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 Of course not, but my experience is that posture and radiating self confidence counts for more than size. New
- Forum: LiquidLounge
Re:  Who here chooses not to own a fire arm? Will_Carry New
Re:  Me, just don't see the need nor the risks involved. Wilko New
Re: being 6' 6 probably doesn`t hurt kindyakker New
Date: Oct 11 2008, 19:44 GMT
From: Wilko
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I have spent most of my childhood and teenage years fighting hard, usually having to take on guys much bigger and stronger. Besides having had training (both civilian and in the army as well), that experience has taught me how to defend myself effectively on an almost instinctive level. Being the target for so long, I am very aware of someone potentially posing a threat to me, and have a fine tuned sense of what causes escalation and what can take the sting out of a potentially threatening situation, even if the opposite side does intend for things to escalate. That has been of tremendous help during my work in the crisis centre, where you get psychiatric patients, drug addicts, suicidal people, people who are about to be deported etc. all of whom can react in very violent ways that can seem unexpected for most people. Only once has someone really attacked me in the crisis centre, and he truly believed that I was the devil who was about to do something unspeakable to him...
On top of that, I have been threatened by someone with a gun more than once, and every time they backed down, once only after looking me in the eyes. I have also have used a gun and shot someone who was already shooting at me. It's not about being worried about how I would deal with a gun in those situations, but that I don't see the need to deal with it in that way in my normal life.
I'm fully aware of the advantage a firearm can give someone in a certain kind of situation, and that has given me quite a bit of thought over the years about getting one. Besides the fact that carrying and especially concealed carrying is not going to happen in this country, I don't believe that I want to be that alert enough all the time to be able to get and use a fire-arm effectively. It just won't happen because I chose not to be that tense or afraid all the time. That doesn't mean that I won't think about carrying a gun if I would enter bear or tiger infested forest, or buy a rifle if I would move to norther Canada or Alaska, but I do not feel that way in normal life. I am aware of certain human predators, but they don't scare me enough to feel threatened by them. That lack of fear in itself already is something that has made several people think twice about wanting to get into a fight with me (despite them being armed and me unarmed), and I prefer that effect over the effect of having to show someone that I'm carrying and not afraid to use it. That might be different if I lived in Caracas, New Orleans or some of the slums in Rio, but I'm living here, in relatively safe Eindhoven.
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