiated by law officers involves firearms use by the aggressor. I have been content to prepare for the other 85+% of aggressors.
-8. Because it is not important for me to prevail against an attacker so much as it is important for me, in my mind, to die defending, I’d rather die with a knife in my hand, shot through with bullets, than be caged like a stray dog for defending myself successfully with a gun.
-9. As a fading mind and faltering body, accursed to wonder the post-apocalyptic landscape of the nation that owns me, knowing full well that the police and government are my hateful enemy thirsting for my demise, spending time with expert and well-armed gunmen, why would I not avail myself of the opportunity to finally learn enough to become minimally proficient with firearms?
-Because I live out of a backpack and carrying weapons and ammunition across state lines on mass transit would put a very soon end to my impoverished freedom.
-Because using firearms to defend myself against the government agents who will come to get me when censorship fails to silence me, will give my masters media-justified cause to liquidate the assets of my family members and imprison them and my friends for aiding and abetting whatever imaginary war of terror they and their news puppets will report I was engaged in after I am murdered.
-And finally, because I am mostly dead and will never own property to defend, and the total breakdown of postmodern sissy society which might necessitate my gaining firearms proficiency to help one of my hosts fight off bandits, will very likely occur after my quiet death. Even then, if I lingered to be able to aid a friend on his ranch against the Latin hordes sent after him by the elite, I’d be better off using a bow and arrows, as I put thousands of arrows down range as a boy, than trying to build on the probably 200 rounds I have sent down range from firearms, at an age advanced enough to preclude expert status at anything I’m not already good at.
In the end, this very rational and simple question, along with a drug use question 20 hours later, managed to pry open a rusty portal in the back of my damaged brain, which will hopefully permit me to rationalize my continued subsistence over the course of the following three articles.
Thank you, Artimus Smythe
The Mind of Mescaline Franklin
The Awakening of a Paleface Ethnocist
Although I've been a user of firearms since I was old enough to handle a BB gun, then a .22, and off from there, and although I typically carry a gun (legally most of the time, illegally where prohibited ....)
.... this is the best and most complete justification for NOT carrying a gun that I've ever seen, I applaud it, and I sometimes wish I had the cojones and the skills and the "attitude" to do it this way.
Don't change. We need men like you showing how it can be done.
Thanks, LaMano,
We also need men like you packing heat and able to use it effectively, otherwise knuckle-draggers like me would be facing bigger mobs. The mere suspicion that guns might come into play on the side of the defender cuts down on attacker group size among ferals.
I really wish I could wear my Bowie knife and also wish I had learned firearms as a youth, so I'm basically working from the base life allowed.
personaldefensenetwork.com/article/why-the-knife
mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/combatives-concepts
Thanks for the great links, PR.
Mountain Guerilla is awesome.
Good answer. Further to your urban "ambush" thesis, it would seem that often the assault has already begun before the victim realizes. There may be little or no opportunity to gain distance and draw.
Although counterfactual, the more assertive body language that prolonged training, strength and physical agility communicate to a would-be aggressor exercise may suffice as deterrent.
Excessive tool-dependence may also be betrayed by body-language.
I have noted this.
“Set your life toward righteousness and be mindful of your knightly exercises: rock throwing and rock pushing, dance and jump, fencing and wrestling, thrust and tourney, and the courting of beautiful ladies.”
