Originally Posted by
Eric Schexnayder
Obviously the best thing to do is avoid confrontation altogether. Pick enough fights and you'll eventually end up in one where you lose.
But this is about self-defense. You can't passively respond to someone who is already being aggressive. Perhaps the probability of that occurring is fairly low in some places, but I can't think of any situation where I'd rather something awful happen to me or a family member just because I couldn't efficiently arm myself (i.e., carry a gun). That is to say that even if the rate of such crimes was 1/10,000,000 citizens, I still would not want that to be myself, my wife, or my kids.
Years ago when I did Karate, Sensei used to tell us that even a Black Belt is defenseless against a loaded gun pointed at your face, the point avoid confrontation rather than pursue it. Obviously there are cases where this is an advantage and training to disarm an attacker has probably helped someone do so in the past. But why rely on that when your odds of protecting yourself are higher with a more effective weapon?