Monday, March 28, 2011

On Self Defense...

...there's a video circulating throughout the gun blogs in which a guy gives what is, 99% of the time for 99% of gun owners, hilariously bad advice.  Trollishly bad advice, even.

There are some situations in which the advice is merely -bad- advice, however, rather than being hilariously so; at the root, even if the specifics (dumping a body next to a highway?) are suspiciously bad advice, the general case can be justifiable in a limited set of scenarios.  For example, there are places which do not respect the right to self defense, and leaving yourself dependent on the common sense of government authorities is more legal suicide than doing something illegal; if I lived in Britain and was forced into a self-defense scenario, the authorities would never know anything had happened if I had any means to that end.

Similarly if I was forced to defend myself against a police officer.  Let's not pretend police officers are dispassionate about this sort of thing, or above forging evidence to put away somebody they think deserves it if they feel strongly enough about it, which they're going to, and who can blame them.  (Not to mention that the law frequently doesn't even recognize self defense against the police.)

It is foolish to assume the law to be either dispassionate or rational; I believe every situation should be fully evaluated, and I cannot agree with my fellow gun bloggers that a blind adherence to the law is in your best interests.  Most of the time, yes, and if you cannot tell the difference, you should certainly follow the law - but it bears saying that there is occasion to reject it.

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