We Don't Need Another Hero...

I'm with Robb:

It's a common theme amongst those in the gun community that those of us who carry also add an extra level of protection to others. Sorry, but that's not me. Come hell or high water, when everything goes tits up you're going to find me defending my own flock. If that entails me putting myself in harm's way and engaging the threat and that ends up benefiting your flock, well then, lucky you.

Damn straight.

I don't carry a gun so that people around me are safe. I carry a gun so that I, and the little people in my care, are safe. If there's a threat that directly impacts us, I will do my damnedest to neutralize that threat using my sidearm, pocketknife, bare hands, and/or teeth if necessary. But would I intervene to save a third party? That's a difficult question, and one that comes with a host of "what-ifs" and other theoreticals. What if I get sued? What if it's not what it seems?

What if I get killed playing hero and my kids grow up without a daddy? Is the knowledge that their daddy saved someone else (or worse, tried and failed) enough to comfort them every Christmas? Is it worth spending every Father's Day at the cemetary rather than in the backyard because that's where daddy is? Is it worth losing our family home in a lawsuit because daddy's shot paralyzed the poor misunderstood yoot bashing the store owner's head in with a Louisville slugger?

I'm selfish. I say no.

In the mall shooting scenario, my first and foremost thought is of my family's safety. If I'm alone, my only thought is getting the hell out. If the shooter materializes between me and the door; if there's even the slightest chance he'll harm me or mine; well, then it's on. I've got no formal training (something I hope to rectify in the coming year), but I'm a fair shot at conversational distances and I'm not one to fall apart under stress. I will do my level best to do unto him before he does unto me, or die trying.

The only way harm will come to my family in my presence is, quite literally, over my lifeless corpse.

Now, granted, I've never been shot at (been shot once, but that's a story for another time), so I honestly can't say I won't curl up in the fetal position and cry for mommy. I've been in hairy situations before, and gone immediately into fight mode rather than flight, so I have some reason to believe I could make a stand if provoked.

And I'm Italian. You mess with my family, you are a fucking dead man.

But if it ain't family, I just want to get the hell outta Dodge. Maybe that makes me a coward; maybe it makes me less of a man, but to be perfectly blunt, I don't give a hairy rat's ass. As long as my family's safe, the rest of the world can go to hell in a handbasket. That's not to say that I'd pass up a good shot, mind you. I just won't go looking for it...

That is all.