You don't have to be Bonnie and Clyde, but your partner should be gun totin' too
So there you are – the chips are down, you’re faced with two or three bad guys, and you’ve no alternative but to resort to deadly force to save yourself (and any loved ones with you). Wouldn’t you be desperately keen to double your odds of not only surviving but also of winning the gun fight that is about to erupt?
Best of all, what would you say if I told you this strategy would cost you nothing? No extra training on your part, no extra skills or equipment. Sounds too good to be true? Not at all, read on.
Many of us are married or in some other way in a committed relationship with another adult (how’s that for political correctness!), and in an appreciable number of cases, our partners are less likely to be competently carrying a weapon with them than we are, ourselves. And therein lies the answer. If you can persuade your partner to competently carry, too; then when things go bad, you’ve got yourself a partner, and the bad guys suddenly find themselves not with easy prey but with two determined citizens, fighting back with effective appropriate deadly force.
Who better to answer your partner’s questions and worries such as ‘I don’t like/hate/am scared by guns’, ‘I could never accurately shoot a gun’, ‘I could never bring myself to kill another person’ and ‘I’m worried the gun would be taken from me and used against me’ than you. Most of all, point out that if they don’t/won’t use a gun in an hour of extreme need, not only are they voluntarily sacrificing their own life in favor of that of a low life, but they are also sacrificing your life, too. Can you say to them ‘Okay, so maybe you’re willing to let a bad guy rape and murder you, but please would you shoot at him to protect me and my life?’
And how about any children or other dependents – your partner is making a decision that can have negative (or positive) consequences for them, too. We all have people reliant on us and our continued well-being, and we have an obligation not only selfishly for our own sake, but for the sake of these other people too, to protect ourselves (and to protect them too if they’re with us when the brown stuff hits the fan).
I started off by saying that having your partner armed would double your odds of surviving/winning. But an effectively armed partner probably increases your chances by an even greater factor. Just like two tellers at the bank can more than halve the average wait time for people in line, so too can having an armed partner more than halve the risks you face.
Don’t get me wrong. You might still get shot at, and you might even still get hit. But that too displays a reason why two people are more than twice as good as one. If you are by yourself, and something goes wrong – maybe a gun malfunction, maybe you’re hit, maybe you run out of ammo, maybe you’re blindsided by another attacker while you’re too fixated on the first one, or something/anything else, then your chances of survival have just plummeted down to close to zero. There are no time-outs when the bad guys are trying to kill you. But if you’ve an active partner, they’re still in the fight. They can finish the fight, and then help you resolve your problem, whether it be as trivial as a failed gun, or as life threatening as a gunshot wound. Lastly, you’ve also got a witness who can confirm your side of the story when the police arrive.
You are willing to use lawful lethal force to defend you and your partner if it ever becomes necessary. Your partner should have a similar degree of commitment to you, to his/herself, and to the two of you (and any children you have).
Now remember this is all about having a competent partner at your side. Just giving them a gun isn’t enough. They need to get comfortable and familiar with it, and to develop the resolve and knowledge as to when they can and when they should not resort to it.
A great approach to getting them up to speed with firearms is to take them to a Front Sight Four Day Defensive Handgun course. Maybe add some incentive by scheduling a couple of days in Vegas at the end of your training time at Front Sight’s school in Pahrump. The gun skills and confidence they acquire and the associated lectures about tactics, strategy, and use of force will change their world view, and will give you an excellent partner at your side, should bad things ever happen to you.
This might save their life in the future, it might save your life, it might save someone else’s life. Either which way, it is one of the best things you can do for both of you. It also will help strengthen the everyday bond between you – ‘the family that shoots together, stays together’.