-Hans Talhoffer, German Fencing Master, 1467
James brings up a good point: there are a great many sports, skills and physical activities that you must first learn how to do when you are young if you are ever to develop any real proficiency in adulthood. Unfortunately as children we are usually at the mercy of our parents and our school system when it comes to having the opportunity to learn such varied physical skills. For example, if your parents don’t think it’s important for you to learn how to swim, you probably won’t ever learn how to swim. If your parents don’t have the money to pay for lessons, you probably won’t learn a martial art. Young American white men don’t learn how to box anymore since boxing ceased to be a scholastic sport. Following the death of University of Wisconsin middle-weight boxer Charlie Mohr on 17 April, 1960 of a brain hemorrhage during an NCAA tournament, boxing was abolished as a college sport and college and high school boxing teams quickly vanished from the national scene. Consequently there are now few venues for white American boys in the smaller cities and rural areas to learn the art of boxing. Likewise once even high schools in New York City had rifle teams, venues in which urban youth could learn how to operate firearms, just as their rural counterparts were able to. Promoting civilian marksmanship training used to be considered important for national defense, which is why organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the U.S. Government Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) were created. Alas and alack, these days a great many people no longer think it is important for our young men to learn unarmed fighting and to develop skill at arms. It's up to each individual man to ensure his sons learn what they need to learn; you cannot rely on the 'village' to raise your children in any acceptable fashion. As far as James is concerned one could probably teach him to be a tolerably decent shot with any number of modern firearms even now. However, as James has stated, given his age and circumstances, seeking to develop great proficiency with firearms is probably not the most efficient use of his time, money and energies. Conversely a lot of gun guys could benefit from better developing their unarmed fighting skills and/ or learning how to employ alternative weapons, such as sticks and knives. After all, sometimes guns are not available, not legal in the jurisdiction you travelled to or not considered legally or morally appropriate to the type of confrontation you find yourself in at the moment. Close quarters combat, as we have found, is a multi-disciplinary activity.
Excellent points, Jeremy.
I was very glad that after my younger son gave up hand to hand training he accessed a firearms course.
I have had some instruction over the last few years from men who are readers at this site. My two favorite weapons are the pistol-grip shotgun and this 9mm tactical carbine that brought the hoodrat out in me as soon as I got it to hand. I have very shaky hands and when I held an arrow on target with my bow never hit. I only did well with a bow when I raised and released in one motion. So I don't expect to achieve any accuracy with long guns or pistols without a lot of time and expense. At 30 feet I can hit a human half the time with the shotgun and maybe 1 shot in 5 with the carbine. So I guess you'd jam me in the hallway as a speed bump for whatever crashed through the door. If I owned a house and property in what is left of America out here in the Rockies I would spend a lot of time shooting for home defense practice.
But that's not happening on 4k a year. And I imagine, if I did well financially with my writing, I'd probably end up on an Deep State hitlist if I was known to be a gunowner and homeowner.
They'd probably kidnap me, drug me and leave me on the parking lot of some suburban high school they shot up and place the smoking gun in my hand.
That is the ultimate reason why I am averse to firearms. How would I defend myself with a gun against the ATF, or against the U.S. Military Contractor Task Force assigned to collected firearms when the second amendment is repealed?
Let's look at two test cases from Brazil where off-duty cops fought back with guns.
youtube.com/watch?v=dyVUHsaufeU
In the first case, the possession of a gun caused the cop to shoot at the distant target rather than the guy near his woman. The guy was close-enough that he could've just pulled out a knife and applied a can-opener to the assailant. Instead, he went after the wrong target and his woman could've been taken hostage.
In the second case, the cop shot one assailant only to be shot in the back by the other, so the gun failed to save him. Notice that the woman with the children saw what was happening before the gunfight and left. It's kind of like how people in Old Western movies clear the bar when they know a gunfight is coming.
In another Active Response Training video, Greg Ellfritz reviews some Broward Cowards who shot an unarmed African skinny because they didn't know how to fight and the assailant just kept coming. A take-down or teep kick would've solved the problem much better than a gun.
Guns are definitely useful in the right context, but they require proficiency which is expensive and time-consuming to obtain. Guns are loud. They are expensive. What we need as a people is to cultivate a culture of self-defense and self-reliance so we're no longer dependent on the cops. We also need reforms in the office of District Attorney everywhere on this continent.
@ PR:
For what it's worth, Kelly McCann makes a good case for dropping the Fairbairn-style chin jab. More sensible, the variant presented here (04:08):
youtube.com/watch?v=20YJKKckLk8